Sorry sorry sorry!!!! I'm still alive and kicking

This is what I was doing last week at this time - bike riding thru a Florida state park, sweating in the sun, and enjoying it like crazy.

My mom is feeling great - and the fall and bump on the head was probably due to dehydration and being sick.  She's doing very well now and is looking forward to her party at the end of March.

I came home in the middle of the week and am staying home this weekend because of this: 

Actually the falling snow is a great excuse to stay home. It's not snowing much but is slushy and nasty out there and I'm not in the mood to get wet and cold. 

Instead I have spend almost the entire weekend on work for my Childen's book class.  I've mentioned before that I thought I would do something "easier" than the Water Lily Girls - well guess what - NO type of book is easy and I'm learning that the hard way - but enjoying the learning and the process. 

I started out with an idea of a book called "Dad makes a Pizza" - and did small thumbnails and a very rough dummy book.  Now I'm working on refining the dummy to a larger dummy book and working out all the kinks and problems.   DH is not home this weekend so I can spread out my stuff all over the living room and kitchen - which is great.  (I hate to be in the basement studio when I'm the only one in the house, it's too isolated) 

I've learned that most Childrens books require a minimum of 28 pages. I'm not 100% sure that's true but that's what we're being told.  So that's 28 pages of drawings for me, because I'm not big on words.  I could have done 14 drawings and left the facing pages for a story...but I don't write well, so the fewer words the better. 

Here is the mess I'm making in the kitchen - using tracing paper and sharpening the pencil to a nub.

Here are a few "scenes" from the book.  Working on this dummy is great for me as you can see my perspective is all off so I'm working out those types of kinks. 

Yes, it's basically the "Em" family - I tried to make a "normal" family and it was not great. Even the teacher said "oh choose those funny people, editors will love them"...so I did. 

I spent about 4 hours on this on Friday night, went to class on Saturday and worked on it Sat night...and ALL DAY sunday.  No other chores have gotten done. 

I still have about 6 pages to go, and only 3 pages of ideas left.  I'm going to take a break and do something else for awhile.   

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend, staying warm, and enjoying whatever weather you're having.