the birthday

I have been very busy lately, with traveling to Dublin, getting over a cold, changing flat bike tires, and making books! This book business has been a successful project and I am almost finished with it. My good friend, Miss Jill Tomasetti, has written a story for me and I have illustrated it using my newly aquired printmaking skills. This is the first story that I have illustrated from beginning to end and I chose to make them etchings, which is a techinque that suits my style really well. The line quality is amazing! 

The story is called The Birthday and is about a girl who goes to the park on her birthday. It is a unique and simple story that I made seven illustrations for.

"What do you think, Isis?" she said to the small bird under her bed.

The plan: I decided to make eight books, four of which will be the original prints on printmaking paper and four inkjet copies on high quality paper. So far I have made two of each, and hope to construct the rest this weekend. 

"Her feet soon led her to the park, where a friendly little dog noticed her crown and wished her many happy returns of the day."

This past weekend was the second Liverpool Artists' Book Fair, where I shared a table with my friend Jo Moore. I showed my books there and get very good feedback from the visitors and other book artists. I also made cards with my illustrations on them and brought the bookmarks that I made last year, both of which sold well and it was encouraging. The weekend was fun and I was inspired, so I plan to get involved with the book arts fair in Manchester this fall. 

Go books!

 I promise to post photos of the books as soon as I get my hands on a digital camera. They really must be seen to be understood, words just won't do. Jill's story is wonderful and I'm going to send much simpler versions of the book to children's book publishers. Why not?