While I was at ALA in Anaheim this weekend I was ecstatic to find out that the book I illustrated last year for Freespirit Publishing ' How to Talk to an Autistic Kid' won a gold in the Foreward Reviews Book of the Year Awards, announced at ALA. And I didn't realize till I got home!

https://botya.forewordreviews.com/winners/2011/juvenile-nonfiction/

Congratulations to Daniel Stefanski .. awesome autistic author!

In other news I found a box o' books awaiting me when I got back to Maine. Love the colours! This is the 4th in the series of Anastasia Suen's 'All Star Cheerleaders' published by Kane Miller.

And here we are together at ALA getting ready to sign like crazy! 100 in an hour and I drew a cheerleader in EVERY one ... what was I thinking??

More on my exploits at ALA Anaheim in another post ... it was exhausting and fun and exhausting and FUN!

Right now I have to finish a cover.

Toodles!
Hazel

Nice feeling this week - finals finished for the book I have been working on for Free Spirit Publishing. And signed a contract with Charlesbridge Publishing of Boston. Neither of which I can talk about yet .. soon I hope! If this continues as a pattern it would be very nice (please Santa!)

Snow has come in earnest to our neck of the woods and it is falling soft and thick this morning. Wood fire is crackling, kettle boiling and 'im indoors has a snow day, so is snoozing in the recliner in my studio with the cock-a-poo, Sprout, snoring in his lap. Hopefully he will rouse himself and make brekky soon.

Been working mostly this week on two different projects ... 'Crazy Days' for Margy Robertson Reid in Canada (about a little boy whose world goes topsy-turvy.) And also the 3rd revision of my current wannabe PB about a girl and her horse. It seems to have been taking me forever. The truth is, this book is very personal to me, and I have found it's bringing back a lot of memories, some of them very emotional. It's my first story that is not humour based. Here's another of the roughs. Setting myself the goal to have this dummy ready in the next couple of days.

Doing something different helps to get the creative juices flowing. I haven't had time (or energy) for sketching much this week, but on the way home from getting art supplies on Saturday (hot press pad of paper, Derwent sketching pencils - reminder to self: do not trust that the right pencils are in the right slots - sigh - and waterproof ink), we called in at a museum we have been meaning to visit for a long time, the LC Bates Museum, near Waterville. It was fab! But it was COLD!! No heating and an old building. But packed with great stuff. It is a natural history museum, with very old collections. Birds and animals that would never be collected now. Row upon row of ancient display cases, dim lighting, old, spooky rooms. I could have spent all day there. As it was we managed an hour and then flew back to the car teeth chattering. I will def. go back in summer though, with camera and sketch pad.

And now I must get back to doing some work ....

My thought for winter, when we are cut off, or so it feels with snow and such, is : stay connected. So leave me a comment and let's keep in touch!

Thinking of hot chilli for lunch ....

Toodles!

Hazel

aka The Wacky Brit

On the bedside table:

JIMI - Gary Golio and Javaka Steptoe

All images, text, photographs and ideas represented on this website are copyright of the artist Hazel Mitchell and may not be reproduced, copied or used in any way without written permission of the artist.