Sunday morning January 30

Today, sketching in church, this is what caught my attention.
A reading from the prophet Micah 6:8, and the words stay with me.

bird

This past month, January in Chicagoland, has been a long icy struggle. I guess I have what is called Seasonal Affective Disorder. I ought to get disability allowance for this(just joking). Yet I keep at work even though it feels like I am trying to draw this artwork while slogging on snowshoes, in a blizzard, with heavy mittens on.
I have been working on something fun, a wedding invitation design for one of my own children. Yes, we will have another family wedding this year, and it is exciting.

The colors of the design have been requested (a leafy green and Matisse Blue) and a sample of an idea with birds was found. So I am playing around with my original line drawing, Photoshop, and Painter to see what else happens. Whatever the possibilities, it will be my creative gift to the new couple.

wishes for the New Year

Today is Three Kings Day, or the Feast of the Epiphany. Tradition has it that this is the day that the Wise Men of the Orient visited the baby Jesus and gave him gifts they carried from afar. I knew some folks who didn't open Christmas presents with their children until January 6 because that was the day that Jesus got his first presents. I kind of like that idea, take advantage of the end of December sales, and take the craziness out of the cultural holiday around us.
This illustration appeared in Moody Monthly magazine, with a series of stories that I illustrated.
My wishes for the New Year are for Peace! On Earth! And best wishes for health, contentment , and prosperity in the next year for all who are reading this. During this holiday time, I looked over at my husband across a table full of family and whispered, "We are so rich! Rich in family".

and the end of the story

This is the end of my story and fittingly, the end of this wonderful year.

I ended the storybook with a full-spread illustration that repeated my opening scene of the Storyteller and the three children. I fear that some people thought I had just repeated my first spread but, it is a completely different illustration with different expressions to show the reactions at the end of the story.

Here is the last spread, I had to split it in half to scan it. I especially love the laughing appreciative expression on the children's faces. And the sly sideways look out of the picture on the girl on the far left.
Mischievous?
This little girl is definitely thinking her own trickster ideas.

Snake

Tricking a huge Snake was easy, Anansi simply appealed to vanity. He challenged the Snake to prove that it was longer than the longest piece of bamboo in the forest. Snake complied and Anansi quickly tied him to the bamboo pole.
This art is all rendered with prismacolor pencils, layered and burnished. Lots and lots of pencils!

Leopard

 In order to trick The Leopard and tie him up for delivery to the sky, Anansi first digs a deep hole and sets a trap. Just try, I ask you, to think about how to show a spider with his eight tiny arms holding a device with which to dig a huge hole. Suspension of disbelief is called for when telling and illustrating these stories.
Anansi does manage to distract and trap the Leopard, then convinces him that if his tail is tied to a tree, Anansi can get him out of the trap.

Hornet and Gourd

 Anansi has to trick and capture the hornet and deliver to the Sky god. He concocts a scheme involving a gourd filled with water.
For the gourd art I used a real decorated gourd that was brought from Ghana by friends. It is just a souvenir and a tourist item, but it was interesting as art itself.

The trickster

There are many Anansi the Spider stories. All have the common theme of Anansi trying to trick somone out of something and getting tricked himself in the end. In this story Anansi wants whatever the Sky god has in his bag, which is supposed to be all the stories in the world. The Sky god says he can have it if Anansi can capture and bring to the sky The Hornet, The Snake , and The Leopard.

Spider

Some things are difficult to illustrate and to inject with personality. Either they just are not cute or visually appealing (as with the South American Condor in my Girl from the Sky book) or they are very tiny, like the spider here and changing the normal dimensions of the creature can turn into a horror scene.

So Anansi who actually does not have features, like a pair of cute eyes to give expression or a mouth to talk with must indeed be animated. He is the main character and he is a trickster. I guess what I did to solve the problem was to use his "hands" all eight of them to tell the story. I really did study the actions of spiders to figure this out.

hands that tell the story

   Storytelling is best done with lots of hand movement. I focused on the hands on both the character of the Storyteller and of the Sky god.  I used the art of the hands to express the emotions and energy in the story.