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By: Leona Hosack-In The Works,
on 11/6/2016
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I am so excited to learn that the book I finished illustrating earlier this year, Jamila Does Not Want A Bat In Her House, which was written by my wonderfully talented writer friend Phyllis Edgerly Ring, is about to be released in the next month or so by The US Baha'i Publishing Trust's subsidiary, Bellwood press! Below is the artwork for the cover of Jamila..... minus the title text.
If you would like to know more about the author of this book, please check out her inspiration blog here!https://phyllisedgerlyring.wordpress.com/
We have been attending several Fall fairs in the last few weeks starting with the Franklin County Fair in Western Mass. a couple of weekends ago! It is actually held in my home town of Greenfield, Mass. I was especially excited, not only because I was able to visit with family and old friends while I was there, some of whom I haven't seen in many years, but also because, with the help of my husband I was able to offer for the first time- my caricatures, silhouettes and portraits on tee-shirts!
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| A realistic pencil drawing I did at the Franklin County Fair in Mass. |
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| A caricature of my grand nephew Jacob on a tee shirt- drawn at the Franklin County Fair. |
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| A sweet family who posed for me at the Fair in Mass. |
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My sweet hubby Larry puts my drawings and silhouettes on tee-shirts if people request them, right on the spot at Fairs and also if ordered through my Etsy shop!
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/466749406/adult-custom-caricature-on-a-tee-shirt?ref=shop_home_active_1 |
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| I did these two caricatures at the Abenaki Country Club in Rye, NH. |
By: Leona Hosack-In The Works,
on 5/20/2016
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Whenever I cut silhouettes at an event people are always asking me how I learned to cut a likeness of a person in under five minutes.
It's hard to answer that in the few minutes I have with the people I do silhouettes of.
So I usually just say that I've been drawing faces my whole life, and when I learned from watching a documentary in 2009, that the art of the silhouette was still sought after, I just went online and looked up the few other silhouette artists still working, and taught myself by looking at their methods.
So with a very sharp pair of scissors( mine, which I got from Walmart aren't fancy, but are very sharp) and black silhouette paper, (black on one side, white on the other) which I now order from an Etsy shop, I sit in a chair a little ways away from the subject, and cut their silhouette just by looking at their profile. No pre-drawing, no tracing a shadow, no lights.
My figure drawing class in art school was probably the best class I ever took in terms of preparing me for what I do now- cutting silhouettes and drawing caricatures. It's because I learned to use something called sighting, which is a process that artists use when drawing. Sighting is a way of measuring parts of a drawing, one to another; comparing one visual element to another and correcting as you go in order to obtain accuracy.
Learn more about sighting here:
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Somersworth International Children's Festival,
Somersworth, NH 20014 |
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Same girl as above
Somersworth International Children's Festival,
Somersworth, NH 2014 |
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Spencer-Peirce- Little Farm,
Newbury, NH
2012 |
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Same fella as above
Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm
Newbery, MA 2012 |
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| Me at Strawberry Festival, South Berwick,Me |
Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm,Ipswich Festival, Newbery, MA
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| Shaker Hill Apple Fest. |
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| York Village Harvest Fest. |
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 4/3/2016
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Salt River consists of:
(left to right) Cathy King on bass, Mike Rogers on blues harmonica, guitar and vocals, Bev Rogers on vocals, Leona Hosack on guitar and vocals. |
I'm so glad that I am still performing original and traditional folk-blues music with Salt River. This is our 17th year together!
We will be performing this coming Saturday, April 9th, 2016 at Alfredo's Restaurant in Wells, Maine.(corner of Rtes.109 and 1 ) We start around 6 pm. No cover charge , great food and great music. Hope you can make it!
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 3/11/2016
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| A caricature I did a few years ago! |
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| This is me last summer working on a portrait outside at Alfred Festival Day in Alfred, ME. |
St. Patrick's day is next week and the first day of Spring is just around the corner! I would have been playing irish music on my guitar with my wonderful friend Mary who plays awesome flute and penny whistle at a local cafe today, but instead I happened to spent the day at a hospital waiting for my brave and patient husband to come through surgery. I could have taken a walk outside but I got lazy in the waiting rooms of the hospital. Warm and cosy, free coffee always available! I also got a little work done on my fantasy novel for middle or young adult readers, today. A good way not to focus on the situation at hand. I read somewhere, probably in a writer's blog, that the best time to write is when concerns become overwhelming. A good way to help your character come alive with realistic feelings I guess!
