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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: island, Most Recent at Top [Help]

Results 1 - 16 of 16

1. Pink Clouds Over Nova Scotia

By: Eric Orchard, on 2/21/2013
Blog: Eric Orchard (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Nova Scotia, sea, pen and ink, horrible, island, paintings, gouache, terrible, smelly pirate, Add a tag

2 Comments on Pink Clouds Over Nova Scotia, last added: 2/21/2013

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2. Island Secret

By: MacKids, on 10/27/2011
Blog: MacKids Home (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Librarians, Middle Grade, cruise, deserted island, discovery, exploration, island, sailing, secrets, Add a tag

by Craig Moodie, author of Into the Trap

Writing Into the Trap allowed me to transform many of the coasts and islands and bodies of water I’ve known into the fictional setting of Fog Island.

Since I was a kid, islands in particular have captivated me. All of the islands I’ve set foot on or seen from the deck of a boat have kept me under their spell. I wish I could tell you about all of them, from Vieques to Cuttyhunk, Bermuda to Barra.

But one that I thought about a lot when I was writing the book was called Dobbins Island. My family was lucky enough to own a 35-foot yawl that we sailed out of Annapolis, Maryland. Sometimes when we cruised we would head into the Magothy River and anchor near Dobbins Island.

It was an uninhabited islet covered with woods and thickets atop steep clay bluffs. Its spindly tangled trees looked like the masts of pirate ships. One time when we rowed ashore for a quick walk along the beach, one of my sisters said it looked like a good stand-in for the setting of Lord of the Flies. It was eerie, quiet and watchful and secretive, and that made me want to explore it all the more. But we had to head back to the boat.

I got another chance one muggy evening when we’d anchored off the island again. After dinner I climbed into the dinghy to head to the island alone. Crossing the smooth water, I spooked myself when I looked over the side to see the dark forms of seaweed just below the surface. I crunched ashore on the orange-ish sand and walked past a steep clay bank pocked with the burrows of swallows. The birds swooped and veered past me. I followed the beach and found a path leading up the bluff into the woods.

The woods was dim and shadowy and hissed with the sound of crickets. The leaves laced together overhead to blot out the light. I hadn’t expected to find such a well-worn path, and I followed it at a trot to reach the far headland. At the edge I pushed through the undergrowth to look out through the foliage over the anchorage, where our boat lay among a few other boats on the serene water. Behind me a blue jay called.

Why I had a feeling I was being watched, I wasn’t sure.

I spun around.

Only the woods lay before me. A blue jay called again. The light was thinning.

I went back down the path to see what was on the other side of the island. The path began to climb toward the other end, tree branches forming a leafy tunnel overhead.

Then I heard a thumping ahead of me.

I stopped to listen, my breathing heaving in my ears.

How close had that sound been?

I moved ahead, slower now.

The sound came again—a thumping of hooves.

I heard rustling in the underbrush.

The path took a sharp turn as it climbed. I came around a bend.

I stopped, my heart jolting, before a pair of large eyes staring at me from the middle of the path. They were the wide-spaced eyes of a goat—a wild goat. The forms of two other goats were behind it. They, too, stared at me.

What was I doing on their island? they seemed to be saying.

I should have known, I realized. Why else would a desert island have such a well-worn network of paths?

The dusk settled deeper as the goats melted into the thicket and vanished into the shadows. How the goats had gotten there I wasn’t sure. Maybe they swam here from the mainland. Maybe their ancestors had survived a shipwr

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3. tiny blue hut

By: linda sarah, on 7/19/2010
Blog: travel and sing (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: snow, winter, hut, island, sheep, Add a tag

Filed under: snow, winter

1 Comments on tiny blue hut, last added: 7/20/2010

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4. The Island

By: Jared, on 6/11/2010
Blog: My Little Crockpot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Illustration, beach, island, ocean, Add a tag

This isn’t what I typically do, but here is my attempt at doing something more illustrative for a project… kind of in the vein of game art, I guess
You can almost smell the dead fish, right?

