I wracked my brain for two weeks, more and more frantic to think of SOMETHING that hadn't been done before. And finally, with 36 hours to a deadline, I had it. The assignment fell in the springtime, with all my senses already heightened to the vivid new life around me, and I wrote that story in an hour. The pictures required most of the remaining hours; I hauled around my art supplies and materials and unpacked on the nearest available surface whenever I had twenty minutes to spare.
I was a high school junior, a Creative Writing student, with a children's book to produce.
When at last I broke through the blank wall in my brain and found that story, it took up residence in my heart and has never left. I called it simply "The Dance," and my illustration materials were equally simple: construction paper, tempera paint, oil pastels...and clear packing tape. I had to seal those pastels in somehow, and I invested what felt like a lot of my money for two or three big rolls of tape to laminate my project. I remember distinctly spending back-to-back study hall and lunch periods holed up in the back of the library, chatting with a friend while I frantically/painstakingly measured, cut, applied, and pressed out the bubbles on row after row of that tape. I finished up as the bell rang for class. I handed in that labor of love, proud and excited, knowing I had made something good.
That was just the beginning.
I'm not sure if I was running out of tape or time...Several of the pages in the original.
A mural instantly transforms a space. Wherever it's placed--an alcove in your entryway, your children's bedroom walls, the side of an abandoned building, the sidewalk in front of your shop--that surface can't help but to testify to new life.
Chapter 3, Spurred to Action (or the Importance of Husbands)
I experienced college, I got married, I must have had periodic conversations with my husband about the book endeavor. "Someday I would love to..." "Wouldn't it be amazing if..."
I had babies. I read other people's books to my babies. I did craft projects with them, teaching them how to color and cut and paint and paste. I continued to pore over picture books, their stories and artwork,
So I gave that assignment into the hands of my teacher (see Part 1), feeling it was almost perfect. She agreed. Her criticism brimmed with encouragement, even when addressing the same imperfection I hadn’t known how to resolve: the ending. (Have you ever struggled to write an ending? Perhaps it is the most elusive writing skill.) She offered a couple of suggestions. I pondered them for a few minutes before moving my brain on to the next assignment, and I tucked my manuscript away in a safe place for later.
Sometime in the following year my Nashville grandparents came for a visit. That pair was instrumental in fostering my early love of children’s picture books, as they had long prioritized reading with children. When my dad and his siblings were young, Grandma would bustle everybody and a box to the public library each week, where they would max out their library card and fill up the box with a new pile of books to borrow. When I was young, she and Grandaddy would both read stories with me snuggled on their laps; that was a favorite Grandma-Grandaddy pastime among all the cousins. So when they came for a visit during my senior year of high school, I naturally shared the story I had created for a class with them.
A few months later I received a piece of Real Mail in my college post box, precisely typed up in Grandma’s signature fashion. She had contacted a publisher in Nashville to ask about submitting manuscripts, and detailed her findings for me with the admonition to “keep the faith, be persistent and patient” in the face of any potential rejection. Her letter was the first time the idea of publishing my book got any legs to grow on, and her belief that I could do it buoyed the dreams in the back of my mind for years.
The Real Letter, saved for 15 years in my writing notebook, which first suggested publishing as an attainable goal.
But there were other things to put my hands to first. I finished college, married my sweetheart. We must have had periodic conversations about the Book Endeavor: "Someday I would love to..." and "Wouldn't it be amazing if..."
Babies arrived. I read other people's wonderful books to my babies. I did craft projects with them, teaching them how to color and cut and paint and paste. I continued to pore over picture books, admiring their stories and artwork, sharing the treasure with my children and others’. I still talked about Someday with my husband.
Last year he finally said, “What are you waiting for?” I didn’t know, except the season had never felt right; it hadn’t occurred to me as a pursuit for the present. God has a way of keeping the doors closed on an endeavor until what He calls “the fullness of time.” He has been at work behind the scenes on this process for the last fifteen years, allowing me to marinade in good children’s books and gain the confidence to go for it, to put my own work out there into the world. What a gift.
But when Andy gave me that “What are you waiting for” pep talk, a new season was ushered in. The time had come to begin again. I knew my original story was basically good. I also knew that, though I basically liked the original illustrations, they would have to be redone; it seemed pretty certain that faded construction paper and packing tape just wouldn’t cut it. So last spring I set to work (there it was, springtime again!) editing the text and exploring new artistic techniques to decide how best to capture its emotion and movement and vivid color.
One of Lois Elhert's delightful and educational titles.One of the incredible spreads in Ashley Bryan's "All Things Bright And Beautiful."