Any way, spending the whole day inside makes me long even more for Spring to come, and I am so grateful that my husband came through surgery in good shape, although healing takes time, and I am so glad that the earth is also healing and about to bloom forth! I work in a Nature-based child care center part time, and am always amazed to see the slow and graceful transformation of the forest classroom, where I spent time almost every day with children.
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| I did this drawing a couple of years ago to celebrate Spring! |
A quote from the Baha'i Writings about the Vernal Equinox:
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The Baha'i New Year is March 20th.
Happy Naw-Ruz! Happy Spring!
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From time immemorial this day has been consecrated, for in this there is a symbol.
At this moment the sun appears at the meridian and the day and night are equal. Until today the north pole has been in darkness. This sacred day when the sun illumines equally the whole earth is called the equinox and the equinox is the symbol of the divine messenger. The sun of truth rises on the horizon of divine mercy and sends forth its rays on all. This is the beginning of the spring. When the sun appears at the equinox it causes a movement in all living things. The mineral world is set in motion, plants begin to sprout, the desert is changed into a prairie, trees bud and every living thing responds, including the bodies of animals and men.
The rising of the sun at the equinox is the symbol of life and the human reality is revivified; our thoughts are transformed and our intelligence is quickened. The sun of truth bestows eternal life, just as the solar sun is the cause of terrestrial life. (Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p.75)
Below are some great videos on sketch booking outdoors, which I will be hopefully doing more of soon. Enjoy!
So excited to announce that my book "Babysitter Blues" published by One Voice Press is now available at Barnes and Noble.com. Click here to order it!:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/babysitter-blues-leona-hosack/1120693411?ean=9780989115261
Here's a caricature I did recently for a recipient of a gift certificate given out when I did caricatures at the Franklin County Fair in Greenfield, Mass two years ago! It is soon to be posted as a sample in my Etsy shop. 
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"Let's Be Friends" an illustration I worked on recently just for practice. A new piece for my portfolio!
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Happy Drawing!
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 2/6/2016
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I've been going through my files of old work, drawings and sketches, and have found some of my illustrations that I haven't looked at in a while. Quite a number of years ago, I happened to have been asked to illustrate a few stories for New Millenium Press a small Baha'i Publisher out of Macau. I did the illustrations and sent them, and at the time the person I was in contact with through email, somehow disappeared and I lost contact with them. So I never found out if they actually got published.
This is a portrait of George Washington Carver and sketches and a sketch of him in the field with farmers for a story about him.
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| A portrait of George Washington Carver in ink and watercolor! |
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| A preliminary sketch for the pictur above. |
The next four pictures below are about how children should be kind to animals, a story or section of a book based on a quote by Abdu'l-Baha.
These last two pictures were for a story about Baha'u'llah, although the character is not Baha'u'llah.
I so LOVE drawing people of different cultures and races! Happy Drawing!
I am excited that my illustrations have been accepted on a wonderful website called Storybird. www.https://storybird.com/
I have been in the process of trying to find an online free converter that will tranform my jpg files into tiff. files, and hopefully will also convert my regular rgb (red, green, blue) files to a cmyk(cyan, magenta, yellow and black) file, because these format are what the website requires. Since I don't have a photoshop program and I'm not quite up to speed on the Gymp program on my laptop, finding the right resource on line has been a challenge.
Today I found one that works - for me anyway! Yahoo! I still have to resize the pictures I've chosen, but that I can do on an iphoto program I have on my pc. But I found a website on line that converts not only from rgb to cmyk, but converts from jpg to tiff at the same time. I highly recommend it. http://www.rgb2cmyk.org/
The two pictures below are two different versions of my artwork entitled "A Windy Day In Maine" the first is my original rgb,jpg file. The second is the converted and resized file. The color looks a bit different but I think translates well on a professional site for artists, such as Storybird!
