When I was a little girl but 4 years older than my sister, I was asked the same thing every night - tell me a story Sandy. The lights were out and Mum and Dad were reading or watching the new contraption called a TV.
I would start "Once upon a time (this was in the 1950s) there was a very big hill (my knees were bent in bed and my fingers did the walking) and a little girl decided to climb it to see what was over the hill". My sister would start to ask questions. I continued, most likely remembering snippets from the fairy tales I had read in my Grandmother's children's books, selecting bits from so many stories.I still have one of those books today that I have always loved with the black and white illustrations of the beautiful girls, wild animals, handsome brave boys, spells, sadness, witches. All with a message to keep true to yourself and keep going. Yes Grim's fairytales - gee they are quite harsh but always about resilience, love, persistence. I still make up stories based around my grandchildren of possible adventures they could have. Now I illustrate them as well and send them as a letter. I wonder if my mind well ever stop making up stories of adventure and new places and people and animals.
Once upon a time, a short while ago, An aspiring storywriter and illustrator read an Adam Ming blog about drawing characters and objects using shape, and how to put them together into a finished drawing. One of the sample characters Adam showed his readers was a bear. She loved bears (one of her nicknames was Pooh-bear after all!) and after drawing all the samples and then some others of her own, decided to keep trying to draw a bear. When she came to the fourth lesson showing her how to fill in the character piece by piece with texture, she somehow decided to draw that little bear balancing on top of a ball! That little bear looked so surprised to finally have been able to do this, that it gave her an idea of a whole story to write and now, she is writing and drawing pictures about a little bear and a ball. She hoped that one of the next things she can learn is how to find people who might like to publish stories, but if not, she will have a fun home-made story book to read to all her little grand nieces who love doing fun things with their grand-auntie Pooh-bear! She was very grateful to have found this wonderful place to learn and grow as an artist and she is living happily ever after, drawing and making up all those new stories and illustrating all the stories she told her own daughter when she was growing up too.. ... the end (is not in sight .....yet)! ~;0)
When my oldest son was two years old, we took a trip to the river while visiting with my husband’s family. There were a bunch of geese on the water, and he was fascinated with them. He had some French fries and decided to throw a few into the water, hoping the birds would come closer. A few geese quickly swam over to scoop them up. Then the surrounding geese took notice, and before we knew it we were surrounded by hungry, honking geese. They were swooping in from all directions! My boy took a few hesitant steps backward as the number of geese grew and they began gathering closely on the shore. Then a tall mother goose stepped out from the wall of geese with a string of little goslings trailing behind her. She looked in our direction and lowered her head to the ground with an ominous hiss. That was enough to make my son turn and run…with the fries in hand. The mama goose gave chase and so the race to the car had begun. Thankfully, the “fight” instinct of the goose wasn’t as strong as the “flight” instinct of the toddler.
When I was a girl, my dad went hunting one spring day and brought home some rabbits which my mom cooked for dinner. When the plate of fried rabbit got passed around, my youngest sister declined and said in the most scathing voice you can imagine, "I don't eat bunny." Like she was accusing us of cannibalism. A little later she came to my mom and asked in a trembling voice, "Daddy wouldn't shoot the Easter Bunny, would he?" She was only about 3, and totally believed in the Easter Bunny.
When I was a little girl but 4 years older than my sister, I was asked the same thing every night - tell me a story Sandy. The lights were out and Mum and Dad were reading or watching the new contraption called a TV.
I would start "Once upon a time (this was in the 1950s) there was a very big hill (my knees were bent in bed and my fingers did the walking) and a little girl decided to climb it to see what was over the hill". My sister would start to ask questions. I continued, most likely remembering snippets from the fairy tales I had read in my Grandmother's children's books, selecting bits from so many stories.I still have one of those books today that I have always loved with the black and white illustrations of the beautiful girls, wild animals, handsome brave boys, spells, sadness, witches. All with a message to keep true to yourself and keep going. Yes Grim's fairytales - gee they are quite harsh but always about resilience, love, persistence. I still make up stories based around my grandchildren of possible adventures they could have. Now I illustrate them as well and send them as a letter. I wonder if my mind well ever stop making up stories of adventure and new places and people and animals.
Once upon a time, a short while ago, An aspiring storywriter and illustrator read an Adam Ming blog about drawing characters and objects using shape, and how to put them together into a finished drawing. One of the sample characters Adam showed his readers was a bear. She loved bears (one of her nicknames was Pooh-bear after all!) and after drawing all the samples and then some others of her own, decided to keep trying to draw a bear. When she came to the fourth lesson showing her how to fill in the character piece by piece with texture, she somehow decided to draw that little bear balancing on top of a ball! That little bear looked so surprised to finally have been able to do this, that it gave her an idea of a whole story to write and now, she is writing and drawing pictures about a little bear and a ball. She hoped that one of the next things she can learn is how to find people who might like to publish stories, but if not, she will have a fun home-made story book to read to all her little grand nieces who love doing fun things with their grand-auntie Pooh-bear! She was very grateful to have found this wonderful place to learn and grow as an artist and she is living happily ever after, drawing and making up all those new stories and illustrating all the stories she told her own daughter when she was growing up too.. ... the end (is not in sight .....yet)! ~;0)
When my oldest son was two years old, we took a trip to the river while visiting with my husband’s family. There were a bunch of geese on the water, and he was fascinated with them. He had some French fries and decided to throw a few into the water, hoping the birds would come closer. A few geese quickly swam over to scoop them up. Then the surrounding geese took notice, and before we knew it we were surrounded by hungry, honking geese. They were swooping in from all directions! My boy took a few hesitant steps backward as the number of geese grew and they began gathering closely on the shore. Then a tall mother goose stepped out from the wall of geese with a string of little goslings trailing behind her. She looked in our direction and lowered her head to the ground with an ominous hiss. That was enough to make my son turn and run…with the fries in hand. The mama goose gave chase and so the race to the car had begun. Thankfully, the “fight” instinct of the goose wasn’t as strong as the “flight” instinct of the toddler.
When I was a girl, my dad went hunting one spring day and brought home some rabbits which my mom cooked for dinner. When the plate of fried rabbit got passed around, my youngest sister declined and said in the most scathing voice you can imagine, "I don't eat bunny." Like she was accusing us of cannibalism. A little later she came to my mom and asked in a trembling voice, "Daddy wouldn't shoot the Easter Bunny, would he?" She was only about 3, and totally believed in the Easter Bunny.