By The story behind the Alphabet Books starts here. I wrote this about a month ago, and had trouble locating these photos. Now that I have, I can upload it so you will understand future entries. You'll understand when you read this. The happy couple below are Alex and Michelle, looking at the first book that I painted, for their newborn daughter, Michaela Rose. Grandma was holding Baby, and Grandpa took this photo, six years ago this summer (2008).
Over six years ago, Don and I learned we would become grandparents for the first time. Being the Mom and wanting to be the Grand-Mom, I was more than looking forward to it. Don could only think of the worrying...I surprised him with blue and pink ribbons hanging on the service door from the garage, on the day when Alex told me, before he told his Dad. I wish the picture had come out stronger. All he said was, "WHAT do blue and pink ribbons mean." And then he asked, "Which one?" meaning which family was pregnant.
I wanted to do something special for this child. We didn't know the sex of the baby for months; it didn't matter. "She" was to be our first, and I wanted her to know, eventually, how special this time was for us, because of her.
When I was in high school, I could take electives, as we all could...This is actually relevant. And the one subject I wanted to study was Art. Painting, and especially how to draw, appealed to me a lot. Since those long ago classes, which I took for 4 years, I have always done some form of painting. I started up again when my own children were small, with decorative paintings. It was a very popular art expression in the 70's and 80's and I enjoyed it. But since I retired from teaching in the early 90's, I have painted with watercolor. I did very little of it in high school. What I have learned has been on my own, from lots of books, and classes through various organizations and people in our area. So watercolor was what I planned on doing for granddaughter no. 1, Michaela Rose.
What to do in watercolor for this baby happened to be simple. At the time, I was taking Martha Stewart's Living magazine. She offered old-fashioned-looking alphabet cards in her publication. I thought they were lovely, enchanting and felt I could do something similar. And so, I did.
The result, finished the week Michaela was born (meaning I finished in about 7 1/2 months), was not a set of alphabet cards, but an Animal Alphabet book. I even decided to add facts for each animal. From the look on their faces, I really think Alex and Michelle liked what I had done for their daughter. And I was pretty proud of myself. It was a lot of work, and soon, about 8 months after Michaela's birth, I realized what I had started.
Shannon our daughter, and her husband Jamie were pregnant! Baby was due in about 7 ½ months! And of course, I couldn't do the same thing, or make a copy for "him." It had to be original! So I started to work on another Animal Alphabet book, but this time Jack was having his first birthday before he got his book. The pages of his book are a little larger, I used a different alphabet, and each picture is more colorful. Each page also has a border. I learned a lot, and loved this book, too. But, as I was working on this one, Michelle and Alex shared news...
Six months after Jack was born, and way before I was done with his book, grandchild no. 3 is born! "Caroline Elizabeth" is just as darling as her older sister. And her birth meant there was going to be very little down time before starting her book. And life got busy.
Carrie is now over 4, and Grandma is half-way through making her Animal Alphabet book. It is larger than Jack's or Michaela's, I think the colors I am choosing for these animals are better, and they are fun animals as well as beautiful, and that's all I can say for now... I'm not finished! But...I have discovered something special about a child that knows she is going to receive this book. She tells you what she wants...And she changes her mind.
AND, Shannon and Michelle have both given birth to precious baby girls, Elisabeth Sibley for Shannon and Jamie, and Lillian Nicole for Alex and Michelle. The girls are seven months apart, Elisabeth born in December, and Lily born this past July.
So now I have 2 and ½ books to complete. The one for Carrie will be done by Christmas, and I'm going to include my audience, whoever reads us, in the progress. (The books for the youngest two grandchildren?...I don't have a clue yet as to what I'll do for them.)
I'm working on L, and will show you in a future entry what I am doing. The little tiny insect was requested by Carrie. I had already made sketches and done research on lightning bugs, but she has asked for something she knows well, from being at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Ladybugs! Check out the photo below. See you next time.
(Grandpa, fighting the lady beetles' infestation with his shop-vac. The problem was corrected by installing new, tighter-fitting, too-expensive sliding doors. Note all the little spots on the ceiling...those are some of the hundreds/thousands of lady beetles that wanted to spend the winter with us.)
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