"The cold wind in the winter" -A. Bryan"The pleasant summer sun" -A. Bryan
Those were surprisingly difficult decisions for me, but I finally settled into learning new techniques that suited my imagination and vision for The Colors Danced. Inspired by the work of creators like Lois Ehlert and especially Ashley Bryan, I took up my exacto knife and began bringing my own story to life with papercutting. And I found enormous joy in the process of creation.
Next week, I will share with you the nuts and bolts of this technique, equipping you to try it out for yourself and to simplify the process to be doable even for small children. Because with the right ideas and practice time, even the most unartistic of you can surprise yourself!
An original illustration from "The Dance," using construction paper and tempera paint, circa 2002.The revised illustration for "The Colors Danced," 2019.
In writing last week about the process of bringing The Colors Danced from its original to its present form, I referenced that choosing what media to use for illustration was a surprisingly difficult decision for me. I wanted to use too many things--watercolor, oil pastel, chalk pastel, colored paper, tempera paint. I knew that for the illustrations to make sense, I needed to narrow the playing field. And while I have admired papercut illustration in various children’s books for a long time, I sort of forgot why I ultimately chose to use it for my new illustrations.
Ah yes! It was because I’m bad at drawing hands.
In the original, I got around this snafu by coating my own hands in tempera paint and printing them onto the paper, filling in color later with oil pastels. I had mixed success. I loved the result here:
Over here, not so much:
Reimagining the first picture with any color, in which God is pouring out the rainbow into clay pots, I decided on an experiment. I just Google Image-searched cupped hands, found what I was looking for, and figured out a way to kind of reverse-trace the image. I didn’t have a light source strong enough to go through scrapbook paper, nor did I want any pencil marks showing up on the edges. I honestly don’t remember how I stumbled on this technique, or know whether it’s used by other artists. Probably so.
I LOVED the result. Those cupped hands were so beautiful to me that, where the original story had two pages showing God’s hands, it has blossomed to showcase His hands in various acts of creation on fifty percent of the pages.
Though I began with an iStock image, I quickly found that Google could not in fact give me what I was usually looking for. I started photographing my own hands in the positions I wanted. For one spread I roped my hubby into being the hand model, because I couldn’t act out the angle I needed and take a photo of it at the same time. I like the “library” of hands I collected which became the models for The Colors Danced.
God’s hands became not just a character in this story, but really the main character. I think it’s very fitting, because in any account of Creation, of course the incredible part is that it’s all generated out of God’s imagination. Creator God is the force behind every creation, and every good and perfect gift.
How To Do Papercut Illustration
Here I’m going to teach you how to do some papercut illustration, and just show you the process of how I do that. In addition to illustration, I have used paper cutting, either by this “reverse tracing” technique or freehand, to embellish custom scrapbook pages, to make cards, and to share with my kids in preschool homeschool lessons or crafting.
First choose your image. In this case I’ll start with one I generated myself. These two black-eyed susans were cut from my front flower bed, and I made a rubbing of them. You know how you do a leaf rubbing--you put down your leaf, you put your paper over your leaf and use the side of a crayon to rub it. The image of the leaf with all its veins comes through and it’s beautiful. So basically I did the same thing here. The central cone of a black-eyed susan causes a little problem here, because it sticks up almost an inch tall. So I actually took a pair of scissors and just cut it off near the base so it was flat enough to get under the paper for a decent flower rubbing. Then I used my light table to trace that rubbing and I have these two images.
Depending on what finished product you’re going for, you can print something off Google Images, use a print of your own photo, grab a coloring book page, whatever. Just realize that the image you use will get ruined, so don’t use an original that you want to keep.
Then I chose my paper colors. Scrapbook paper is much more effective than construction paper here; construction paper fades in sunlight, but more importantly it isn’t a thick enough weight to put up with the tools so well. If your image can be cut out with scissors that’s fine--this is the level that you would use when crafting with your kids--but if you are working with more detail and the x-acto blade is needed, use better paper. This one here on the paper where i want and then i’m going to tape it i’ll kind of put it in a little bit so the tape here can cover both edges and ten again down in the corner so they’re kind of separate from each other
This tool is just a wooden stylus. You see mine here down at the tip is black but that’s just black paint i mixed up with it or something, it isn’t any kind of pencil at all. Over here whaat i do now is just trace over this and i use eough pressure that i go over the details pretty thoroughly so that when i remove this image the indented part will show up really nicely on the paper underneath and it’s along the ident that i will then cut because my goal is to have with the colored papers that i will be able to instead of using paint or markers or caryons, whatever, that i have a color illustration made entirely out of paper. It’s surprising how not symmetrical these petals are because of course in the flower in the finished flower it’s beautifully symetrical is how it appears but hen youre using your actual imrprint from the flower and you see the detail of it
Now i’ll do these inner little petals
You realize that really every petal is an individual, and its quite extraordinary. So now i will go around this middle portion. So i’ve traced my flower, i’ve gone all over it. So here’s an angle form which you can kind of see there the indent from the flower has come through onto the paper. It’s obviously not super easy to see but that’s fine because in real life i can follow that pretty well. I’m going to remove this top image, and now i’m going to get out an exacto blade
I finally made it to a season to focus on publishing my book! Except by now, the third week into the school year, I still haven't made any headway on the book. A different project has come up each week, and I was feeling discouraged.
