Hanna's New Skill - Work in Progress!

I am super excited about Hanna's New Skill.  This story relays the message that everyone has a skill of their own.  I based the book of an Albert Einstein quote "Everyone is a genius, but if you teach a fish to climb a tree, they will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid."

I am having a lot of fun with this book.  For each skill Hanna tries to learn, I added a human quality.  Charlie the cheetah is wearing running shoes, Peter the pup with baseball attire, Franny the flamingo dons a tutu and Felicity the fish has on swim goggles.  You find Hanna, wearing similar attire as she attempt each skill.

I am happy to announce, the book is in the proof stage. We should see this book for sale April 2016.

Local Mention

I was thrilled to have my book mentioned of on the show Delmarva life during a segment celebrating local artists. 

Watch for it around the 1 minute mark. 

Behind The Story

A little background on my first book, The Colorless Forest  - 
I wrote the story mid to late 70's when I was a teenager.  I held onto my original story and drawings for all those years.  Fast forward to the year 2015, when I planted a seed in my head to illustrate and write a book. My goal was to come up with a story to send positive messages to children.  Many ideas were swirling around my brain, when I remembered the book I once wrote many years ago. I pulled it out of a box in the basement and blew off the dust.  The drawings were rough and the story was type written on strips of paper and stapled to each page.  But, I still loved the story and thought, this will be my first book!

The story teaches about colors and how you can make any color with the three colors red, blue and yellow.  It also met my goal of sending a positive message. It shows how color makes things beautiful and unique.  If everything was the same, it would be boring.  The characters in the book are a monkey, a squirrel and a bird.  I added a 'secret' frog to each page.  The frog is never mentioned in the story, but is on each page reacting to the events of the story.

After hours and hours of research, rewriting, finding the right medium and recreating all my drawings, I had a finished product. I am very proud of my first book.

Below are some before and after images of my book.  Notice the frog in the new version? 

Announcing the Release of The Colorless Forest

Announcing the release of The Colorless Forest. Now available on Amazon.com

This illustrated children's book starts out with some sleepy animals 

living in a forest that has no color at all.

A new color is revealed as the monkey, squirrel and bird each open their eyes. They discover that with three simple colors they can make any color they want to. They also realize how beautiful the world can be with the addition of a little color.