1 Comments on The Island, last added: 6/11/2010

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5. .: Monday Artday .:. Castaways:.

By: happychinchilla, on 3/17/2010
Blog: .:happy chinchilla:. (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: island, naufrago, oceano, sea, water, Add a tag

Always be aware of your surrounding, specially if your on a cruise to a desert island.

Siempre hay que estar consciente de sus alrededores, especialmente si estas en un crucero a una isla desierta.

Filed under: creature bichos, Monday Artday

3 Comments on .: Monday Artday .:. Castaways:., last added: 3/21/2010

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6. Closet Gnome

Posted on 11/26/2009
Blog: Watercolor Wednesdays (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: island, gnome, home, Add a tag

A humming, a twitter, a buzz, a noise beyond hearing emanated from the deep, dark, depth of the closet.

A puff of air, a small breath of breeze, a flicker of curtains opens a slit of light from a bright moon lit night.

Caught by a moon beam, held by a boy's clear sight, a closet Gnome stands frozen and frightened to move a minute muscle.

Perhaps unnoticed or not believed, perhaps thought to be imagined or seen as night's shadows dancing.

Hoping Mortimer the Gnome wills himself unseen to make himself invisible.

Knowing and now seeing what he knew all along his eyes locked and fixed on this creature of beyond.

The boy Felix stares gluing his eyes refusing to blink scared that his magical creature would disappear.

"You there. I see you. Yes you." And in a breath Felix and Mortimer were side by side, face to face and eye to eye.

"I know some serious magic needs to happen now or I couldn't do this." And with that Felix touches Mortimer with a eruption of faerie dust.

"I know something magical when I see it."

"It is a well known fact that Gnomes live among us unseen. This has been going on for a long, long time and we like it that way. Sometimes people will see us and do not believe it, this happens all the time. You got to be nuts to believe in little people, you need glasses. Well those are the rules and that is just the way it is. Grow up! And go back to sleep I am just a dream. Forget about it."

"Now you touching me like that was out of line. OK OK maybe I do owe you a little magic. And maybe all this Faerie dust is a dead give away."

"Caught in a moon beam; they warn you, they tell you never ever get caught in a moon beam. So I did. Big deal. Or it wouldn't be if you hadn't touched me. Now my whole world is changed. I have to... never mind. Magic is what you want and magic is what you will have."

8 Comments on Closet Gnome, last added: 12/22/2009

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7. An image from a current project

By: Ginger Nielson, on 9/28/2009
Blog: Ginger Pixels (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: elephant, ocean, jellyfish, Ginger Nielson, sleeping, island, Add a tag

©Ginger Nielson 2009

Asleep on an island in the middle of the sea.... or is it an island?

5 Comments on An image from a current project, last added: 10/1/2009

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8. Island

By: Claudio Rodriguez Valdes, on 10/15/2008
Blog: Monday Artday (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: watercolor, claudio rodriguez valdes, IF, island, Add a tag

I am posting an old illustration I made for IF
Hope you like it!

3 Comments on Island, last added: 10/17/2008

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9. Runaround

By: Camille, on 3/21/2007
Blog: Book Moot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Southern stories, girls you want to hug, family stories, Helen Hemphill, Add a tag

Runaround by Helen Hemphill, 2007

Miss Dallas takes care of 11-year-old Sassy and her beautiful older sister Lula. She runs their household and is a sort of mother figure as their own mother died of cancer soon after Sassy was born, or so the family story goes.

Sassy reads Love Confessions magazine. Her father is reserved and never talks about their mother so she questions Miss Dallas about romance and her parents' relationship. Miss Dallas tells Sassy, "You're in love with love," and indeed, that is the heart of this jewel of a story.

Snips of advice and passages from Sassy's magazines begin many of the chapters. When Sassy encounters handsome Boon Chisholm at the grocery store she develops a head over heels crush on him even though he is much older than her and is from the wrong side of the social tracks.

