Adrift

My mouse turned one year old today,
So I bought her a gift.
A balloon, what a bad idea!
My mouse is now adrift.

"Chipmunks are worth conversing with, if only to admire their stripes."

In his Junior year attending Rhyming UniNursery, Father Duck met an enchanting pig named Katrina. He immediately fell in love. Following is a poem and illustration Father Duck created for a valentine to win the heart of his divine swine.

Father Duck and his beloved Katrina

Valenswine

by Father Duck

The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
The skunk doth stink, and so do you.
I’ll plug my nose, if you’ll be mine
Won’t thou be my Valenswine?

Thy pudgy face, it’s got me shaken,
Thou art so hot, you should be bacon.
I’ll love you forever, my dear pork rind,
Won’t thou be my Valenswine?

Sadly, Katrina squealed and waddled wee wee wee wee all the way home, leaving Father Duck heart broken andwondering “where did I go wrong?”

Setting for This Tree is for Me

Next up: Layout sketches.

By Jeffrey Duckworth

Applesauce The Wonderchimp,
Can not even fly.
Not a single burst of speed has he,
Nor X-ray super eye.

 As mighty as a Wildebeest?
Not close to that is he.
And goodness knows the breath he blows
Would hardly sway a bee. 

And if he were to leap
As high as he could jump.
He couldn’t clear a single tree
Even if it were a stump. 

Little Jack Horner was never intended to be a good boy. How can the simple act of sticking your thumb in a pie categorize you as a “good boy.” As far as I’m concerned, sticking your thumb in a pie categorizes you as  ”not so bright boy.”

Originally written by Father Duck with the title Little Jack Hornest, it was a cautionary Nursery Rhyme about bears and the dangers of sticking your thumb in their éclair. 

Little Jack Hornest

By Father Duck 

Little Jack Hornest,
Sat in the forest,
Eating a honey éclair;
He put in his thumb,
Then thought “man I’m dumb,”
For it really belonged to a bear.

Little Jack Hornest

Dummy Book for Moo-Pig

The Dummy of Moo-Pig is finally ready to send to a potential publisher. There is a fine line when creating a dummy book. Some say not to put too much work in it as you don’t want to give an impression of a final product. However, I’m a perfectionist. I like to produce a model that an editor can hold in their hands and get a good feel for how the final product will look on a shelf. I do all the printing, binding, and cover myself. The result can be seen above. If there is interest, I will do a walkthrough of my whole dummy book process. I have a publisher picked out and will be mailing the dummy book (the one on the left) Monday.

I would love to hear comments on everyone’s experience with Dummy Books. How much is too much and can producing a “final product” hurt your chances with a publisher?

Little known fact: Hey Diddle Diddle was originally a joint effort between Mother Goose and her cousin Father Duck. It was part of a collaborative writing assignment they completed while attending Rhyming UniNursery. In fact, this Nursery Rhyme is so old that when she wrote it, Mother Goose was no Mother. They simply called her Goose. Upon achieving fame, Goose dropped both the second verse and credit toward Duck for fear of being overshadowed by his far superior prose. Here is the original version.

Hey Diddle Diddle (Origin of the Spork)

By Goose and Duck 

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Bye diddle diddle,
This caused such a riddle,
For the spoon was betrothed to the fork,
But the fork got his wish, the spoon left the dish,
And the two soon had a baby spork.

Spoon, Fork, and Baby Spork

Purple Fish Textures Test

Orange Monkey Textures Test

While the textures turned out OK, something was missing. I tried natural textures, manmade textures, geometric textures, etc. but nothing seemed to fit just right. After struggling, I realized why. The lines didn’t want a texture. They were too playful and loose to support them. In the end, Orange Monkey just didn’t look Orange Monkeyish enough and Purple Fish? Well, he was a bit Fishy. I was about to give up when on a whim I applied the same color style as I used in Moo-Pig and in many illustrations on this site. Both Monkey and Fish loved them.  I enjoy this technique it shows in my work when I use it. Here is the sketch I came up with:

Orange Monkey and Purple Fish in Colorfulticity.

This works much better. I still plan to implement the textures into the illustrations, but they will be used in the setting. This is a curveball in my plan of attack on the book, but I always follow the illustrations where they may go. It’s always important to me to listen to the story, to the characters, and give them what they need to be successful.