But then my husband sat me down for a pep talk. You see, he said, each of these projects is in reality what you have set out to do. No day is the same, and each of these different projects reflects your desire to teach, to inspire wonder and curiosity, to give people products of excellence and beauty. Six months ago, none of these thing were happening, but look at where God has brought you: at the brink of this new season, SO MUCH is rolling out!
He didn't say it exactly in that way, but this is what his encouragement reminded me of. And he's right, and it's good.
For the record, the projects underway are a family devotional to accompany the fall sermon series on the Ten Commandments at Abundant Life Fellowship in Boonville, NY; a grant application for future mural work in a nearby community; and curriculum work and some teaching with this week's Creation Investigation program at Beaver Camp, outside of Lowville, NY. I am setting up work for the present and the future.
Next week, the project will be book-focused, and I am so excited for it!
I know as well as anyone how difficult it is to carve out quality time with your kids--especially when there are more of them than of you, and they all have different sleep and activity needs. My husband and I have four children, and with the littlest still a baby, we are for sure continuing to work out our "new normal."
But because something is difficult is not a good reason to neglect it. In fact, it's probably true that the most worthwhile things in life are the most difficult. So, quality time with my four kids? Though it feels supremely difficult at times, it is SO worth the effort.
In our family, we like to read stories. We like to do crafts, to find new activities, to go on adventures. I tend to pursue Complicated and In-depth, but realistically Simple and Simple is waaay more doable, right? Here is a book, craft, and activity to fit your Simple Quality Time bill.
The Listening Walk, by Paul Showers, was first published in 1961. But you wouldn't know it; this sweet little story is timeless, transcending eras to focus on the wonder and beauty to be found on our own two feet and through our own two ears. A little girl goes for a walk with her dog and daddy, and they share company through the sounds around them.
I read this story with my 3-year-old son (who started our time together not at all interested in settling down to read or be quiet, by the way). The most delightful thing about this story is the writer's use of onomatopoeia: words and syllables that imitate sound.
A few pages in, Lem was listening. By the end of the book, when we are asked to close the book and count how many sounds we can hear right now, he intently listened to what seemed to be a silent house until he could make out a few things: the hum of the refrigerator, distant truck motors, the rumbling of his tummy. (He was especially delighted by that one!)
I had told him that we would take a Listening Walk of our own afterward. To prepare, we got out
the markers
a couple of paper plates
a pair of scissors
I originally found this idea on Pinterest, and it is one of very few that I have used without changing a thing! Lem and I chatted about what sounds we were likely to hear as we walked down our street, and we each made our own Sounds plate: "slice" your plate like a pie using the markers, draw a picture that represents a sound in each segment, and use your scissors to cut between each segment, only an inch or so. This will allow you to fold over the edge on the sounds you have heard as you walk.
Lem created his Sound Plate entirely on his own, including dividing the plate into segments (I was very impressed by that!). He had a detailed description for everything, some realistic (a bus, a construction truck) and some totally nonsensical (like the monster looming up out of the construction site...). This plate has become one of his treasures, carried around the house with him for days.
I showed Lem what to do using my own plate, but he completed his entirely on his own! Let your kids do the work; it's not only part of the fun, but part of the skill- and muscle-building work that's so important for your little ones. And their pride in their work speaks for itself.
And we headed out!
All sorts of sounds to hear along Center Street and Basin Creek. Lem is folding over one of the sound tabs on his plate. I have just folded over my waterfall tab (between my fingers; Lem colored in the water for me).We extended our Listening Walk to include a slice of pie at our local diner, because why not?
Back home that evening, my older sons were jealous that they had missed the Listening Walk. It's trickier to find time for adventures when school is in session, so it took several days and a few reminders from my Lincoln to get out on a Listening Walk with him. But get out there we did, at dusk on a Saturday night, while the brothers stayed home for bathtime. Walks with just my oldest son are extra special to me, because they consistently give us higher-quality quality time than we get in any other way. I don't know what it is about taking a walk with one other person, but Lincoln and I find it easier to talk with each other--and enjoy each other--when we make time for it.
There you have it: simple, effective quality time that supports your family and your local library (Or me! Get your own copy at the link below and I get a little tiny kickback). Corral one or all of your kids, curl up with a good book, activate your creative juices, exercise your legs a bit. Together.
