I Wish You More

Written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld
Chronicle Books  3/01/2015
978-1-4521-2699-9
40 pages Age 3+
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“Some books are about a single wish.
Some books are about three wishes.
This book is about endless wishes.

“Amy Krouse and Tom Lichtenheld have been called the “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers of children’s books” and here they have combined their extraordinary talent to create a compendium of wishes—wishes for curiosity and wonder, friendship and strength, for joyous days and quiet moments.

What will you wish for?”  [book jacket]

Review
I Wish You More is the perfect book for a (grand)parent to give their (grand)child for any occasion or no occasion at all. I Wish You More is also the perfect book to give the child heading off to college, summer camp, or any other get-away.

I wish you more can than knot.

Beginning with two children racing with the wind, a kite flying high above, the text reads:  “I wish you more ups than downs.” Each spread continues with a wish and an image expressing that wish. Children will understand most of the test and each of the images. Lichtenheld has created a multicultural set of children, which make the spreads that more adorable—if this is possible.

I Wish You More is simply a wonderful, joyous, high-spirited, positive celebration of what a wish can do for those who receive them, and for those who give them. There really is not much more to say about this beautiful picture book. Read I Wish You More to a young child and they can learn the benefits of kindness and well wishes toward other humans. And, I believe, you can help your little one with their self-esteem.  I Wish You More would have been in my office and read to every child.

I wish you more stories than stars.

Each spread is one wish—one special wish with an equally special illustration. Narrated by the voice of a parent, I Wish You More  concludes by stating it contains all these wishes, “. . . because you are everything I could wish for . . . and more.”

**Chronicle Books is making two posters from the book available for anyone who would like them. This may be for a limited time, I do not know, so go HERE and get your set of two. They are perfect for any child’s room. There is also an activity kit for teachers HERE.

I WISH YOU MORE. Text copyright © 2015 by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Tom Lichtenheld. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA.

Purchase I Wish You More at Amazon—Book Depository—Chronicle Books.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! (#4)
Learn more about I Wish You More HERE.

Meet the author, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, at her website:  http://www.whoisamy.com/
Meet the illustrator, Tom Lichtenheld, at his website:  http://www.tomlichtenheld.com/
Find more picture books at the Chronicle Books website:  http://www.chroniclebooks.com/
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Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved
Review section word count = 222

There’s nothing better to get a new creative project started than by making  your own inspirational mood board.  Creating your own mood board of idea’s and inspiration will help you to build a collection of concept base ideas to build a new art piece from whether a series of illustrations, photographs or painting. It’s not all that hard to do and once you get started creating a mood board can actually be a really enjoyable part of project building,  although if you’ve not made one before here are afew easy tips to help you get started on making your own.

What do I put in a mood board?

A mood board can contain anything from doodles, words, photographs, textures , colour swatches, fabrics and much more based around a chosen theme for your project. So for example a theme maybe “ocean” to which you’d include images of its inhabitants , sea blue colour tones and meaningful words tied to the theme etc.

What do I need to make one ? 

Its really down to personal preference but you can make a mood board easily in anything from the pages in your sketchbook, sticking them to a piece of artboard or a cork board with pins. There’s really no right or wrong way because your mood board is personal, there to give you idea’s and pull together concepts for your project that will help it grow.

Putting a mood board together.

1. To begin putting your creative mood board together collect a series of images and inspirational materials linked to your chosen theme.
2. On an a3 blank sketchbook page ( or any page size of your preference but bigger is less limiting to your mood board ideas) begin to add your mood board research to your page.
3. Stick bits down with patterned washi tape or masking tape to make it more visual and allow you to change things around.
4. Make it personal and have fun.
5. Keep your creative mood board  in sight throughout your project to stay visually inspired and consistant to your project theme to prevent getting creatively lost along the way.

Image by  illustrator Katt Frank  you can find out more about their work here .

Hi, folks, this is a meandering post, but maybe I've said something that resonates.

Here is the doodle:

Here is a quote for your pocket: 

The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this. Mark Twain

A Pick from the Healing Dream Garden

After working with dreams for nearly forty years, I know that even the worst nightmares contain a kernel of hope or healing.  The following nightmare took me a long time to understand.  I had several repeats until it finally “hit” me what this dream offered as its healing insight.   The dream took a while to sink in perhaps because it chose as the motif of one of my greatest fears: hitting a person while driving.  To make things worse, in the dream the feeling of hitting a person was so realistic—as if it really did happen.

Dream

I am driving very slowly because I sense some danger.  Then, a group of kids surges in from the left.  I see a young boy of 4 or 5 years old either fall or lunge into the left front of my car.  Although I slam on the breaks, I hear the thud of something hitting my car.   A shock wave of raw realization explodes from my chest as the force of emergency breaking flips the car on its side, throwing me on to the ground.  

Stunned, I jump up and grab the child my car struck, looking for injuries.  He has a little welt on the right side of his forehead, but otherwise seems well.  A huge sigh of relief surges through me and I embrace him in my arms.  I see his mother, the other kids and his father at a distance.  Oddly enough, they just look at me and smile.  They do not seem to be worried so much about the child as about me.  Somehow, I know that they won’t take this matter to the police.  

