Resolutions Ideas Hopes

Good morning it is January 1, 2011 :-) I remember as a kid watching TV about the future and I'm pretty sure by 2011 we were supposed to be driving our very own spaceships. I had my heart set on something purple and shiny and very zippy. The last time I looked, there was still no spaceship in my driveway. Anyways, today is the day to make our resolutions. Mine never changes much from year to year... kind of like there is still no spaceship in my driveway... I will continue to work on being healthy, going to the gym, trying my best not to eat the whole box of chocolates in one setting, being kinder to myself, resisting the urge to punch morons in the face, continuing to do my art's and my business which even though it does not keep me all that busy I still love it :-) today though is about making improvements, so I'm going to give this blog thing an attempt. I do write my thoughts from time to time but it is my resolution for the year to do better at it. So I'm going to ramble about my ideas and with any luck they won't come and lock me up.

One idea I has... scan my shower curtain to make a color palette and paint miniature pictures to put on tiles for my bathroom. This way everything is all nice and color coordinated :-)

A few years ago a friend of mine asked me about doing illustrations for a children's book she had written. She had all her pages sketched out in colored pencil and wanted me to bring them to life. She said it was her legacy. I thought the project sounded like fun but children's books were never my interest but graphic work was. However children's art was my daughter's interest so I hired my daughter to help me with the illustration work. At that time my daughter lived in Virginia Beach and was going to college for a degree in graphics and multimedia, while I was still here in Montana. She was to create all of the characters in this story as laid out according to the colored pencil sketches. I created all of the other background scenery and one character for the story. Well, a few problems we had other then mother daughter nitpicking with different visual ideas of course but we also had different program's. My daughter would work on her characters and then have to convert the file to something compatible with my program. E-mail me the file. I would open the file and convert it to the program I was using and insert her characters into my scenery background's. It was a lot of guess and by golly, a lot of cussing and arguing, but the three of us managed to coordinate this story and then I put it together as a photo book because my friend who wrote this story had not found a publisher for it. Even as a photo book it was a bright and colorful children's book geared for preschoolers. I gave my copy to my nephew as a gift...... over the years, which has been about six, every time I see my friend she keeps promising me she is going to do something with this book. Her husband is a writer so knows a little bit about how to publish. I don't have a clue about that sort of thing. Anyways, today, January 1, 2011, I get an e-mail from her husband out of the blue. He says, he thinks the art in this book is tremendous and he has been hooked up with a large public relations firm associated with PBS. This could be a step in the right direction for my friend and to finally publish her book. How cool is that! What a way to start the year :-)

I think this is the enough blogging for one day. Happy new year to everyone!..... Susan :-)

ps..the image is page 16 from A Surprise in the Meadow by Nickie Fee, Susan Kinney & Gina Kinney