5 Unknown Facts About Little Red Riding Hood

In every story about me people seem to leave some things out – important stuff.  You’d think since I’m such a well known character they wouldn’t, but there you’d be mistaken.

5 Things that weren’t in the story.

  1. 1. My name is not exactly Red. My name is Poppy. Yes, Poppy means red, but writers didn’t think Poppy Riding Hood had the same ring. I don’t think so – Poppy Riding Hood… sounds quite nice.
  2. My grandmother wasn’t sick.  She loves to say, “I’ve never been sick a day in my life!”. And scary thing is she’s right.
  3. If she wasn’t sick what happened? Come closer, that’s right get you ear against the screen. She twisted her ankle chasing a rabbit. They’d been getting into her garden and chasing one she missed one of it’s holes and wrenched her foot something awful. Grandmother isn’t one to sit still so I was sent to make sure her foot stood up.
  4. The wolf never swallowed me. That would just be disgusting. (People believed it?) But he was about to turn us into a nice dinner over the fire.
  5. This is what I really look like:

littlered-websm

 

Hope you enjoyed this post. This sketch of Red Poppy Hood was done digitally on my new tablet. Still getting used to everything, but I had fun making up this post. What do you think?

 

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4 Illustration Tips I Learned from Cheer Up, Mouse! by Jed Henry

A librarian friend told me people ask her if they can go into the Children’s section. I want to stand up and shout “yes!” What better place to learn neat things, read thrilling tales, or enjoy great illustration?

Some treasures are hiding in the kids section of your library. Tweet it!

Like this picture book.

Copyright Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Cheer up, Mouse! had me at the cuddly animals, honestly who can resist animals smiling? Okay, maybe you, but not me. Besides I wanted to know one thing.

Why was the mouse sad?

By the end of the book that question wasn’t so important. In my opinion the whole message of this book is what we generally do when someone’s unhappy.

“Do what makes me happy and you’ll be happy too!”

I don’t know about you but I’m guilty of that. Yes all the animals mean well, but the story gently leads you to this conclusion:

Helping a friend is not about what I want, but what they NEED. Tweet it!

Big difference. So necessary.

Copyright Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Since I’m still new to the world of illustrating picture books I’ve been picking up several of them when I go into the library. And here are 4 things I gleaned about illustration from this book:

1. Pictures convey everything — Mr. Henry made every picture count, and to tell the truth your could remove the words and still have a great book that makes an awesome point.

2. Use every inch of your character — The animals use every ounce of their body to tell the story. How? By revealing their emotions in the slight change of the eye, the way the ears sit on the head, even the action line through the body.

3. Intelligent backgrounds — I struggle with backgrounds, but this book simplifies the backgrounds in a way that leaves the story perfectly set with just the right amount of white space. Plenty for the eye to see, but not filled to the gills

4. Small Perspective — Each drawing gave me the feel of being the size of the animals in the book, which just made it more fun to read! It drew my attention to how much the perspective plays in a book.

I’m definitely going to keep my eye out for more books by Jed Henry — have any suggestions of ones to try?

For readers — what got you to pick this book up?

For illustrators — what tip would you draw from this book?

If you want a more in depth (*spoiler warning*) review check out this one at Kirkus.

 

Cheer Up, Mouse! is Written and Illustrated by Jed Henry, and published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. The pictures are not mine, and fully belong to the publisher.
The views are my own and unsolicited.
*The Amazon link is an affiliate link.

 

 

 

 

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Fabric Pattern Design – Cupcake

FYI – this post is just me having fun and challenging myself (I wasn’t hired to do it or anything).

I call this pattern group cupcake. Based on the cupcake liner I drew in the Design-Seeds Cupcake challenge I gave myself.

cupcake-pattern-collage copy

I liked some of the patterns I was finding while sketching it out, so much I had to make them bigger. On top of that I’ve been watching what people in the Make Art That Sells e-course have been posting. (Like this one from Chicken Girl Designs.)

It looked like so much fun I thought I would challenge myself to make a bolt fabric portfolio piece.

My rules were the whole collection could have up to 8 colors, but only 6 colors per piece. It had to include only the color family I found in the cupcake photo, as well as the patterns I came up with from it. (I had a blast by the way.)

cupcake-pattern extras copy

Couldn’t resist sharing the extras! Which do you like best?

What do you think?

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Remington (Character Backstory)

remington4webYou might be wondering about this character. Course you might not be. Could just be my imagination, but then I’m very curious and tend to assume others are as well.

Remington is definitely my all time favorite character to draw. I have to say it that way since I get on new kicks/favorites from time to time, but given enough stress or a not great drawing day and you’d probably see this guy pop up in my sketch book.

I didn’t intentionally name him after a gun company. Basically all my drawings name themselves, sounds kooky, but let’s just say a name seems to “lend itself” to each character.

But when he popped out onto the page one day, with a cheesy grin and big eyes it was an instant draw. Course my funny side insisted on turning a messed up version of Remington into his brothers — Smith and Wesson. (Or if you don’t want those names — With and Swesson.)

I come from a long family of punsters and this is what we do.

Nutsy and Trigger by Disney

Now for the record I’m not talking about guns here, just the little characters I love to create. Somehow I always picture Remington as being slightly like Nutzy from the old cartoon Robin Hood. Which is probably why he brings a big smile to my face!

The only problem I have with him is anytime I try to draw him face on he never turns out right.

Any tips on how to draw things from the front so they look good? Love to hear ‘em!

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