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May the place you rest be blessed. May the place you stay be somewhere to play A friend of mine just moved and so I finished this illustration today while messing around in Adobe Illustrator. It has been a while since using Illustrator for me. For this reason I decided to approach this week's Illustration Friday's theme STAY as a digital illustration. Again combining my to do list and saving

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Have I been idle? Noooooo way! -I have been very busy and productive lately.
Have I been painting? Well no…

However I have been doing a lot of freelancing on web sites and graphic design.

I was playing with my old friend “Illustrator” this week and boy did I have fun. It is hard not to get completely distracted with Adobe programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. There is not a week that goes by I don’t check out something new or inventive in the programs I use. The possibilities with these programs are endless. In recent months I have been mainly working in Photoshop and Indesign and Illustrator hardly got a look in but it was great to get back to using Illustrator this week.

Twilight tour flyer design: Mountain District Christian School.
I have some freelance work for another Christian school; Mountain District Christian School, creating their annual flyers and doing some ad work. This past week I put together a few ideas and developed the most appropriate concept for the first flyer design into an almost finished flyer. The design concept was screaming for a touch of fun vector graphics, and so I starting playing with my old friend Illustrator. Once I started, all I want to do is keep exploring the possibilities but I stayed focussed temporarily. I guess it is not unlike the flow I get into when I start painting. I can totally loose myself in anything creative especially when the subject is a happy theme. I love conceptual work and instead of just adding information to a flyer, I like to send an immediate message in the design. The flyer was for an open day which they inventively called “twilight tours” as the tour was in later part of the day. I focused on the main graphic being appropriate to twilight tours.

I used Illustrator to create the graphics and introduced the school’s images and text into the design. I presented the design to the school and they loved it. I had so much fun creating it. Some days I just LOVE my job and this week had been great. I always love it when I have work that I can spend time on and explore the possibilities (creative licence).

Stock Illustration: Debutante / wedding vector graphic.
Hooked on playing with Illustrator, I got my teeth into this illustration for a stock image I plan to submit to www.istock.com I thought I would try stock illustration and see how it goes. My daughter was the model for this vector drawing which will be appropriate for a wedding stock image, debutante ball / presentation ball stock image, formal stock image, or anything girly.

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First things first, the new translation of Pippi Longstocking illustrated by the most wonderful Lauren Child is now out. I saw some sample pages at ALA and *drool*.

But today, I thought we'd deal with some old school mysteries. And when I say old school, I mean old school. Super old school. So, today's song is Secret Agent Man.

Anyway, I would like to give a shout out to the fabulous Miss Dana, who loaned me these books in the first place, because she collects first editions of such things-- before they were repeatedly revised.

But, before we get the mysteries, let's put some things in context.

So, first up we have The Girl Sleuth: on the trail of Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and Cherry Ames by Bobbie Ann Mason

Despite being subtitled "On the trail of Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and Cherry Ames," Girl Sleuth spends most of its time discussing Nancy Drew, Honey Bunch, and the Bobbsey Twins. Mason has written a nice, light read on girl mysteries and their feminism roots. The problem lies in that she never entirely figured out what her thesis was. Part of my feels that Mason's upset because Nancy didn't grow up to have the same ideas she did. She spends a lot of time justifying why she loved and read them so much as a kid and how they were really good for her. And then goes on to blast them for being sexist and a bad influence on today's (which, at publication, would be the 70s) youth.

The feminism angle is heavy on 70s second wave rhetoric and some of the coded sexual language seems far fetched (hidden items as virginity and villains as symbolic rapists.)

I much preferred Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak (which is the only book today that Dana didn't loan me. I loaned this one to her.)

In this Girl Sleuth, Rehak gives a very interesting account of the Strademeyer Syndicate who oversaw the ghost-writing of a lot of early century series books for kids. She also profiles Mildred Wirt and Harriet Adams-- the two women who were Carolyn Keene. There is also a great history of women's liberation and its effect on Nancy Drew. Very well done and very readable. I highly recommend it to those who are interested in a history of Nancy Drew.

But now, onto the books

Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Now, this is not the same book I read a few summers ago and discussed here. This is the original. It jumps straight to the plot and is ludicrously un-PC. I have no idea how Nancy finds out about Mr. Crowley's will. It also takes much earlier than the current version. You can tell because of such sentences as "His wife had died during the influenza epidemic following the World War." And such sentences that I now find funny sad, "She was anything but attractive, for she was tall and slender to the point of being 'skinny'." More offensive, but better written than what's being published now.

The Bobbsey Twins in Washington Laura Lee Hope

So, the Bobbsey's all go to Washington and have many adventures and solve a mystery involving things I don't remember. What I remember is that Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey are the WORST parents in the world. There 5-year-old regularly completely wanders off all through DC and no one (a) notices or (b) cares. Yes, for kids to solve crimes and have adventures, there has to be a certain amount of lack of adult supervision, but this was ridiculous. As was the portrayal of African-Americans. Wow.

The Clue of the Stone Lantern Margaret Sutton

Ok, this one, I really enjoyed. There are some gender role issues, but Judy seems to fight them. The mystery was really cool and I didn't feel like smacking most of the characters. This is a series I could definitely read more of. Also, rather well written. I mean, I was actually a little scared when Judy got herself in scary situations. Usually, with Nancy Drew I just yawn. Kids should still be reading this. Even if Judy is grown up and married and stuff.

Dana Girls: By the Light of the Study Lamp Carolyn Keene

So, when I know I won't get to review a book for awhile, I make notes to myself so I remember. I will give someone a prize if they can decipher the following for me:

"same ghostwriter as Nancy--liked black people though! in all of them! terrible!"

No idea what that means, besides something on my view of race relations in the Dana Girls world. But pro or con? I liked the book. I liked how (a) there were two girls and they were both strong and neither was a dumb side kick and (b) they were at boarding school so that solved the no parents issue. Plus, I like boarding school stories. This was my second favorite of the bunch.

Dana sent me a whole 'nother batch of these super old school mysteries, so I'll be curling up with some more soon. Maybe if it ever actually gets like fall--it's mid October and in the upper 80s WTF?! is up with that?!

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