Dummy (plural)

Dummy. It's a funny word when you think about it. The dictionary describes it as 'general style of a contemplated piece of printing.' Which is indeed what I have been working on this week. Of course it 'informally' can mean a somewhat stupid person, and sometimes that applies to me also. What a versatile language English is! 

So, yes, Dummy's. (Or should it be dummies?) Whichever, I have been working on the math book layouts (aka T'he Dummy' for those not in the terminology).  I have pretty much finished Bear -



And Aardvark -




Next the Dinosaur and then Dragonfly layouts. Each one seems to be taking 3 days to get into shape ... I already had a rough layout done and some sketches. I have been adding shading to the sample coloured pages and putting the text in speech bubbles, as it is all direct speech and makes more sense. Doing some revising and adding in bits and pieces like end pages and title page ideas and stuff. 


I was so hoping to get them finished and submitted by the end of September ... it's still doable, just. But next week I am teaching a sketching cruise on a Maine Windjammer (Isaac H Evans in Rockland). the weather is looking good, so hopefully we won't all be in the galley drawing bowls of fruit, and as soon as I get back I will have the MANUSCRIPT from the publisher for the BOOK and then it is full steam ahead on the illustrations for IT. So, maybe I will find a few late nights to work on the last two math books. I am SO ready to submit them. I am so fed up of working on them!! I thought I knew where I was going to send them. And now I might be having second thoughts. Well, whatever, they are getting off my desk in an envelope and on to some one else's desk.


And that's about it.  I haven't surfaced much from the attic. I see a bright thing rise in the East out the window, and set in the West so I know the world is still turning.


Just over a month until the conference in Nevada and first mentor session with Priscilla Burris .. looking forward to it, but there is another thing hurtling towards me at speed. What's up with time?? 


Looking ahead to next year I am considering applying for the Amhurst College Mass, Illustration Master Class in summer. That would be awesome (Americanism) and I hear Peter De Seve and Mo Willems might be on the faculty. Two of my fav illustrators. Not sure how much it might cost yet ... guess I will need to save my pennies and get some more work in!


Right, I am pooped. Going to watch some TV and drink some rum in anticipation of sailing next week. I will be taking my camera, so pics to come next time, I expect.


Casting Off!
Hazel
aka The Wacky Brit


PS ... Nothing new on the bedside table. Rereading 'Elidor' by Alan Garner, because if there is anyone I wish I could write like it is the old master.


PPS If anyone has a recipe for no-sugar and no-fat cake please send it to me!