Hartford | Day 9

The weekend went over with minimal rest. Saturday was the Eric Carle Museum of the Picture Book and the New Britain Museum of Art. Both chock full of fantastic work. Saw many of 19C illustrations from classic works up close... Beatrix Potter's Mouse (similar to this link) was unreal... so tiny, so precise. The great Arthur Rackham and his mighty pen Many works from the first Wizard of Oz series, Winnie the Pooh, the Kewpie kids - all incredibly small and complex works, done with exquisite execution and control of both Ink and Watercolor. On Sunday, the MFA students all gathered for a cookout at Jaqueline Decker's home in the rolling hills of CT. It was a picture postcard home, worthy of Rockwell... an old American Gothic church converted into a home. really something. i'll post pics when i pull them off of the Fuji.
Today was the first class with Ted and Betsy Lewin, Caldicot winners as well as NY Times best sellers. They've given me a thumbs-up to do my ten year story... i'm finding out that I don't have to have the books finished to shop them to publishers... just three spreads and a sketch dummy for the rest. I've been getting a ton of feedback about the work, and feel my confidence building.

I started mocking my story up on tissues, which i have scanned and will place into an InDesign mock-up template for my Friday delivery. I hope I can pull this off the way I had hoped... I've changed the characters from children to the puppy format to tone down the bad-dream material. I Think it's a good choice, but I just don't know for sure. A bit more feed back from third parties would be a good thing.
More work to go before this is where it needs to be for my satisfaction.