Come Fly with Me

Come Fly with Me

Take my hand and fly with me,

the wind will whisk us o'er the sea

We'll float above the clouds so high,

and soar across the evening sky

Like meteors and shooting stars,

we'll zoom past Jupiter and Mars,

We'll sail forever and a day,

until we touch the Milky Way

 So....

I have one more post in the "What I did during the Pandemic" category...something a little different from what you've come to expect from me!

I've published a rhyming picture book for the little ones, called Come Fly with Me. It's the poem above, for which I created illustrations.

How did this come about, you ask? I'll tell you! During the pandemic, I led an online summer yoga for creativity workshop series for The Yoga Sanctuary. 

One of the challenges we used to stimulate creativity was doing something other than our main creative activity. So, a painter might decide to try writing poems, a musician might try calligraphy, a sculptor might try painting...or gardening...or cooking...you get the idea!

My challenge was to see if I could create illustrations to go with my poem, so I sat down at the dining room table and started sketching...badly! But I played with it a little every day, and after a while, things started to take shape. The characters started flying around, and from there, I just had fun with it! 

Dick suggested using watercolor pencils, which was a great idea because it gave me the chance to color like a little kid. Then you use water and a paint brush to blend the colors and it comes out looking like a watercolor painting. Very cool!

Once we were settled back home here in Massachusetts, I decided to take the leap and put my work out in the world again. I started with my poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, which was the topic of my last post. That worked well, so I kept leaping and tried making the picture book - and this is the result! 

A little sample from inside:

So this book is for the little ones. If you have kids, or grandkids, or nieces or nephews, or friends with kids, grandkids, or nieces and nephews in the picture book age, I hope you'll consider my little book for them. It's available in paperback on Amazon, 6" by 9".

I have a beautiful and sweet great-niece named Goldie Elizabeth Goodwin, whom I have yet to meet. She is the first grandchild of my siblings (the daughter of my brother Tom's son, John, and his wife Jill).) So I dedicated this book to her. I will meet her at Thanksgiving and can't wait!

Here is the link to the book on Amazon: Come Fly with Me