A few nice things

Hey, how's your day going? Good I hope. Here's what my life looks like at the moment...

 A basket of kittehs.

 A drawing of leaves

 The Curvy Closet Sewing Club is back up and running. I finally had some time yesterday to do some sewing. Here's Vogue V1197, a cowl neck tunic. It was pretty simple to put together. The pattern had long shirred raglan sleeves but they were too fiddly for me so I cut them off at the elbow.  I also cut a kimono jacket out last night out of scrapes of fabric. 

 "Old Lonesome" out by the pond. 

The fish seem happy enough. 

Hugs and kisses to you!

Marilyn.

---

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things

makes home happy and life lovely.” 

~ Louisa May Alcott 

 

Fairy Queen!

Hey Friends!

Things here have been a maelstrom of creative activity. After weeks of work, my writing partner, J.H. Everett and I finally got the entire first draft of Haunted Histories out the door to the publisher. Today's the first day in the longest time that isn't completely chock-o-block with meetings and deadlines. I spoke at a Children's Lit conference at Whittier college last Saturday and went to the LA Festival of Books on Sunday. All the grown up rushing about has left me tired and mushy. What I really want is one free day to make some or the paper toys that I have bobbing around in my brain. But no more grumbling. I really love what I do.

Here is another lovely addition to my collection of pictures from Andy Mitchell's Draw Fifty Magical Creatures.

The Fairy Queen by my awesome friend, Marilyn Goldberg. The first sketch is straight from the book and the second is Marilyn's imaginative take on it. Fun stuff!

I love the spunky expression that she has, don't you?

Come fairies,
take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you
upon the wind and dance
upon the mountains like a flame!

W.B. Yeats.

Click here to buy Andy’s Book, Draw 50 Magical Creatures =

http://tinyurl.com/yabn8xm

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Draw Fifty Magical Creatures! - The Yeti

 

My friend Andy Mitchell's new book is called "Draw Fifty Magical Creatures"

http://studiofiveart.org/andy-mitchell/

It's a wonderful book with all kinds of fantastic things to draw like dragons, fairies and brownies. So at the last OC Illustrator's meeting we tore the book apart, that is to say, we all took a page and are drawing one of the creatures in the book. Our challenge is to draw the creature the way it is shown in the book and then do a second version using our imagination.

The first creature is drawn by the very talented Jennifer Olson. Check out her blog and website for more delights!

http://jennifergrayolson.blogspot.com/

http://www.childrensillustrators.com/jennifergrayolson

Observe Everything. 
Communicate Well. 
Draw, Draw, Draw.

~ Frank Thomas, Disney Animator, When asked to give advice to young animators