Autumn Is In The Air...

   Of course, it is still Summer.
   I know this because the calendar says so and because I am still wearing flip-flops and sandals.
   It is, however, raining again which it hasn't done much of in weeks and weeks. It is getting dark now while I am making dinner AND there are, occasionally, yellow leaves lazily falling. It has been Autumn on my drawing board for most of the Summer. I have begun painting Winter this week....so Spring will surely come soon.

  Here are some sneak peeks at the current book I am working on:

Thank you

best, Wendy

Tres De Mayo or Daisy at El Mercato

El Mercato

   Now...
the marinating and percolating have come to an end, just today...
eventually one simply must stop ( as in enough already!!! ) and leave the realm of the mental and put pencil to paper and continue on that way.
When I begin a new book it becomes a character in itself...underneath it all, beneath what "happens".  This new book is whispering about gratitude, being safe and loved.....which is a lovely place from which to start.
  For me painting is an anodyne, it relaxes me and allows my mind to drift while I play with colors. Drawing is the work, the heavy lifting, a stimulant demanding focus and muscle.
  I just finished this watercolor. It goes with the previous post, more Daisy the cajeta colored dog in Michoacan. This painting is Daisy at the market...following her nose and the roasty toasty smell of tortillas.

   Now drawing.

Tortilla Dreams

 Percolating
  Marinating
...feeling like what I imagine a seed must feel like in rich, loamy soil...warmed by the Spring sunshine and softened by the rain...above ground it looks like nothing much is going on, when seemingly all of a sudden, a sliver of achingly tender baby green leaf peeks out, brilliant against the chocolate cake crumbly dark.
  That's me, I'm that little seed.

 I'm starting a new picture book. Pictures for this plummy bedtime book full of sweetness on the inside, in my head, under the surface but outside I just finished painting this little piece of my first dog, Daisy. 
     When we lived in Michoacan there was a tortilleria down the street where everyday a woman made fresh, hot corn tortillas and Daisy adored them...warm, unadorned...gulp. I wrote a story called "The Cajeta Colored Dog Who Loved Tortillas"...this is the final painting from the story, Daisy, after her adventures at the end of a long day, dreaming of tortillas.

Daisy Dreaming Tortilla Dreams

 More about progress on the new book soon...when the first true leaves have come...on the outside.

Also, I created a brand new website for myself ( thank you Wix! )...finally!  Same address as the old one, Wendy Edelson dot com but now, hoooray hooray, I can update it and add/subtract whatever I want, whenever I want. Go see, I hope you enjoy it...and thank you.

Promising The Moon

Promising The Moon

I've spent the past two glorious weeks....blissfully painting Promising The Moon.
Despite all my very best intentions to periodically paint "just for myself", without art direction or for a particular project...to simply slosh about in paint, layering glaze after glaze of transparent color to my heart's content, drawing whatever pleases me with no  thought towards inner or outer art directors or trends or purpose...I have failed miserably and fill all my time.. working on projects...never seeming to find the few hours...let alone weeks to play and see what reveals itself...so this was a treat.

 Now, let me say, I love my work and I am filled with enormous gratitude that I am able to spend my life in being a full time working artist/illustrator, everyday. Every single day I am thankful beyond measure for this gift....for all the special and wonderful art directors and authors and clients that I have worked with in the past and am working with now.

  There is an "I can't wait to jump out of bed and run to the drawing board" kind of glee that is particularly awesome in painting something for absolutely no reason at all...just for the unabashed happiness of it.  That's what went into this painting...that and love.

Oh...and Promising will be going to Surtex,  artlicensing's  booths, #s 705 and 707! Maybe it will end up being a puzzle or something else, after all. I would love to paint eleven more for a calendar.

   also

"I Believe In Genevieve" by Jenny Craig, published by Regnery, will be out this Fall, in late September but is up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble etc already.
 I love painting horses!

More soon!