...Starts with a "B"

    Something's Up.

  

What's up?

 I'll show you.

BALLLLLLS!!!  

Or Bahwlllllllll, to be more precise. Dogs know they're magic. Babies know they're magic. My 18 m.o. daughter gathers them from room to room, and gives them rides in her cart. She spots them everywhere. Linoleum print to a baby's obsession. In black, 20 copies. Brown and blue editions still drying in the basement.

Color Variations

Rich brown won out over pale shade

Happy Saturday, All.

Plot Hatching!

Scheming babies, they're everywhere

Beware the plotting babies! It's no coincidence that this sketch came to me just as my 15 month old has started to walk, loves sitting on adult chairs, even if she can't get onto them herself...and is busy, busy, busy. Baby sock in the silverware compartment of the dishwasher, baby sock flattening in the beginning pages of a novel from the library, duckling finger puppet nestled in my shoe. She's full of vim, vinegar and mysterious plans. Sometimes we can see the wheels turning; other times, just a blur of motion.

I drew this on Monday, in a peevish fit -- I would have been plotting, myself, had I more energy. As it was, I doodled, and then distracted myself from crabbiness*, by getting sucked into Photoshop world with texts and coloring layers. I'm still really clunky with the program, but am closer to the a-little-knowldege-is-a-dangerous-thing stage. But! After I pass that stage! Golden! ----ish. 14 karat? I'm enjoying it more, definitely.

Etsy listing for Plotting baby card here

*Something we should all follow babies and toddlers in doing! ...Or we may already do, without knowing. Wahhhhhhhhhhh~~ooohhowthatswings! Helpful at any age.

Roasting Brussel Sprouts, Eating Spoonfuls of Cookie Dough

...Increasing attention from little one will, in theory, force me to reform my sporadically ridiculous eating habits. In the meantime, it is 4:12 on Monday, October 26th: high time for a picture book progress post! Quickly, quickly, as la Bebe will be transferred back to my care shortly. She looks like a wee gymnast in her floral navy onesie and she is covering impressive floorspace with an aggressive commando crawl. She would happily pound this keyboard and lick my monitor, but will also initiate the grand back arch of protest if kept on one's lap for too long. So, here we go -- just listed on Etsy:

Page 28:

After the shouting, before the cake eating...Here we witness our precocious hero explaining to Cakeasaurus just how cakes come to be. If you were (/are) obsessed with getting your daily cake by nefarious ends, and you were (/are?) a sneaky monster, you may not be well versed in baking basics. Quimby tries to break it down...

Woodblock print, edition: 15, available here. 

Page 29: 

"All Good Cakes Are Born from Books": a fine statement, and most would agree, aside from rare bakers like my maternal grandmother, who could whip up an angel food cake ("light as air!"), bookless, with nary a measuring cup or spoon...The rest of us, though, must use recipes as road maps, to take us where we want to go. Cakeasaurus, being a dessert thief NOT a dessert creator, finds the concept a bit suspect. 

Edition size: 50. Available for sale here. 

All stages

 

Pages 18-19: You saw this being carved (plus maybe a test print?), but here's the final version of "Quimby Lay Awake..." This is an eensy tiny edition, but I must confess I'm rather of fond of this one.

I wanted it to capture some of the magical surreal quality of nighttime wakefulness as a child. I always get a kick out of playing around with the lettering and I think the words troop across the page pretty well. 

"This print marks a pivotal scene in my Cakeasaurus picture book: the fateful night where monster-in-search-of-cake meets five-year-old to be. Cakes have been disappearing for months now! Despite all precautions, the townspeople experience ongoing cake deprivation. The situation is untenable. And here we are: Cakeasaurus outside, Quimby within."

Available here.