5″x7′ acrylic, 2011. It was impossible to be anything but cheerful while working on this painting, as the fabulous moniker “Sir Puppers” became almost a mantra to me! Sir Puppers belongs to Parker, who will recieve this portrait of his stuffed pal for his upcoming fifth birthday. His mother, Jennifer, wisely chose a small canvas to suit the tiny stuffed dog, and asked that the background be blue, Parker’s favorite color.
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8″x10″ acrylic, 2011. Sometimes the roles our most important possessions play evolve with our own needs. Such is the case with these two bears, which belong to 4-year-old Jackson. The smaller bear, Drum-Drum, was originally a gift given to Jackson’s mother when she was pregnant… it was, in fact, intended to depict an expectant mother bear! Maxie, the large Build-a-Bear, was purchased for Maxie by his father, Jon. Eventually, Jackson took ownership of Drum-Drum and declared that it belonged with Maxie. No longer a pregnant adult female bear, Drum-Drum is now the “baby,” and Maxie is his “daddy bear.” Jon tells me that Maxie’s persona and voice are often Jackson’s vehicle for explaining his own feelings. “Maxie has had all your experiences,” Jon says. If you tell Jackson that you’ve been skiing, Jackson might explain the Maxie has also been skiing, and he found it to be a just a little scary, but fun. Now that Jackson’s parents no longer live together, Jon is hoping that this portrait, a gift for his upcoming birthday, will make the bears’ presence felt in Jon’s home even if they have been accidently left at mom’s!
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It’s back! I’ve updated Anthropomorphie with new favorites and more stories. Here are a few sample pages:
Once again, the quality of the reproductions in this Shutterfly photobook are pretty incredible! If you’d like to order a copy of this book, click here!
8″x10″ acrylic, 2011. Here’s “Pup,” who belongs to four-year-old Jack. Jack’s mother, Carrie, ordered portraits of each of her son’s favorite toys — you can see Ellie the elephant, who belongs to two-year-old Mason, by clicking here. Like Ellie, Pup poses atop a kitchen island, and his serious posture belies his sweet, cartoony face.
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8″x10″ acrylic, 2011. This interestingly lit elephant belongs to two-year-old Mason, whose mother, Carrie, ordered portraits of each of her two children’s favorite toys. He sits in the kitchen, surrounded by its cool, blue glow. Check in tomorrow for Mason’s brother’s stuffed puppy!
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5″x7″ acrylic, 2011. That’s Marry Kate with two r’s, making it potentially a command and a pun, but I’m sure that was not the intent of Zoe when she named this bear at age four. If it was, then clever girl! Marry Kate, a Ty Beanie Bear (which is larger than a Beanie Baby,) was a gift from Zoe’s grandmother when she had her tonsils out. This portrait will be a gift for Zoe’s upcoming twelfth birthday from her mother, Shannon.
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Here are some more books that have entranced my family over the years!
Andrew Henry’s Meadow is one of the most treasured books from my own childhood. Doris Burn’s incredibly detailed and thoroughly imagined drawings seem matter-of-factly possible and yet completely extraordinary.
Andrew Henry annoys his family with his Rube-Goldberg-esque contraptions and inventions, and finally quietly runs away…
To build an amazing, transient outcast utopia for himself and his misunderstood friends. Each house is customized to the child’s quirky, frowned-upon hobby. I wanted desperately to live in the treehouse that Andrew Henry built for the girl whose farmer father hated the birds that she loved!
We love any and all Maurice Sendak around here — I grew up on the Little Bear books, and Sonja loves them too… but she is endlessly enchanted and amused by In the Night Kitchen.
The surreal, kitchen-utensil cityscape of Mickey’s dreams has been a cheery vehicle for Sonja to reconcile the strangeness of dreaming with the real world.
And we love to holler the bakers’ crazy chants whenever we’re busy in our own kitchen!
The beautiful watercolors in Jon Muth’s Zen Shorts cause me to lose my place in the text and just go silent until Sonja reminds me what we are doing. These paintings make me want to drop everything and run to my easel – in fact, I’m pretty sure they have made me a better painter. The story might be about being here now, but look — here’s what color a shadow is when the sun is setting!
Three siblings befriend a panda who is fun, full of wisdom, and inexplicably lives alone in a big, bougie house in their neighborhood.
He helps them work through some familial discord by sharing some Lao Tzu… hey, doesn’t the sun almost hurt your eyes when you look up into that tree?
9″x12″ acrylic, 2011. Although I adore bunnies and bears, this trio of unlikely bird friends was such a delight for me to paint! Puffy, Chicka Chicka, and Chicki Chicki have been the favorite companions of Bharathi’s daughter, who is now ten, since she was six. Bharathi writes, “It’s pretty adorable to see her in her airplane seat with these stuffies tucked under her arms (especially ’cause she’s a mature looking 10 and prone to reading things like “A history of ancient Britain.”) The contrast reminds me that even when she seems really grown up, she’s still a kid.” At one point, a proposed back-up Chicka Chicka was dismissed by her daughter as being “pretty much like suggesting we get a back-up brother.” Well put!
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9″x12″ acrylic, 2011. Stephen wrote me that his wife was looking at my website and “complaining that our kids don’t actually have favorite stuffed animals to paint.” His clever, thoughtful solution to this problem was to order a portrait of his wife’s own beloved chilhood bear as a gift for her upcoming birthday! This well-worn bear is missing an eye, which he strategically and stylishly hides with his pyjama cap.
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Did you know that if you or your child has lost a beloved toy, there are websites devoted to your search for a replacement? One such wonderful site which I recently stumbled upon is Plush Memories. This free service posts your photo and description and invites comments from anyone with helpful information. Of course I feel a real connection with the general sentiment behind preserving favorite toys, so I’ve been thoroughly enjoying perusing this site! The range of quirkiness and cuteness represented among the photos of the missing is beyond entertaining. I love painting wacky monkeys (as seen here and here,) and so I was amused to find these images posted:
And this, from a ridiculously funny and touching entry, is a DRAWING of a lost stuffed bunny:
And here’s the photo which originally provoked both my husband and me to simultaneoulsy jump up and shout “Choo Choo!” This tattered yellow… rooster? is identical to my daughter’s beloved stuffed chicken, as I mentioned in my last post.
In light of the recent string of tornados and floods, the folks at Plush Memories are making lost-toy searches for disaster victims a top priority. This site supports a good cause, and is so much fun to explore!