Snowy Owl Friends

Happy New Year!

Some years you make a custom sticker and an illustrated card for the holidays. Then mail it out, on time, to all your friends, family, and clients. And some years you totally miss the deadline. But since I tend to never give up on myself, I started imagining a smaller mailing. This would be mostly for clients, of original collage pieces - centered around one or two animals, but allowing myself to play and make variations of each.

Working with tiny scissors and a mess of paper all around (and on) me was a lovely practice to reset my work habits and begin a new year. After I popped these in the mail, I heard back from a librarian about a workshop proposal for February Vacation week. I was thrilled that she chose the collage option I suggested. It’s going to be great fun to make paper art with kids. I can’t wait!

It seemed only fitting that I make a drawing sheet for the Snowy Owl. I’d love to spot one in the wild this winter, as they are diurnal, and known to nest on the seacoast.

The Snowy Owl is more challenging than my usual how-to-draw sheets, so in the spirit of equity, I’m sharing a coloring sheet based on a recent illustration:

This was the colored illustration. Based on a sketchbook page I had shared in Substack news that got lots of love.

In terms of book news, I am officially on submission with a new picture book this week. I was telling a friend outside of publishing about it and she asked me if I had celebrated that in any way. I am normally a fan of celebrating the little victories in children’s book publishing - it’s such a challenging and slow business that you have to celebrate whenever possible. But going on submission is historically a very stressful step on the path. Do any fellow writers celebrate going on submission? I’d love to know!

Watching: Severance. Season two came out last night. Did you watch? It’s nice to have an old fashioned week-to-week show to mull over again.

Listening to: Lone Women by Victor Lavalle on audiobook. I’m still at the beginning but it is beautifully read and written and I am hooked. I’ve been on a tear of reading horror lately, having just finished the print copy of Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Cuckoo and Model Home by Rivers Solomon 

Reading: Storystorm posts! If you are interested in writing picture books, author Tara Lazar’s January idea-generating challenge is a must. There is a new blog post every day and lots of giveaway prizes. I love that you can return to these inspirational posts any time of year when you need a little help finding the start of your next story.