On waking the first impulse was huge relief from the realization that this was just a dream!  Then, the fear arose that this might be an event which will happen in the future because so many of my dreams, especially the realistic ones, often manifest in the material world just as I dreamed them.  I reviewed the dream, looking for clues to indicate this wasn’t such a prophetic dream.   While the dream was extremely realistic, especially the feeling I had when hitting the child, there were elements that seemed symbolic.  For example, I noticed that in the dream my car was red.  I don’t own a red car and probably wouldn’t buy one since I find the color too intense to look at for long periods of time.  So I decided that this dream wasn’t prophetic of actually hitting a real child and left the dream alone.

For a long while, and after several repetitive dreams which clearly were begging for attention, I finally summoned the courage to look at this dream.  I chose to use the dreamwork paradigm of everything in the dream as being a part of myself.  The young boy in the dream, because he was male, represented something work related, and because he was young, represented creative potential that was still developing.  The age of the boy indicated a work related project that has gone on 4 or 5 years.  I thought of my creative and meaningful work in teaching dreams which had gone on for about 4 or 5 years.  A sinking feeling in me told me I was hitting on the correct interpretation.  At the time, I indeed felt like this child of my creative labors had taken a hit, not by anything deliberate on my part but just because of the choices I felt compelled to make as I tried to earn a living. Each time I had this dream of hitting a child, I was considering putting my major efforts and energy into taking a well-paying but less than desirable job that would meet my financial needs.  However, in doing so, I would endanger the growth of this child.  The guilt, grief, and horror were rising to consciousness.  Fortunately, the kid’s parents, perhaps representing my higher self, were telling me not worry.  They understood.  Indeed, when reflecting on this dream while still in bed, a voice from my intuition said in a gentle but informative way, “Don’t make a big deal of this!”  Just getting this message provided an odd counter balance to the guilt, grief and horror.

While the child took a minor hit, it was OK.  After I felt the child was safe and comforted, I wondered how I would upturn my car to get on my way again.  Now, the real problem was how to get back on track after such a near disaster.

Since then, I noticed that every time I considered taking a paying job rather than taking the financial risk of continuing to do the creative but less financially reliable work of writing, teaching and life coaching, this dream of either hitting or nearly hitting a child would repeat itself.  My dreams were telling to trust more and continue to nourish and not endanger the creativity within me. Later, as if to confirm my interpretation, I dreamed of three children telling me they want to take me some place I considered special.  It gave me hope and made me realize that failing to nurture my creative endeavors would be as traumatic as hitting a child.

Hey everyone ,

Leaving art college or university can be both an exciting and nerve wrecking time for the upcoming graduate. Whether your in art college or university here in the uk or internationally and are ready to pursue your creative career its always best I think to plan and prepare before the big leap.

I remember when I graduated from my bachelor’s degree  I thought everything would  be plain sailing, though when you actually leave you realise how that bit of planning can help in being efficient and organised in working towards your creative goals and knowing what to do next. So to lend a hand I’ve put together 5 tip on what to do before you graduate in 2014 for pursuit in a creative career.

1. Research : If you know in yourself that your next step is to venture into creative freelancing in your specialism then the best thing to do is gather your research. Looking into things such as freelancing rates, how to register your business, potential business funding or scheme’s available in your area may just help you plan out what course you need to take to do what you love.

2. Prepare your portfolio: The key thing thats going to help skyrocket your creative career is your portfolio and the work you have in it. Now having completed your years of degree or college work you’ll no doubt have a portfolio full of lovely projects. However if  like me you came away with dust covered dissertations and little of a portfolio you may feel abit daunting knowing there’s more work to do.

So whether your portfolio is ready or not you need to have it professionally presented for people to view it such as potential clients, agents etc. If your wanting to build up your portfolio from scratch then ideally allocate yourself maybe 3-6 months to build it up to have some fresh  new material that your truly happy to promote and using themes like those found here on illustration friday maybe a great place to start generating idea’s.

3. Set money aside : If you’re able to its always a good thing to put money aside to later on use to invest in your business. This will enable you to buy the necessary start up equipment and materials that you need to effectively do the work to a standard that will enable your creative business to function.

4. Gain advice and mentoring : Starting out your own creative venture isn’t easy so I feel that gaining all the support, advice and mentoring that you can will be worth its weight in gold. If you don’t already know what a mentor is or have one a mentor is somebody who can be in your field of practice with experience of the industry who is there to give you advice and guidance to help you along the way now and then.

I am lucky enough to have two wonderful mentors so my advice would be asking someone who inspires you but also who you have established a relationship with whether they would possibly consider mentoring you.  Either way mentoring isn’t all take, no doubt you’ll have skills and advice you can exchange so its a win win situation either way.

There’s also a variety of business support and advice centres locally no doubt aswell as online for you to access such as enterprise nation, the design trust and the princes trust so please check them out.

Hope you found this little post helpful, kudos to you for getting through all your studies and here’s to a creative venture yet to start! Have you decided where you’re venturing on from here?