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| "A Windy Day In Maine" original jpg, rgb file |
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"A Windy Day In Maine" in converted RGB,Tiff file.
Below are a few images that I plan to upload onto the Storybird site. What do you think? |
Happy Drawing!
Here is my latest work:
Below is a caricature I did for a local realter who sometimes uses caricatures for promotional materials. Notice the houses on the birthday cake and the house shaped package on the top of the present pile!
I have been accepted as an illustrator to post my work on www.storybird.com so I have been engaged in the process of converting some of my art files from jpg's to Tiff files, as well as changing them to the appropriate color format. This is an image that just came to me about a year ago, and I had the sketch above for all of that time, and was not sure whether it was worth finishing or not. I didn't have a story in mind or any thought of why it's a bird girl or why she looks sad or confused.
I took it out of my files because I think it would fit well into the Storybird website. The idea of the website is that writers can choose an image and write about it! SO here it is (below) in process. I'm still thinking about what color to use on the town and landscape below. I'm doing it in watercolor pencil, and I like choosing whether to apply water or not. In some areas it will look like colored pencil and in other areas- like watercolor- for effect.
Happy Drawing!!
These are pics of the last two gigs I did in 2015! Plus a great video on how to cut silhouettes and a very informational video on caricaturing tools! Now I'm ready to use my off season to drum up some new gigs for the 2016 Spring, Summer, Fall and Holiday Season! I'm very excited about a Wedding Vendor Mixer I'm going to in a week in Portsmouth, Maine, sponsored by www.gayweddingsinmaine.com! Hope to line up some wedding gigs for my silhouetting OR caricaturing or even both!
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| A Silhouette I cut in about five minutes at Sarah Orne Jewett House in the middle of south Berwick, ME during their Home For The Holidays Christmas Celebration in early December 2015. |
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| My table set up with my silhouette display at historic Sarah Orne Jewett House in South Berwick, ME. |
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Sarah Orne Jewett House
South Berwick, ME |
For more info. on the history of Jewett House click here: http://www.historicnewengland.org/historic-properties/homes/sarah-orne-jewett-house
Here's a great you tube video on cutting Silhouettes by Cindi Rose!
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A caricature I did from someone's cell phone at a Christmas Craft Fair in 2015!
I worked from two different photos and did a composite drawing. |
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Three ladies I did a caricature of, for the Gorham Bank Christmas Party held in Portland, ME in Dec. 2015.
I've been looking into finding better drawing tools to use for my caricaturing. Here's a helpful you tube video on Caricaturing supplies!
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By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 11/29/2015
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I had a great Fall doing silhouettes, caricatures, and even facepainting- especially around Halloween!
In September I did Sihouettes for I think- the fourth year running at The Shaker Hill Apple Festival in Alfred, Maine. I had a great time as always and did quite well. Later in October I did Silhouettes at Old York Village 's Market Fest and did so well, I felt like a super star or something! So many people were crowding into the small room I was set up in in Jeffer's tavern, by the end of the day, that I ran out of paper and sold a couple of unmounted silhouettes to the last few people who didn't mind at all. It was cold in the room and my hands were freezing by the end of the day, but the fire was roaring in the fireplace in the next room, where they were demonstrating how they cooked in the 17 and 1800's!
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| My booth set up at Shaker Apple Fest in Alfred, Me! |
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| Silhouettes at Old York Village in York, Maine! |
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| My hubby Larry as a dog! |
On Halloween Weekend my sweet husband Larry and I went up to the BanGoreFest, a half comic-con in Bangor, Maine. My first Comiccon of any kind! I was scheduled to do Face Painting there,
but also had a chance to do a few Caricatures as well!
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| Zombie Girl |
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| Our facepainting and Caricature booth! |
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| Some people in Star Wars Costumes posed for me! |
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| Larry as a Pirate! ARRRRG! |
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 11/7/2015
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Salt River (Mike Rogers, Bev Rogers, Leona Hosack, and Cathy King) will be performing on Saturday November 14th starting at 8 pm at Red & Shorty's Concert Venue, a wonderful place for live music at 4 Paul Street in Dover. We will be performing traditional and original folk-blues, featuring Mike Rogers on blues harmonica.
