This is Olivia when she was about 3 with her pink handbag. (Oh she's my lovely niece, did I tell you?)
(Photo taken with my plastic toy Holga camera.)
My nephew, Harry (6), wanted to play machine guns in the trenches with his little sister; Olivia (3), just wanted to play princesses with Harry. It was a predicament.
It didn’t stop Olivia. She went fearlessly into battle but here’s the thing: in the middle of the machine gun fire—down there in the trenches with Harry—knee deep in all that mud—there she was, carrying her pink handbag.
Clearly—even in no-man’s land—Olivia would not be seen dead without her handbag.
But what to put in a handbag that goes with you into battle?
For that I approached the expert. "Olivia," I asked. "What do you keep your handbag?" She looked up at me as if I was the most foolish aunt any child could possibly have--and said, "My friends."
Of course. Do children have to explain EVERYTHING to grown ups? I think so. Probably. Sorry.
She then proceeded to pull out of her handbag: a plastic carrot, a furry bear, a tiny doll with one arm and bad hair, a strange knitted creature, a teapot and a purple troll.
But anyway, that's how Handbag Friends began. And it's for Oliva (and her pink handbag) that I wrote it.
Wait. Isn't it? shouldn't we? what about?
I think so.
Let's sing The Handbag Song! (You know you want to.)
Here are some sketches for Josephine Pebbles. The top one is of the flying pirate ship that she rides on and the bottom one is Josephine herself. The manuscript is at a place I'm happy with, thank you so much Alicia, Viviane, Alexis and Frank! I never realized how essential it is to have others read your work! There is so much the writer can miss!
I'm putting the project on hold for about a week while I work on the Jack painting.
While working on Josephine Pebbles I also went back and overhauled the Bera The Troll story and I think it's much better now. I've also gone back to my original idea of doing it as a comic book, especially after reading Mouse Guard.
I'm finding I'm most driven to tell my own stories. This means bigger risks and less money, which I feel I can't afford. It makes things really complicated. And it throw the "get an agent" plan into total confusion. It's hard enough to be an illustrator, doing your own projects makes the path seem that much steeper. I'll keep working on my own projects as well as working on my portfolio, though. Has anyone else any feelings on this? How do you balance things?
Here are some more sketches which are loosely related. The top one is for the soon to be released pirate book and the bottom one is a rough for an other pirate story that became Josephine Pebbles. I'm feeling distracted lately. I have too many things I'd like to do but don't officially have a contract. So I have that frustrating floating feeling where I'm working and working but not sure what I'm doing.
A new painting! This is from the Hans Christian Andersen story, Thumbelina. It's more of a detail, because it's a little too big for the scanner. This painting is the first of a series I'm doing to build up my portfolio. I'll be doing seven new pieces to add to existing ones, and in the end I hope to have twelve or thirteen paintings that are a really good representation of my work. Most of the pieces will be from well known stories, like fairy tales and classic children's stories. It took a while to get to this point because I had to look at my work and decide which pieces represented me best, what level of finish I wanted. The problem with paintings like this is that they take longer to complete than some other work I do. some pictures take about four days to finish and this one took more than a week. However, I'm most comfortable with showing what I feel is my best work. I'll be taking a few days before starting the next painting, which is from Jack And The Beanstock, as I'll be working on story boards for Josephine Pebbles and doing a small commisioned piece.
Here's the third and last drawing I did for the pirate story, this one is my favorite. I finished a rough script for Josephine Pebbles last night, which was a surprise because I planning to do nothing yesterday. I wrote it fairly quickly and it need lots of revision but it's one of the few stories I've written with a beginning, middle and end and the conclusion makes sense. The theme came to me quickly too, usually I feel like I'm sifting through my words looking for what it means.
I got to see rough version of my next book, The Terrible, Horrible Stinky Pirate and it looks great. The publisher hired a design firm Co&Co, that does amazing work. The fonts are actually funny. The launch date is May 22nd.
Here's another pencil rough from the story I wrote. I'm now considering redoing it as a picture book illustrated by pencil drawings, more finished than this one. I've started re-writing it. The working title is Josephine Pebbles and it centers on a girl who is extremely bored until she has an adventure on a coin operated, rat crewed flying pirate ship. In the new version the ship is held aloft by a balloon, which is easier to draw than all those sails. It might be a lot of fun to do.
On an unrelated note, actress Ellen Paige from Juno was in front of me in line at the organic food market this morning. It's my wife's birthday party today so I was stocking up. I made a point of not staring but I kept thinking " Wow! You're going to be at the Oscars!"It sort of shook up my image of living at the end of the Earth.
This is Olivia when she was about 3 with her pink handbag. (Oh she's my lovely niece, did I tell you?) 
Hi Sally!!!
I have not met you personally - but you have impacted many people I love. I know Pam Harmsen - who met with you back in the fall when she was visiting her brother in New York. We have used your Jesus Story book for our gardening class and after using it for that - purchased one for each of my nieces and now have to get one for my brand new nephew. The way you wrote the stories, the illustrations - the kids LOVED it and so did I! I just happened on your blog through Angie Smith's!!! I love the blog world!!
Anyway - just wanted to let you know how much the kids love reading from your Bible story book. Lucy, Destiny and Jose showed me the book you signed for them as soon as they got it (they are a family I work very closely with - I've become the grandma to the kids!) Anyway - just wanted to let you know that I am very thankful you wrote that book and wanted to let you know how much it has impacted the lives of "my kids". :)
Looking forward to getting more of your books and sharing them as well.
Noelle:
so great to hear from you. thanks for dropping by. It's a very small world. Pam is great!
So glad to hear how much you and your kids love the book. It's God's Wonderful Story and my honor to have a small part in making the Bible more real for children!
thanks for the encouragement