Summer; a summary of sorts

Summer–  home with my daughters during the day– naturally I had ambitions of getting so much done.

It took at least a month for me to realize and remember that summer is impossible.   There is no chance for any normal work to be done when you work from home because there is no normal routine.

Summer is the time for morning swims in the lake, and walk upon walk upon walk to the local book boxes, or the grocery store for a box of popsicles.   In the afternoon, we pick tomatoes.  I watch the girls make their dolls climb trees.  I watch them flex their toes in the grass and dig for pill bugs.

After several weeks of frustration I realized that maybe this is the time when I need to gather inspiration.  I put down my pencils and opened my eyes to the kids and the snails and the humming of the garden—  after all, this is what my book is about– is it such a bad thing to take a break and just observe?

Still, bird by bird, even the teeniest step forward is progress, and so as to not completely lose momentum, (and because I just love drawing my characters so much), I did manage to get a few little things done.  And so, even though most of my summer work was done quickly, while potty training my toddler, and without much focus, all on tiny scraps of paper around my daughters’ marker table, I feel as though I’ve figured out a few things that were just question marks in June–

Mostly I have been working out the nitty gritty details of  hair, clothing, eyebrows (or no eyebrows), skin tone, body proportions, and thinking about the way these characters looks from different angles.

Also…. can a snail wear glasses?