There are some wonderfully funny and painful moments as Sassy and Lula learn about guys and life. You do not want to get into a haircut fight with these sisters.

Hemphill evokes the time, 1964, and place, Falls of Rough, Kentucky, beautifully. Cherry Cokes-to-go are served in paper cups, screen doors slam and Elvis sings on the record player. The details are part of the story and never forced. The cover art is an old Benday dot style, romance comic illustration.

Sassy and Lula, their father, Miss Dallas and even Boon are characters the reader cares about. In their own way all the players in this story are sorting out their lives and hoping for relationships that give meaning to life. (It is nice to see a story with a loving father too.)

I think middle schoolers will find much that resonates in this sweet sweet story.

1 Comments on Runaround, last added: 3/26/2007

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10. Pumpkin Time

By: Camille, on 11/7/2007
Blog: Book Moot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: girls you want to hug, pumpkins, Add a tag

Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Marlane Kennedy, Greenwillow, 2007

Mildred's mother died when she was very young. Her loving father is a veterinarian. Her Aunt Arlene is too involved in her life because she wants Mildred to focus on 'ordinary' interests of typical eleven year olds, like clothes and shopping. But, Mildred is really only interested in one thing: growing pumpkin giants. Pumpkins are her passion and a way to remember her mother who loved the annual pumpkin festival.

Her early attempts at pumpkin growing do not yield the giants she hopes for but as her knowledge grows so does the size of her pumpkins. From the special seed to the pruning to the feeding, watering and nurturing, Mildred shares the process with the reader. We cheer Mildred's success and are in awe of her dedication.

This storyline echoes Joan Bauer's Squashed in many ways. In Bauer's book, Ellie is also coping with the loss of her mother. She lavishes care on her pumpkin to help it gain weight, while she herself, is trying to drop twenty pounds. Ellie is in high school and feels awkward and out of step with the other kids until she meets a guy who is as interested in vegetables as she is.

In both stories the weigh-in at the end of the story is very dramatic and tension filled. The reader is as invested as Mildred and Ellie in the outcome.

Kennedy's book is a sweet, sweet story of dedication and love for elementary age children and older. Her book is filled with almost step by step directions on growing pumpkins that had me, in a moment of utter madness, eyeing my own backyard and wondering if there was room for a pumpkin patch.

Bauer's book resonates with middle school and high school readers as eloquently testified to by the worn edges and creased cover of my own daughter's copy.

Lovely reads.

2 Comments on Pumpkin Time, last added: 11/7/2007

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11. ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ ISLAND?????

By: Ginger Nielson, on 9/12/2008
Blog: Ginger Pixels (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: boys, ocean, Ginger Nielson, boat, whale, island, Add a tag

18 Comments on ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY ~ ISLAND?????, last added: 9/19/2008

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12. Illustration Friday: island

By: Valerie Walsh, on 9/13/2008
Blog: ValGal Art (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Valerie Walsh, Beach House, patriotic, painting, island, Martha's Vineyard, Add a tag

Last week I mentioned that I was back

from my trip to Martha's Vineyard.

It is a beautiful and amazing place and I hope you click on to the link to read about it because there is much to know.

You can only get there by boat or by plane so you really do get the island feel and you can go to all the towns in one afternoon although it is best to take your time to explore the charm of each town and beach. This was my 4th visit and each time it get's better and better. All the houses were dressed a little more patriotic this year, lot's of flags and symbols of love for the soldiers in the war. This is my work in progress for Illustration Friday's "island" theme. I had to work on another painting this week so I will continue to update it and hopefully finish over this weekend. Please click on to my link to see some of the highlights of my trip if you have time :)

my photos

42 Comments on Illustration Friday: island, last added: 10/6/2008

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13. Island

By: John Shelley, on 9/13/2008
Blog: Shelley Scraps (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: illustration friday, the boat in the tree, fantasy, island, Add a tag

I very occasionally participate in the Illustration Friday projects when I have something suitable. Here's something for this weeks theme "Island". It's from The Boat in the Tree picture book.