Where Have You Been?

For a while I was good at posting, but as always, new projects sneak in and I'm off in another direction.
My newest project is a book. I'm always working on ideas for new books, but this one has been in the works for a long time. When I was teaching full-time, it seemed that verse and funny rhyme always popped into different teaching situations. We used to teach handwriting. Handwriting books can be boring so I often made up short poems to use where I could combine handwriting with other L.A. activities. The kids loved it, and I did too since I could play with meter and rhyme--and sometimes illustrate some of the verses along the way. The kiddos loves to illustrate my poems themselves which was especially fun. Sometimes a kid's illustration makes the poem take on a whole new direction.

Recently, looking at my files I realized I had hundreds of poems--some better than others. I'd thought of compiling some of them before. The new media and methods of distribution were perfect fits for me and my poetry. I found a universally known POD printer who also has a conversion model for hand held devices. As they say, "Ain't technology great!" In this case, it does seem the perfect fit. Many publishers shy away from poetry even though kids love it. Since it's not always a "quick sale" a publisher's time and money needs to go to the larger, more profitable markets. That's understandable and that's business. Still, it's also nice to know there are other ways to market and get a book (that might not fit a huge market) into print.

My new endeavor, When Magic Helps Us Steer, should be available soon. I'm awaiting the first proof right now.  Here's the front cover before I've added the title.

More Fun with Symmetry and Hole Punches

 Take a piece of paper, any color, any size and fold it. When you hold the fold, no matter what you cut, you will have symmetry when it is opened.

Here I've cut a simple butterfly shape. Of course, I did not throw away the "outline" since it will be part of the final piece of art.

Using the hole punch (yes, one of my favorite tools!) make some hole punches along the spine. Again, fold the critter or shape you made again before making the punches and you'll have symmetry there too.

In this case, I wanted the holes to be elongated so I made one hole and then

made a second one on top of the first hole, but slightly past it, so that the shape was a little more interesting than a simple single punch.

I opened the butterfly to see if I was happy with the holes down the spine. I decided that adding a hole close to the "tail" would make it appear to have a spiked end so I folded the butterfly again and created the tail. While the
butterfly was still folded, the hole punch was used to enhance the tips of the wings.

Once opened and satisfied with the result, I placed it on a white piece of paper. Lastly I took the outline and placed it on the white paper above the butterfly.

I used some scraps from other projects to make some red hole-punch dots to add contrast to my final picture.

I have several colors and sizes of hole-punch dots that I save in containers. (Check the archived posts to see an easy way to store dots.) When I want to add dots of another color, it's easy to simply pull out my saved dots and experiment with them.