fortune cookie friday

"If you touch black paint, you will have black fingers"
- Chinese Proverb

this year's pumpkins

We're a little late with our pumpkins this year!  Again, no pumpkin party (what? nobody wants to have toddlers and sharp knives together?) and, to Rain Dragon's protests, I carved mine alone:

But to make up for not letting her do any of it, I carved her current favorite bedtime book:

her favorite is Lyle and the Birthday Party which she calls "Lyle go to hospeetall"

The Sasquatch carved her favorite characters from her favorite TV show, Peppa Pig. Oddly,  her favorite characters are the periphery characters that barely in the show like Mr. Rhino and Mr. Potato. 

Mr. Rhino silhouette and a Mr. Potato outline!

And, of course, we did let her paint her own:

She was pleased with our finished display during the day:

But we all agreed that it looked best at night:

Happy Halloween!

get this exclusive print and support WNDB!

The WNDB Indigogo campaign is going full throttle! It's going great, but there's still more than half of the goal to achieve. To sweeten the pot, I've donated some exclusive, never-before-sold prints to the WNDB Indiegogo campaign! There are five of these available now:

from "Bringing in the New Year"

If/when those sell out, there will be five of these up as perks:

from The Ugly Vegetables

These prints are 13x19 inches and can be personally autographed by yours truly! And, most importantly, they want to have a home with you!

So, please contribute to the WNDB campaign! Even if you are unable to contribute, please spread the word wide and far!

on my desk monday

more work on Ling and Ting book #4!

just blocking in colors

We Need Diverse Books Needs YOU

Go to the WNDB Indiegogo Campaign!
WeNeedDiverseBooks, whose advisory board I am proud to say I am a part of,  has just launched its Indiegogo Campaign! Please consider donating!

Your donations will help bring diverse books and authors to disadvantaged schools, host the Inaugural Kidlit Diversity Festival and more!As well as art for their holiday card, I've donated a personal event and dinner (Will I make you cupcakes? You'll have to find out...). Or you could have dinner with the incredible Jacqueline Woodson in Park Slope or a signed Dav Pilkey print or even more! Lots of fun prizes, go check it out!

Please spread the word!

Just in case you missed it!

Just in case you missed it in my last newsletter (sign up HERE to get on the list)...

Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly is coming! Pre-order your copy  (and/or any other books by me) at my local bookstore, Broadside Books,  and I will autograph the book plus include a surprise small gift (maybe a magnet...maybe a pin...maybe a pocket pacy! You'll have to see what you get!). You can pre-order a personalized autographed copy HERE , just add to whom you'd like the book to be autographed to in the "order comments" section at checkout.  Or you can call Broadside Books at 413-584-4235 and place your order over the phone! Not only will you receive the surprise gift from me (I promise it will be nice!), you'll be supporting a great local independent bookstore! You may remember from my last newsletter that Amazon is in dispute with my publisher, so they are not shipping my books out in a timely manner. This, unfortunately, makes it quite difficult for my new book (or really any of my books) to be successful.   So, please, please consider supporting this bookstore or any other bookstore near you!

on my desk monday

I wrote a review of four wordless picturebooks for the NY Times:

It's always fun to see your name in the NY Times, maybe even more fun as a byline:

fortune cookie friday

"It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins."
- Chinese Proverb

on my desk monday

Painting the cover art for the 4th Ling and Ting book:

The publisher always asks for the cover art first for marketing their materials. Usually, that is not my preference--I'd rather do the cover art last after I've done the art for the book--but this time I was so eager to paint these rainbow dresses that I was happy to do it.

Can you believe I'm working on a 4th Ling and Ting book? The 3rd one, Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly comes out next month!!!

fortune cookie friday

"The house with an old grandparent harbors a jewel."
- Chinese Proverb

this week in our garden

Falling leaves have covered Rain Dragon's little garden (that never bloomed).  It's time to pull out the wind spinners:

Goodbye, garden! Hopefully, we'll do better next year!

on my desk monday

Even though I really don't have time, I'm painting another egg:

Like I said, I should be doing other thing but I couldn't say no. It's just been such a fun tradition for me and anyway, it's a good warm-up for the Ling and Ting paintings, right? Oh yeah, a good cause too. 

I wanted to go  in and do some more detailing but I just ran out of time (even though they sent me the egg about 6 months ago!). I still think it's okay, though. I'm calling it "Eggshell China."  Fine Chinese porcelain is often referred to as eggshell china, so I though I'd paint my interpretation of the traditional longevity pattern found on plates and teapots on an actual eggshell. Get it? Eggshell China?

Okay, I admit I am a little sleep-deprived.

Anyway,  here are some better shots of it:

I hope it makes lots of money for Open Fields!

fortune cookie friday

"When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet."
- Chinese Proverb

this week in our garden

Summer is definitely over and it looks like the garden will soon be no more. But we'll harvest as much as possible.

We probably don't need a wheelbarrow, but someone insisted:

As she was convinced there was still a big crop of carrots:

We did much better with the tomatoes, beans and onions, however. And we would've had many more peas if they hadn't all been eaten as soon as they were picked:

A good harvest!