October Library Show

Queen Anne's Lace and Evening Clouds, 14"x18" oil on linen, copyright 2012 Hannah C. Heyer

I've been kind of quiet lately, with lots of unfinished projects in the works. Hopefully some of them are close to completion!

 In October I took over the local library, with 29 original oil paintings and 10 illustration prints. Between planning, framing, and hanging, there were sure times I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew! But it all came together, and the library crew was fantastic.

Illustrations and paintings at the library!

Illustrations displayed above the shelves of picture books.

"Song of Grace" and "Third Position", two portraits done in oil.

Detroit plein air paintings on display.

"Uncle William's Farm", and the little plein air piece on which it was based.
14"x18", and 7"x5" oil on linen.

The weather has turned colder, and we had snow yesterday. Not the staying sort, but that may be just around the corner. Stay warm!

Hallmark here I come!

...or maybe not.

Birthday card for a good friend:

What do you get a resourceful, intelligent, competent woman for her birthday?

Telescoping flatware of course!

Happy Birthday!

Binksie and Bep - It's Here!

Binksie and Bep is finally here!
 It's now available on my Etsy shop: Here!


Written and illustrated by (yours truly) Hannah C. Heyer
8" x 10" (20.32 x 25.4 cm), soft cover, 34 pages, with 27 full color illustrations.


Yay! :-D

Ode to Paperwork

What's this, that causes, without fail,
My blood pressure to rise?
Nauseates, keeps me from sleep,
Confuses, angers, terrifies?

Its neat, type-written pages,
So innocent appear,
It will only take a minute, right?
Where is the cause for fear?

But oh! The ambiguity!
I think I'm going to cry!
The intelligence I thought I had,
Has left me high and dry!

My name (my name!) I've written wrong,
Oh why can I not think?
If only it were pencil,
And not this bold black ink!

Lines one through seven went alright,
Without too much frustration.
Line eight's a doozy and bids me search,
For some long-numbered publication.

Now for a lengthy guessing game,
Of "Does this apply to me?"
Put YES or NO or leave it blank,
And pretend I didn't see.


Line seven hundred forty-A,
In perfect legalese,
Asks the state of my finances,
And if my cat has fleas.

Attach the proper documents,
To prove I'm really me,
Paperclip -"no staples please"-
To page one hundred twenty-three.

Buried here in paperwork,
I still can't understand,
I now have just one question more:

Can someone hold my hand?


Ode to Paperwork, 9 x 12 Ink and Watercolor
Copyright 2011 Hannah C. Heyer

I wonder if...

"I wonder if......there are any fairies..."

There are now, Cinta!
Love,
Auntie Hannah

9x12 ink and watercolour, copyright 2011 Hannah C. Heyer

Slackers.

We were meant to be mulching the garden,
but it was hot.
Mom was away.
We had a bag of chocolate-covered doughnuts.


We trampled out a spot in the middle of a patch of tall yellow flowers, and poured ourselves some milk.
We knew how to party.

Self Portrait

Ink and watercolour on Arches hot press watercolour paper

Yep, I really am that organized.

Woof.

Got my second proof for Binksie and Bep in the mail today!
The first proof I received didn't have any words in it-- apparently a glitch with the program I was using to make my PDF-- and instead had strange dots. The color was also a problem, with my clunky and ignorant attempts at converting my RGB images into CMYK for printing, and one of my illustrations.... well, it just wasn't working out.
So! Back to the drawing board.

I used a different program (Scribus is my new best friend!) and this proof looked so much better!
...until about half-way through the story. That's when things got interesting and bilingual. Somehow someone else's book was inserted-- backwards no less-- right in the middle of my own. The adventures of Binksie and Bep were interrupted by a story of a dog, told in English and Italian. I now know what attenti al cane means! :-P

It was funny, and as I need to make a few minor changes anyway, no great loss. :-)

Book Progress

My eyes are red from staring at a computer screen for too long! :-P But I think, I hope, I'm nearing the end. I'm still working on the editing and formatting of my book, including the cover.
While it would have been nice to be done sooner, the longer I'm taking with this, the better it's getting. Little extras have been added, fonts tweaked, scans improved, and ideas developed. I've still got a mountain of work to do, but real progress has been made, and that feels so good.
This is what the title page looks like at the moment:

Grand Plans in Spring

We shall build a fort
of sticks and twine and nails.

