First: Thanks for visiting my blog!
As I am slowly starting to realize my dream of creating children's books through words and illustration, it's time to start sharing some of my thoughts on this whole magical, frustrating, challenging, extremely competitive and wonderful process.
This journey really started when I began my career as a professional fine artist after leaving the corporate world as an art director. As I began selling and showing my art which had -always- a narrative quality, and a positive, sometimes but NOT always a whimsical point of view, I started hearing a repetitive refrain.
"You should be illustrating children's books"
I have loved picture books, and children's literature for my whole life- in fact have been fairly obsessed with it.
I read, and re-read, Grimms Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson, The entire Wizard of Oz series, the entire Mary Poppins series.
Loved, loved Eloise, and so wanted to live like her, in an apartment at the Plaza with a bratty dog and my bratty but oh so self aware and confident self. I wanted to be a City Child.
But the book that made me want to be a writer was Harriet the Spy. I kept notebooks with my inner thoughts and observations for years. In fourth grade I decided to self publish a book detailing what each one of my classmates wanted to be when they grew up, including humorous illustrations.
When I picture myself as a child growing up in Rumson, N.J., I visualize myself either at a little table with my markers - "Doodlers" was the brand name, ( did I love them!) or laying almost on top of the floorboard vent, soaking up the heat on a cold New Jersey evening, while reading or re-reading, one of my favorite books.