The boys are coming home from a long week at the office. We have two lovely senior girls who are here for a french movie festival with Kitty. Alex is all over it....trying to be cool....but you know...gorgeous girls can make a young man's head turn. We had a mess of track runners parked in the kitchen talking about books and such. Lots happening in the office. A total redesign of a publication keeping aspects of it.. and then, after throwing my hands up...redesigning and writing as I go. I even found new pictures, did some retouching and background matching for the comp...and DANG. It looked pretty good for being stone soup. Cleaner with some thinking about the hierarchy of headlines, subheads, pullouts etc. And a grid...imagine! A structure to hang this whole magilla off!
Cinnamon bun making is the bread project for tonight. I made oatmeal bread (on the King Arthur bread flour bag) and folded a bunch of bulgur wheat into it. Didnt puff up like I expected, but its more than edible and with the crew around here, we will devour two loaves in two days. So more learning about yeast and proofing, rising and raising and how long the loaves need to cook to be done but not overdone...Its all a new path that seems to fill in the time between my funny silhouette drawings. These babies are quick...not as much articulation as the others and right now, a welcome change.
It's fun how the current flip mirrors a technique that is all about flipping. I hold the idea of Hans Christian Anderson cutting his wicked little pictures as he spun stories of little mermaids walking on feet that bled or the spinning eyes of the frightening dog that guarded the treasure in the Tinderbox. Cutting and stories, an aesthetic that is shared with Slovenly Peter and the wild haired, wicked heros that have entertained and frightened me since the first hearing. Nice to know that being over 50 and still fearful is a good place to be. Time moves forward and some of us stay locked in the same fears and pleasures as our childhood. And sometimes those fears and pleasures, as in the case of fairy tales, can be the same.
My stamp with the Double Happiness illustration got recognized as a "Best" yesterday. I got a lot of nice kudos from my fellow Zazzle designers along with two sales...(to the tune of $2. profit). However, it is fun to do, and if the illustrations can make me dresser change, then its more dresser change than I had yesterday.