Leaving the cradle...

Today will be my first book event outside of my comfortable little bubble of West Michigan.  I'll be doing a reading/book signing at Tree Town Toys here in Ann Arbor at 11am (https://treetowntoys.com/).

I'm still having a blast with promoting and selling the book, but the fact that it consumes so much time that could otherwise be spent working on new creative pursuits is truly frustrating.  I'd say that has been the biggest pitfall to self-publishing: lack of time to do new stuff.  Aside from working on new book ideas, I'm also doing a large watercolor painting as a wedding gift for my sister and her soon-to-be husband.  I REEEEEALLY need to finish it this week so I can get it scanned and framed in time for the July 16th wedding.  I'm a counselor at a church camp all next week, so that puts an even bigger crunch on the whole project.

Oh well!  Time to get serious, I guess.  I'll paint for an hour before I have to start prepping for my event.  Here we go...  

You can buy the book on Amazon now!

I recently joined Amazon Advantage, a system offered to independent publishers who would like to see their work sold on  Amazon.  Here's a link to The Woodcutter and The Most Beautiful Tree!

Advantage is a relatively easy system to sign-up for and use:

1.) Make an account
2.) Add an item (media)
3.) Amazon places orders
4.) Print shipping label
5.) Send to Amazon

Amazon will then either send you a check or deposit funds directly into your account each month as your items sell.  As an independently published author/illustrator, it's really nice to have access to a market as big as Amazon.  I've mostly stayed away from trying to get my book into the large chain stores (B&N, Borders) for a few reasons (poor sales outlook, books getting leafed-through and damaged), so it's so nice to have online distribution aside from my charming, but super-tiny, website.

So please, check it out on Amazon.  And if you're feeling super-generous and would like to write yourself into my heart forever and ever, please feel free to write a review (good, bad, or ugly...just let 'em know what you think :-)).

2 months since last update. I am sweeeeet!

Here is a piece I did for a friend.  She was involved in this year's West Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church, and asked if I'd help out with some of the stage design.  She was on a committee and they were interested in having me incorporate my illuminated circles into the theme for the conference: "Take My Hand."  The vision was to have my design (on 16"x 20" watercolor paper) scanned and printed on four 4' x 20' banners featuring this image:

 So, I started with the background...

Added the hands and pen work...and finished!

Yay!