Hope to see you there!
I have done caricatures and portraits at a lot of wonderful events this summer. My most recent events included a Dog Daze Event at LL Bean in Freeport, ME.
I spent around six hours drawing dogs and their owners! I loved it!
I cut silhouettes, drew pencil portraits and caricatures at The Franklin County Fair in Greenfield, Mass., my home town. the second weekend in September. The weather was good, and the people that stopped by were very nice! And I got to visit relatives that still live in the area!
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| This young man has a smile to die for! |
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 7/26/2015
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| My daughter Anisa took this picture of me doing a pencil portrait of Zoe the dog. |
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| This is the drawing of the same dog, that I drew last year. |
Last Saturday I did portraits and Silhouettes at the Alfred Festival in Alfred, Maine. It rained off and on all day, but not very hard. Not many people came by. But one couple that had had me do a pencil portrait of their dog from their phone last year at this festival, found me again this year and asked me to do the same!
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| I did this caricature of a girl who's mom was one of the vendors in another tent. |
The other day I had an urge to check out what Illustration Friday.com's latest drawing prompt was. I haven't submitted to Illustration Friday in a while. Once in a while I still like the challenge. The theme last week was "Treasure" So I conjured up this little drawing of what a child's version of Treasure might be. What I forgot was that the next day the theme was going to chance, so I never had a chance to post this one, Oh well! Here it is anyway!
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 7/15/2015
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I had a great June this year doing caricatures at a Bah Mitzvah in Mass., the Somersworth Children's Festival in Somersworth, NH, and The Strawberry Festival in South Berwick, Me, as well as a custom caricature executed in my studio in Eliot, Me.
The two ladies above were in attendance at the Bar Mitzvah. It was a very wet day, but they had planned the event to be held under tents in the driveway. There wasn't enough room in the house for many guest. And they had me situated on the porch. Luckily the paper didn't get too soggy, and everyone had a good time watching me draw!
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| A sweet girl posed for me at The Strawberry Festival in South Berwick, ME. |
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| This silhouette was cut at the Somersworth Children's Festival in Somersworth, NH. |
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| My set up at Somersworth Children's Festival! |
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| This boy insisted on wearing his hat for the picture! |
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| Set up in Somersworth,NH. |
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| A Custom Caricature of a family that sent me their photos to work from. |
By: Silhouettes by Leona and more,
on 6/14/2015
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Here are the finals in color for the book I've been working on for the US Baha'i Publishing Trust (Bellwood Press) Jamilla Does Not Want A Bat In Her House! So happy to be done, but also sad! I had so much fun developing these drawing for Phyllis Ring's wonderful book about a girl dealing with her fears of a bat that's invaded her home! I love how Jamilla deals with her fears and I love how Phyllis resolves the issue of how to take care of the bat. That's a hint"take care"! I won't give away the ending!
Please buy the book to find out! A great gift for any child in your life who has ever had to deal with a fear!
Bellwood Press will be releasing this hopefully sometime later this year! It will be available on www.bahaibooks.com so keep a watch out for it!
I had a chance to do this portrait of a mom and her two little ones for Mother's Day! The photo I worked with is below. I used a little artistic liscense, in adjusting the size of the boy on the left. I wanted the mom to be a little taller than the kids. It just seemed to work better visually. Working with the shadows on their faces was fun!
Below are some of the facepainting work I've done lately.
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| My granddaughter Pheadra wanted the Cat with flowers design! Meow! |
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| My other granddaughter Bailey wanted the cat/flower face too! It was her birthday party! |
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| Other guests at the party! |
Below is an insightful talk by my favorite illustration teacher and children's book artist Will Terry. Good advice about time management for artists!
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| Pencil Portrait with descriptive words! Information on ordering a similar portrait design from a photo click here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/230405489/custom-pencil-portrait-with-descriptive?ref=shop_home_active_1 |
I love playing with words and portraits- incorporating them into one design. I also love drawing my family and the portrait I did above is my beautiful daughter and is based on the photo of her below! And the portrait below that is of my daughter and her two lovely daughters, my grandgirls!
