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Don’t you want to know more about this little bird? I do. This collage illustration comes from freelance illustrator Lindsay Ward<\/a><\/strong>, who is here in the 7-Imp pad on this first Sunday of the month, in which I like to feature up-and-coming illustrators. It is from an upcoming book she is doing with Penguin in Spring 2012, called Blue & Egg<\/em>. (That title is subject to change, she tells me.) “This will be the second author\/illustrator project I have done,”<\/em> she added. “It is about a little bird who lives in Central Park. One morning a snowball lands in her nest, but Blue thinks it is an egg. She spends the rest of the book trying to find Egg’s mother, while developing a friendship with Egg. Soon, Spring comes and Egg is melting. Blue tries to help save her friend. The ending has a quiet surprise and highlights that friendship always wins out in the end.”<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the story of a persistent pig, Mrs. Pippins (his owner), and the creation of an organic garden (with a plot twist I won’t give away but that will have your scatalogically-minded wee ones giggling hard-core). This link<\/a><\/strong> tells you more about the title and that it’s evidently based on the true story of Basil, a pet pig who lived on the author’s family farm. The book closes with “Pig’s Tips for Growing Your Own Organic Garden”: Planting it, keeping weeds out the natural way, fertilizing it, and making your own compost bin. <\/p>\n Here are the book’s back endpapers:<\/p>\n “{This} second image {below} is from the first book I wrote and illustrated, <\/em>Pelly and Mr. Harrison Visit the Moon, due out from Kane\/Miller in Spring 2011. This is the story of a little girl named Pelly and her quirky dog, Mr. Harrison, who travel to the moon in their bathtub (which has managed to grow a rocket engine on the back of it). Pelly and Mr. Harrison meet a little alien and spend the book having adventures on the moon with their newfound friend.”<\/em> <\/p>\n Lindsay, who lives in Ohio, works primarily in cut paper and mixed media, “making use of paint, stamps, pencil, and anything else I can find. I have piles and piles of paper in my studio that I have collected from various places, which is one of my favorite things to do. I love trying to incorporate dictionary terms, crossword puzzles, old book cloth, newspaper, and so forth in my work. My typewriter is probably my favorite thing in my studio. I love old things like that.”<\/em><\/p>\n I love Lindsay’s inviting, spirited collages, and I really<\/em> want to see a story that swirls around the wee lass in Flight Patterns<\/em>. You can see more art at Lindsay’s site<\/a><\/strong>. I thank her for stopping by. <\/p>\n All art work used with permission of Lindsay Ward. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n As a reminder, 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. <\/p>\n 1). I attended a fundraising event for the upcoming Southern Festival of Books<\/a><\/strong> at this wonderful brewery<\/a><\/strong>, who gave us all a tour. I’m tellin’ ya, this place represents just about everything good about locally-owned businesses. They simply rock. <\/p>\n 2). My four-year-old and I visited a librarian at this Vanderbilt library<\/a><\/strong>, and it was the first time I met her face-to-face. (We had first met via email-slash-the Facebook world.) You know how when you meet someone for the first time and you just KNOW, she is one of my people<\/em>. Yup. That. We instantly clicked. <\/p>\n 3). If you’re friends with Steven Withrow, he’ll just randomly send you his gorgeous original poetry. One of those from this week is posted at his blog<\/a><\/strong>. Enjoy. <\/p>\n 4). We’re planning one of those excessively suburban’y, all-American trips to Disney World, a place I’ve yet to visit in my life and a trip for which we’ve saved and saved. (And we figure our wee girls will explode from happiness and that we’ll be picking up pieces of them at the park.) Anyway. Realizing they didn’t have suitcases, we got them some this week. I found this note one morning taped to the side of the six-year-old’s. (On the other side is a note that says, “HASTA LA VISTA, KITTYS.”)<\/p>\n (I’m intrigued by the whole Cinderella part of the drawing, as she doesn’t particularly care for that movie and thinks Cinderella, along with pretty much every other princess but Tiana<\/a><\/strong>, needs to “get a job.”)<\/p>\n 5). Remember this post<\/a><\/strong>? Check out this great NBC video<\/a><\/strong>, all about Ren\u00e9e<\/a><\/strong> and Shadra’s<\/a><\/strong> book.<\/p>\n 6). HA. Just HA. It’s German director Werner Herzog<\/a><\/strong> reading\/interpreting Madeline<\/a><\/strong><\/em> as only he can. “In truth, children are next door to sociopaths.”<\/p>\nBut let’s back up a little. Linday’s illustrated a picture book, written by Kathryn K. Thurman<\/a><\/strong> (who is also an artist), called A Garden for Pig<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, which was just released at the beginning of this month by Kane Miller. Lindsay’s mixed media illustrations for this title were rendered with cut paper, pencil, paint, stamps, and pastel. <\/p>\n
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