Kids Book Review writing competition

Hooray, I just got a special mention in the Kids Book Review picture book writing competition (along with a lot of other people, I admit, but I'm still delighted).  I sent in a manuscript that I wrote a few weeks ago, called The Forgotten Playground.  I haven't done any art work for the manuscript yet, but it's a dreamy story and I imagine it with illustrations rather like this painting, which I did years ago using glazes of acrylic on canvas.
Kids Book Review is a fabulous website, worth checking out if you want to know the latest in children's publishing.

Market stall tomorrow

I'll be at Salamanca market Hobart tomorrow, Sat 26th, with Christmas specials on glass jewellery. I have a new-look stall with a blue gazebo, halfway up the hill to Davey St on the building side. See you there!

Manatee

Oh dear, they've struck again - those kids with poor listening skills and a penchant for animals.  Last time they were driving their tennis coach nuts (link), now it's their mother.  I don't know how they caught the manatee - maybe with a jam jar and a bent pin.  Mum is taking it calmly.  She is used to those kids and already has a tank full of animals in the backyard. 
Did anyone grow up with American author/illustrator Elizabeth Enright's books about the Melendy family, written in the 1940's and 50's?  The Melendys were a lively lot who kept an alligator in their bathtub.  Those book were the most-read and tattered in my collection.  I think children would still like them.

SHIELD BUG LOVE FEST

Do you like my headline?  I stole the formula from the Hobart Mercury.  What you do is, select four monosyllabic nouns, and arrange them to suggest something torrid.  Extra points are awarded if you use a noun that is also a verb.  For example: YACHT MAN KILL PROBE.  This means there will be a murder (kill) investigation (probe) into the mysterious death of a man on a yacht.  Try it!  With practice, almost anything in life can be reduced to this simple formula.  Octopus stole your washing?  EIGHT ARM HOIST HEIST.  Koala in your wardrobe?  FUR BALL VAULT SHOCK.  A wardrobe isn't really a vault, but you don't have to be accurate.  You could also call it a TRUNK, SAFE, BIN or LOFT.  Post your own here, or send me a story and I'll convert it.

All this is just a preliminary to my complaint that shield bugs are using our broad beans as mattresses for their summer loving.  Take a look:

There is some art in this post.  I found the bugs while running round the garden with photo-sensitive paper to make sun prints.  These are a few selected prints, which I can now turn into pendants or cards.

I also tried some common objects.  I like the tintacks, which came out looking rather Japanese.  Check out the see-through effect from the transparent plastic objects.

Thylacine Xylophone

Has this young girl really got a pet thylacine ... or is it just her imagination? 
These strange marsupials probably went extinct in the wilds of Tasmania in the 1960's (the last captive thylacine died in 1936), but they still haunt our collective Tasmanian memory.  Hence the recent picture book 'Dream of the Thylacine' by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, and the new film 'The Hunter' starring Willem daFoe.  This image is a rare light hearted look at the thylacine, and also a rare foray into Photoshop for me.  I don't really have the skills yet, but wanted to try using a flat colour design to hint that perhaps the thylacine isn't fully there.

I told my friend, glass artist Merinda Young of Tudor Rose Glass Works that I was doing a drawing of a thylacine xylophone.  Minutes later, she sent me this lovely verse that she composed 'while cleaning putty from windows':
This is the xylophone
about which it's rarely known,
that the faded thylacine
of clever wit, so hardly seen,
is most proficient, and alone
can also play the brass trombone.

Inspired by this week's Illustration Friday theme ('stripes'), I decided to alter my blog by-line to admit, I'm mad about stripes and use them in nearly all of my artworks!

Fun with children's book authors

Here are a few photos from the past few weeks, showing some of my recent shenanigans with Australian children's book authors.  The lovely Sheryl Gwyther was in Hobart for a writing retreat of about five weeks, and visited my glass studio, where I put her to work designing pendants:

 

Sheryl is the most enthusiastic of authors and a mine of information on writing and children's books. Together with Julie Hunt, we headed up to Launceston for the launch of Claire Saxby and Christina Booth's new picture book, 'The Carrum Sailing Club'.  The launch was 'a hoot' as Claire said and there are some nice photos on Claire's blog (http://letshavewords.blogspot.com/2011/10/joining-jet-set.html).  Christina decorated the cake, following her own illustrations - I'll have to start practising!  Afterwards we wandered about Launceston and Sheryl managed to take the following photo making Julie and me look quite tall (that's a short statue):

I must say it is nice to be among such fabulous writers and artists who just happen to be my height, too.