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| I also used this portrait as a sample in my Etsy Shop! |
https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/PortraitsbyLee/tools/listings/230660832
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| Mixed Media: pen and ink, colored pencil and collage |
Here's an illustration I submitted to Illustration Friday a couple of years ago. Actually this was the first one I ever submitted there, I think!
Thought I'd bring this one out again and share it!
Here is my latest custom order for a silhouette. I just cut this today!
What a sweetie-pie! I use two sided black and white silhouette paper, and I just look at the photo and cut, as I would do at a festival or event. It usually takes about five minutes! Sometimes when doing a custom order I'll do it over several times to get it just right, but this one I did only once. When I get the feedback from the mom I may still do it over, depending on her approval, but since it only takes a few minutes do-overs are not a big deal!
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The photo I worked from!
I love silhouetting!
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| Drawings for a possible upcoming book project. |
I have had many opportunities lately to do drawings of people and animals which show various emotions and I have had a lot of fun experimenting with what different emotions might look like!
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| A sad elephant- a submission for Illustration Friday I did a couple of years ago! |
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A page from the upcoming book I'm illustration for Bellwood Press,
Jamila Does Not Want A Bat In Her House, written by Phyllis Ring |
Here are some sketches I've done over the years of children showing various emotions! And a great video by well-know Illustrator and Teacher Will Terry on drawing emotions!
A few years ago I came up with a picture book idea that shows a Baha'i child progressing through his day, and incorporating spiritual concepts into his activities. I was lucky to have had an opportunity to show the idea to an editor at Bellwood Press/US Baha'i Publishing Trust and my book Kamal's Day was published last year and is now available at www.baha'ibookstore.com
Click here for a direct link:
http://www.bahaibookstore.com/Search.aspx?k=kamal%27s%20day
Here are three ideas that I used in creating this picture book! Happy Writing!
1.Choose what concept or story you want to share with your readers.
In this book which is a concept book, there's not an actual story with a conflict, and a beginning, middle and end, during which the conflict gets resolved. But there is the story or concept of what Kamal does during his day and how he practices Baha'i ideals supported by his family. I wanted to help Baha'i children, and others to better understand the activities that many of their families and communities are involved with. Baha'is all over the world are engaged in small grassroots study classes for adults and youth, and what is called "Neighborhood Children's Classes" all of which are based on the spiritual teachings of the Baha'i Faith, but are open and free to everyone who is interested in participating.
For more info. on the Baha'i concept of "Core Activities" click here:
http://bahaikipedia.org/Core_activities
2. Choose what spiritual qualities you want your main character to display. In Kamal's Day I wanted the boy to practice virtues such as being generous, having compassion(at one point his friend gets hurt and he says a prayer for him),being responsible, kindness to animals,( he makes sure that his dog is fed in the morning and that she is welcome at children's class.) creativity, enthusiasm, respect,( He respects his father's need to say his obligatory prayer and sits by quietly )and many more.
3. Choose how you want your character to relate to others. I wanted Kamal to have friends of different religious and cultural backgrounds, as many children do, and to be as comfortable sharing his day with children as well as adults. (At noon he shares a prayer and lunch with the lady that lives next door, helps in her garden and decides to give her a serving tray that he made at Children's class!)
Here are all of the illustrations for Kamal's Day:
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| Somehow this picture got left out of the book, the story holds together anyway! |
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| Title: "Bearly Asleep" |
The theme this week over at illustrationfriday.com is Sleep! Does this little sleeping child look happy or what? I had fun with graphite and watercolor pencil in this one!
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I've been working on these illustrations for Jamila Does Not Want A Bat In Her House
since last summer and am now ready to finish up the final pictures in color! Since the bat figures prominently in this book but it is not a Halloween book, I am thinking of avoiding Halloween colors, specifically orange, since I can't avoid black, since bats are black (and brown too, I guess!) I have enjoyed working on borders for some of the drawings, and playing with bats in the designs! The book was written by Phyllis Ring and will be published by Bellwood Press, an imprint of the US Baha'i Publishing Trust! |
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| I'm playing with what this will look like in color. |
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