What I learned from being commisioned to illustrate J.H. Sweet Foo and Friends books

My vision for illustrating Foo would have been somewhat better informed if I had actually seen this sculpture. This spirited ceramic garden sculpture was at the Classical Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon where I saw it for the first time yesterday. My own clay model didn't have cheeks, or the characteristic ceramic treatment of eyebrows and mane. Another problem with my Foo is that people in Albany, Oregon cannot tell my illustration is a dog let alone a ceramic one. To my knowledge Chinese brush paintings are of nature not of ceramic images of imaginary animals like their lion sculptures. And I agree that a traditional Chinese rendering is not suggestive of a modern neighborhood in America. A different medium like pastel would show the ceramic quality and be compatible with the location of the story.

When I started, I was elated at first. It was a thrill to have a chance to illustrate a children's book with the main character being the Lion-like dog guardian ceramic sculpture. I could make animated expression for a dog that comes to life at night when the people in the neighborhood are sleeping. The commission was also a great way to have a project with a cousin who I just met through the Internet. The books were free for downloading on the Internet with the promise that someday they would be published.

The first book was very exciting for me, but the second one was more complex and I was not as happy as JH Sweet seemed at first. Soon after the illustrated book appeared on her web site I was itching to rework it. JH Sweet didn't want me to work on it any more. furthermore and more importantly, I felt I was tweaking her story with my illustrations. The bronze gorilla character turned out to be more like a chain saw cedar carving. I began to be more and more bothered by problems with the targeted age for early chapter books. I was illustrating for a picture book level. It occurred to me that JH Sweet needed to own her own story by making the illustrations herself. She did to my delight. http://www.jhsweet.com/ Her WISHING WELL and GARAGE SALE are early reader chapter books with just enough visual imagery introduced at the right places in the chapters to spark the imagination of seven to ten year olds.

Illustrations for J. H. Sweet's WISHING WELL

Here are four of the early renderings but the large areas of black bleed through the pages and would be costly in ink to print.

My inspiration for Foo came from my joyous but fiercely protective mixed rat terror, part Pomeranian, part toy poodle, 100% Seattle cosmopolitan. As I did more and more drawings Foo looked more like my dog and me. I became fascinated by my treasured memento from my grandfather Emil Widler. In particular two Foo dogs on tiny, carved stone chops. He used his chops in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th. One was a stamp of his Chinese name and the other the name of his FiNe Arts store on Bubbling Well in old Shanghai. Grandfather Emil a foreign native of the Orient, an old China hand whose scholarly enthusiasm for books gave my mother encouragement to make dolls to photograph as children's book illustrations. My mother then in return encouraged me and taught me by allowing me, as young as five years old, to finish her sculpted clay faces giving them the touch of life expression.

Now I am a grandmother and I began the illustrations the same way as I learned, by sculpting Foo in oil clay. making movement flow like clay does. My own style was polished by a trip to China and Tibet in 2003.

I shed tears of happiness to have a meaningful partnership with a cousin who I have not known until her brother found me through seeing my art work on the Internet. Like the Foo dog we have origins in Istanbul and have been shipped from port to port in the Orient. We trekked in the Himalayan Mountains, been in service of Queens and Emperors. Like Foo we have lost partners and have gone on to be protective and healing to the world where ever we are. Now working on Foo and Friends book we fulfill grandfather's greatest wish that we could go across the world to meet cousins like J. H. Sweet and bring the family together. Like grandfather believed books truly transport you through space and time bringing the dead, the living and the yet to be born together in a loving way.

I am deeply honored to illustrate Joanne Sweet's Foo And Friend's Series. http://www.jhsweet.com/

Now going up - "Skating Yes I Can" book

"Magic Man help me skate if you can" will be my new blog complete in two week. I am publishing this older work of mine and a friend Lee Ann Lehni's verse. http://skateyesican.blogspot.com/

Just noticed how close the message of the magic man book is to my Obama wood block paintings. In both the magic comes from within us inspired by a leading facilitator. The purpose of the skating book was to encourage the self-esteem of my children through the physical sport of roller skating. My kids were competitive roller skaters. They learned new skills by visualizing in their minds what they wished to accomplish. The purpose of the new Obama blocks is for my grandchildren to visualize that the teaming up of citizens can give them an effective voice in government.

Now one of my paintings is hanging in the Corvallis, Oregon Obama Democrate Party Headquarters, "Challenges us to know we can because Obama "won't back down from any challenge." This is the block picturing the high school aged Obama holding the ball of fair play. The quote is from his brother-in-law, the OSU Basketball Coach C. Robinson from his speech at the Democratic Convention.

Our current election has just too much fearful mud throwing. The reason that the Republicans are able to make fear an effective strategy in the presidential campaign is the low self-esteem of citizens. If the citizens of the United States of America believe in their ability to be heard, the fabricated fear factor in campaigns would just roll off and citizens would be able to make a clear choice.

The process of the original book was very different. I first made the illustrations on large silk banners and then found a writer who wrote the verse. LeeAnn Lehni gives me permission to self publish our work. LeeAnn is very gracious because we are very different. I am liberal and she is conservative.

Imagine conservatism and liberalism could exist without this very destructive polarization. It is like a third illness of fear destroying us. It is nothing new as in 1870 Mark Twain quotes his grandmother in RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR. " You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed of - not one. Look at the newspapers - look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a public canvas with them." An expression for what his opponents did to Twain is - ad hominem. 1) appealing to a person's feelings or prejudices rather than his intellect. 2. marked by an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to his contentions.

Excited to Illustrate J. H. Sweet's Foo and Friends early reader chapter book

The illustrator in me is encouraged by an invitation by published author, HJ Sweet. I have signed a professional contract and by the end of October or before I'll complete the first in a series of books about Foo and Friends. These books, for now, will be free books on the Internet. Joanne's writing has extraordinary characters and great action making illustrating her work both challenging and rewarding. I am now brain storming by making clay models of the faces of ceramic fantasy dogs, march monster, and an Evil Eye, a gnome, a gargoyle, a flamingo, a plastic owl and many more.