May Hedge a Gram

Hi Kids!

This is my May hedge-a-gram. The time I take to tell all of you interested in making books what's happening in my art studio.

It's May, and in my little town it's really spring...we can hear the birds peeping outside and we can hear our chicks peeping inside. Their voices are deceiving though, because now that my four silver lace Wyandottes are a month old they look like mini hens. Now that I have photos of Marigold, Violet, Pansy, and Bluebell as little chickies, I'm just playing with them and admiring them until they're full grown hens when they'll be my models for Hennie in the book I'm working on for the fall of 2000. (I've already finished my book for this fall, The Gingerbread Baby.)

The girls have been a lot of fun so far. I take them out into the garden where they scratch for bugs and take dust baths. The first time Marigold took a dust bath I thought something had gone terribly wrong. She was on her side, flapping and kicking. It turned out that she really wanted to cover herself in nice fresh dirt. I'm working on a good way to get my hens to come back inside though. They like to stay close but not to be caught. Right now I just take out one at a time. They have a roost in their pen and the four of them like to sit in a row making a contented chuckling noise. We've introduced them to our hedgehog, Buffy, who is also in the story, but they are all afraid of each other.

There's one more character in The Surprise, a Tomten, which is a Danish elf. I have painted him in, trying to make him rascally but nice.

What a job! Being in my art studio drawing hens, hedgehogs and elves. I always hoped it would be like this. I hope you are enjoying some kind of creative fun too. Good luck with drawing, writing and reading.

Love,

Jan