I’m working towards a big goal to write and illustrate a children’s book (aka BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goal in business jargon). I’m preparing character sheets, book dummies, and pitches for two children’s book industry conferences that are coming up, and that’s my excuse for missing a post last week. Plus, it’s summer.
Somehow I decided that I needed to teach myself two different digital art apps (Procreate and Photoshop), which turns out to be BHAGs all by themselves. I’m pretty sure you aren’t interested in links to the bazillion Youtube tutorials for Photoshop I’ve been watching, so let’s see what I explored these last two weeks that might be of actual interest to you:
An interactive children’s literature museum is being built in Kansas City, called The Rabbit Hole. I may actually be convinced to go visit a midwestern state because of it. One related museum that is already open to visitors is the Carle Museum, named after the famous collage illustrator Eric Carle of The Very Hungry Catepillar fame. I’ve been in Western Massachusetts before, but missed knowing about that one in time to visit.
Here’s a collection of historical photos of NYC’s Chinatown from the early 1900s and an interactive virtual walking tour from the NY Times with “then and now” photos of Chinatown.
Also check out Heart of Dinner, a nonprofit effort to feed Asian elderly in NYC with culturally-appropriate food packages delivered weekly in hand-illustrated bags with handwritten, in-language notes attached.
Our family’s favorite cookbook this past year has been Mooncakes and Milkbread, and we’ve been veganizing the recipes. Here are some red bean buns we made over the holidays (there aren’t many because we ate them as fast as we made them):
Lastly, here’s a repeat pattern I learned to make in Procreate using a tutorial by Bardot Brush:
It’s an initial draft of end papers for the book project. End papers are the designed papers that sit inside between the book cover and the book. Now back to those character sheets and book dummy…
LOVE that chicken pic!