We'll live on gooseberries
and applesauce sandwiches,
and drink from a brook
(once we've discovered one!)

Our bare feet will grow tough as leather
and we will scoff at wearing shoes!
One of us may spend a summer with a thorn in her foot as a result...

Copyright 2011 Hannah C. Heyer
Girl with a Hammer, 9x12" Ink and Watercolour

Just for fun...

I drew this out last night, and painted it today.
What can I say? Sometimes it's fun to interpret on paper the jolly times children have in play. We may only see a clothes basket and some string, but really it's an adventure on the high seas!

At Sea, 9 x 12", Ink and Watercolour

"The flour was sort-of measured...

...an egg (or three) thrown in..."

I've been working on the boring and tedious aspects of my little book: formatting in preparation for printing. This is all new territory for me, and it gets a little overwhelming at times. I'm not a big fan of computer work!
However, there are delicious smells coming from the kitchen, and I've heard rumors of a cream-pie contest. It's going to be a very white Christmas; the snow has been falling all day, and my dad is out on his tractor clearing the driveway. And I'm looking forward to seeing most of my family this weekend!

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Little Dinosaur

Finished up a little ink and watercolour illustration I started during my visit with my sister's family earlier this year.
My niece loves dinosaurs.
She also likes to blow bubbles in milk when her mum's not looking.

More Illustrating Progress

Bep's turn to get some color...
And some glasses too!


:-)

Let the Coloring Begin!

Yesterday I began the process of painting in the illustrations for my book. Trying to be organized, and avoid silly mistakes and inconsistencies, I spread all of the drawings out and picked one thing at a time to paint.Binksie gets to be painted first. This gives a pretty good idea of how it will look, though more color and detail will be added as the painting progresses.

Now if I can just stay in the lines...

Binksie & Bep

Today I worked on illustrating.
I'm publishing a children's book, which will hopefully be coming out sometime early next year, and tonight I completed sketching the last of the 21 illustrations in ink.
They still have to be painted, but it's great to be able to get a tangible idea of what my book will look like once it's completed.
I'm so excited about this project! It's been so much fun, but a lot of work too. I've decided to go the self-publishing route, which for me translates to lots of control (yay!) but also doing virtually all the work myself (yikes!).
I've learned a lot over the past year, through the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and other resources, about publishing and all that goes along with it. Lately I've been learning more about formatting, layout, ISBN, distribution, and all that fun stuff.
There's still a lot more to learn and do, but I've been so blessed by my family and others who have critiqued, advised, and put up with my rambling, "out loud" thinking as I pursue this adventure.

Stick around and you'll no doubt get an ear-full about this book!
For now here's one of the ink illustrations.

Tale of the Koala Princess, part two

The copies I ordered of The Tale of the Koala Princess came today!

I ended up using Lulu.com, since I was in a hurry and had heard pretty good things about that company.

I was a bit disappointed that the only format I found that had few enough pages for this little story was their photo book, but there were a lot of page layout options and over all it worked out well.

The printing looks good, and I really like how clear the pictures are.
The cover looks good too, but the illustrations inside all have a slight pinkish hue to them, which I'm not crazy about.

But my little niece LOVES pink, so I don't think she'll complain. ;-)
I can't wait till she gets it!

Tale of the Koala Princess, part one

Yesterday I began the illustrations for what will hopefully become a charming bit of a book for my niece for her 4th birthday.
The story is a funny little improvised tale told to her one day by her mother. I loved it, and my niece's reaction to it, and have been wanting to illustrate it since.
There are ten illustrations in all. Right now they're just in the ink stage, but I plan to complete them with watercolour soon.