Image : “Do more of what makes you happy” illustration by  Lindsay at Unraveled design .

Copyright Tonia Allen Gould, All Rights Reserved

 What’s an idea? The mere concept of an idea is difficult, maybe even impossible to perfectly define. Even notable philosophers couldn’t seem to agree on what an idea truly means. The Free Dictionary Online indicates that according to the philosophy of Plato, the definition of an idea “is an archetype of which a corresponding being in phenomenal reality is an imperfect replica.” The web source goes on to say that according to the philosophy of Kant, “an idea is a concept of reason that is transcendent but nonempiral.” But, even Hagel said it differently. He claimed that an idea means “absolute truth; the complete and ultimate product of reason.” In the dictionary, the definition of an idea reads “something, such as a thought or conception that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity.”

To me, an idea is something that begins as a glimmer; a mere flicker in the mind that can suddenly grab hold, and unfold through any period of time, like the single root of the ivy plant that grounds itself deeply into the soil before it grows upwards, clinging to a wall with its tiny tentacles, reaching out and hanging on, until it forms its own shape and dimension. The ivy grows and grows, like no other ivy plant in existence, and reaches for the sun in a way that suits itself in order to flourish. Like an idea, the ivy didn’t plant itself. Someone had to place it there. The gardener of the ivy had to have foresight to buy or rent the house, invest in the fertilizer and the soil and the tools; he had to invest in the plant and spend his time digging the hole and planting it in the hopes that it would grow.

Like the gardener; creative professionals must make an investment in time, be committed to the outcome, and diligently work to understand and meet the project objectives.  That’s a lot of footwork and fancy dancing already.  But, what about the ideas you generate…those tiny seedlings of thought, that grew and took shape and added a dimension to the project that were unlike every other idea before it…those absolute truths…those nonempiral transcendent concepts of reason…those imperfect replicas…what about those? Those ideas, my friends, have value and they are your greatest asset. Sometimes, we forget that and give them away too freely, as if they have no value.  So if you’re questioning your creative worth, maybe you should start looking first at your assets.  #yourideashaveworth

I alway enjoy looking at favorite artist's work process. It's been a while since I posted one. Since I'm in the middle of experimenting with my Photoshop skills, I thought this would be a good time to do so again.
Below is a recent sketch of mine, that I'm currently in the middle of coloring...

Review: Made to Play (Handmade Toys & Crafts for Homegrown Imaginations) by Joel Henriques

About the author (from his Amazon.com bio):

Joel Henriques is fascinated by color, shape, and craftsmanship. He was drawn to painting as a child, inspired by his grandmother, a painter herself. She spent hours showing Joel the paintings of Matisse, Picasso, Miró, and many others. Through these and her own paintings, she taught him ideas about color and design and eventually coached him on his earliest paintings. These childhood experiences lead him to pursue a B.A. in Fine Art and Philosophy.

Becoming a parent was, for Joel, another way of looking at art in the world. As a young child himself, he made many of his own toys. As a father, he began making toys for his young twins. He began to see that a beautiful, minimal, well-crafted object allowed his children to use and develop their own imaginations, rather than having an object tell them how they must play with it.

Moved by his children’s interaction with art, Joel began documenting these crafts on his blog, Made By Joel. Creating art for children, and for the child in everyone, is a powerful thing. Joel lives with his wife and three children in Portland, Oregon. See more of his crafts at www.madebyjoel.com, and see more of his art at www.joelhenriques.com.

About the book (from the publisher):

Delight young children and encourage play through unique handmade toys. From sewn and stuffed musical instruments to interlocking paper building blocks and wooden animal figurines, the projects in this book are meant to encourage open-ended play. Organized by kid-loving subjects, the toys here follow the themes of Zoo; House; Blocks, Cars & Trucks; Dress-Up; Music; and Art. Overall, the projects here are meant to stimulate imagination, build confidence through success and enjoyment, and enhance the bond between family and friends through the creation of unique, artistic handmade toys and crafts.

The thirty-five projects in this book include a variety of crafts, from drawing to sewing and light woodworking. The toys presented here are made out of wonderfully tactile materials—repurposed fabrics, wood, and paper—and invite opportunities for creative and imaginative play. Every project is easy to complete, made with accessible materials, and requires little time to make. The projects are simple enough that endless variation can come from the making of each, leaving enough room for you to make the item to suit your own personal interests.

My take on the book:

I was very pleased to receive a view copy of Made to Play by Joel Henriques. If you are a fan of Henriques’ blog, Made by Joel you will love this book.

As mentioned in the description above, the book is full of fantastic craft projects. I was dually impressed with the clearly written and illustrated instructions. Mainly because it always a craft project novice like myself an opportunity to participate in projects I know my daughter will enjoy.

Many of the projects use paper, wood, or wire and you’ll need some special tools such as a scroll saw and jigsaw to do the wood projects.

I’m looking forward to doing some of these projects during the holiday. I really want to make some of the dollhouse furniture and also the modern alphabet

Gotta love it when people find their place in the world.  This guy is obviously doing what he should with…