Painting Mostly Animals

Bringing Home The Tree

                  Funny how things happen without consciously deciding that this is what will happen...
     I decided to update my long  overlooked blog and post some new work and realized
that I seem to have spent much of the past two years painting animals!
Here are some of my recent pieces, lots of animals...but there a few images to be painted of nothing but people and  there is a gnome-y sort of fellow which is kind of a person!!!!
                   Working on two companion pieces to Mammals right now, Farm Animals and Snowmen...which are, again, sort of like people!

Animal Characters

  

Sleeping Pussywillow Ladies ( Fox's Surprise Birthday )

Fox ( Fox's Surprise Birthday )

Fox's Birthday cake ( detail )

 

Fox's Birthday Cake ( detail )

Fox's Birthday Cake ( Fox's Surprise Birthday )

Deer ( Fox's Surprise Birthday

The Countess

Lautrec Toulouse

The Party

Cici

Mammals

Mexican Sour Gherkins, seed pack art Hudson Valley Seed Library

Quack 

              Thank you for spending a few minutes here....I appreciate it,
                       I'll post again sooner.....next time....Farm Animals!

The Best Part of the Day

A brand new just released 2 days ago picture book is a very exciting thing for everyone involved in the blessed event.

As the illustrator, I spent many months drawing and then painting the illustrations for this book. That part wasn't unusual, that's what happens with every book I illustrate.
But this book...everyday for months, for hours everyday...I was steeped in Gratitude, buoyed as it were in a sea of thankfulness.

   This is from the back of the book, for those old enough to read such things, a message "upon reading this book", from Sarah;
   " Each day all we have is all we need, although many days what we truly need is an awareness of how much we have. Gratitude makes this transformative miracle possible in tiny choices and small steps. The pace of Grace is best bestowed while holding a child's hand."

  While working on these paintings I fell in love with the concept, the practice of introducing Gratitude to small children, especially in these times when busyness and overwhelm and scary events that feel beyond ones control seem to be front and center. Creating a space for quiet reflection  is a gift I try to give myself everyday, counting my blessings and reminding myself that I am surrounded by abundance, miracles, large and small and that my life, always, is so very full of so much to be grateful for.
 Again, from the book, "...our happy task as we read to our children and grandchildren is to help them ( as well as ourselves! ) recall a few moments which brought smiles to their faces and made the day special. When we do this, we explore the grace of Gratitude, not as a "grown-up" philosophy, but as a creative and spiritual practice that anchors our lives in appreciation and wonder".
 She goes on to say more, but you'll have to read the book!

Working on this book made me happy, and I hope that happiness shines through in the finished paintings. I am grateful to Cheryl, Diane and Marji at Regnery Kids who chose me to illustrate this book and, of course, I am deeply thankful to Sarah for writing it in the first place....and to everyone who  takes a moment, everyday, to recall the best part of their day!

Advance copies...the day the books arrived!!!!

Oh, and before I forget, The Best Part of the Day can be found at bookstores everywhere and of course online at Amazon ,
Barnes & Noble

                                                                       Thank You

                                                                       best, Wendy

 

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!

Three New Books

  It may be the long slow, languid days of Summer but whoopee! I just finished three books!

            The first one , a board book version of "Over The River and Through the Woods" is actually published (Ideals) and out on Amazon and from booksellers everywhere.
             Cool and frosty, snow covered trees and a snowman...a jingle bell accompanied sleigh ride snuggled under warm quilts, sounds pretty good right about now!

Here are a few images from the book:

"Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go..."

"Over the river and through the woods to have a first-rate play..."

      I  just finished, "On This Night" for Hachai Publishing, a child's first book about the Passover Seder. I have been working on this book for six years, in between other projects, a labor of love, which I have dedicated to the memory of both my Grandmothers. I can hardly believe that it is finally finished and will be out next Spring, Passover, 2013. Here are some images from this book:

Title Page

Next Year in Jerusalem

Blessing

Passover Seder Table

 The third book completed is "The Christmas Truce" by Aaron Shepard for whom I also illustrated  "The Baker's Dozen". This book tells the inspiring true story of the spontaneous

cease fire along the Western Front between the German and British soldiers on Christmas 1914. Many soldiers, from both sides, ventured into "No Man's Land" where they mingled, sang songs, exchanged gifts and food and mementos from home. 

      This book will be out in 2014 to coincide with the centennial anniversary of The Truce.

Here are some images from this book:

   

       Just to make certain that I don't become accustomed to lounging in a hammock and listening to the clouds drift by......I have two new books to work on.  More on all that, soon.