It’s a lawn mowing day here in the mountains.  The sound of lawn mowers surround Henwoodie as everyone seems to be out mowing their lawns.  I mowed ours a couple days ago.   Other than the sound of the mowers, birds are chirping and the air hangs heavy over the trees.  The sun is trying to come out, but it’s one of those uncertain end-of-summer days.

I worked in the studio until 7 am.   I am making progress with the finished illustrations for A BED FOR LITTLE CUB.   Ideas come at the oddest moments.   Around 3 am the idea came to me to put old, rustic duck decoys and carved ducks on the mantle of the fireplace in the two illustrations that feature the stone fireplace as the central background element.   The ducks will add a touch of specific quirkiness to the lives of Old Bear and Little Cub (they certainly are NOT duck hunters!).  I like the shape of the duck decoys and the earthy colours that I can show in the pictures.

I threw caution to the wind and went ahead and started painted the entire tree that shows Little Cub sleeping on a bowed lower branch.   The picture will be cropped to fit the 10″x10″ trim size of the book (and most likely reduced a bit).   This picture will be used on the half title page.  My thought is that it makes a nice lead-in to the idea that Little Cub wants his own bed to sleep in.

Here’s the painting as it is progressing:

This jpg shows the first layers of underpainting.