Stereo Photo--Venus Flytrap

My family bought a little Venus flytrap plant at Sprout's this week! My kids named it Speed Eater Buzz, or Buzz for short. Obviously I couldn't resist making a 3D picture of it, and that turned out pretty well, so I decided to share it. To view it in 3D, load this picture in landscape mode on a smartphone and put the phone in any device that would work with Google Cardboard (I do miss Google Cardboard). We're all enjoying our new "pet," though I have to dissuade the kids from watering it too frequently. It's even caught a couple of flies by now. 

A Apple Pie: An Active Alphabet--Kindle EBook

 

Happy Pi Day! I decided it was the perfect day to format A Apple Pie: An Active Alphabet as a Kindle eBook, so here it is. An earlier blog post describing this book is here. I removed the selection of historical examples from the back of the eBook version--most of the text in those would have been too small to read--so the paperback is a better choice for those who are really interested in the historical background. But the eBook is a fun, less expensive option for those who want to check out the combination of Kate Greenaway's classic illustrations and my own quirky accompanying rhymes. 

Realistic Heart Valentine--Hot Air Balloon

 

I saw an old valentine on the New York Public Library Digital Collections web site (find the original here) and just couldn't resist adding an anatomical heart. It wasn't available in as high a resolution as I would have liked, but if anyone wants to print a few copies of my altered version, here is a sheet of four. You can also find a similar valentine I made in 2020 here. 

A Apple Pie: An Active Alphabet

The idea for my new book A Apple Pie: An Active Alphabet started out with a search for public domain pictures of pie. I was making the illustrations for Baby Ballads: A Family Treasury and needed pies for two of them, so I was happy to find a whole book about pie to choose a picture from. I eventually picked the illustration for the letter P to alter for my project--and in the process I fell in love with Kate Greenaway's sweet little alphabet book. It really bothered me that it was missing a page for the letter I, however, and that it ended with a single page for the last six letters. (See Kate Greenaway's original book on the Library of Congress web site here or on the Project Gutenberg web site here.) I showed it to my son, and those things bothered him, too--every letter certainly deserves to have its own page in an alphabet book. Then I realized that the book's legal status of being in the public domain meant I could make my own version and fix it up however I wanted!

In the end I used Photoshop to create eight new illustrations, seven for the letters that didn't already have their own plus a facing page to go with the original ending. I wanted the new pictures to blend in with the old ones, so I took all the people for them from other books illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Then I decided it really needed a little poetry to go with it, so I wrote twenty-seven rhyming couplets to put under the illustrations. Every letter is used as many times as reasonably possible on its own page and highlighted in red. Of course I needed to read up on Kate Greenaway so I could put together an about-the-author page, and then I went very far down the rabbit hole researching the nursery rhyme itself. It turns out that it's at least as old as 1671 and has a wide range of variations, so I thought it would be fun to select some interesting examples and add a historical tour of the apple pie alphabet. It all took me quite a bit longer than I expected, but I really like the results. Find it on Amazon here.

I love the public domain! It's great that it's perfectly legal to reuse an old page like this one to make new things like the two below, without having to ask anyone for permission. The baby jumping out of the pie on the page from Baby Ballads was originally found in a different picture by Kate Greenaway, and the poetry on both pages is my own.

Life of Christ Stereo Cards--Christmas

Merry Christmas! Here are some stereo cards from the same set as the ones I posted around Easter. Other cards from this set can be found here (Palm Sunday), here (Maundy Thursday), here (Good Friday Part 1), here (Good Friday Part 2), here (Good Friday Part 3), and here (Easter). These are the Christmas ones, called "The Shepherd's Adoration," "The Adoration of the Wise Men," and "The Flight Into Egypt." I really love these. I framed them to view well in my Google Cardboard viewer and touched up a couple of scratches on the stable wall in the first picture, but they were already so beautiful that I didn't do much to them in Photoshop. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! 

Stereo Photos--Flower in the Street

While I was out walking yesterday I saw this little plant growing through a crack in the street, and I thought it would make a fun 3D photograph. There are two views of it here, one that shows more of the surroundings and another that is a closeup. They should be viewable on any smartphone in a Google Cardboard or equivalent viewer.

 

Life of Christ Stereo Cards--The Resurrection and The Ascension

 

Happy Easter! The Resurrection stereo card is my favorite from this set. I did Photoshop a few funny orange specks off it before posting, but it would have been fine as it was. Oh, and I'm throwing in the Ascension card with it because, while I'm sure there is a liturgical day for that, too, I don't think I'll remember to post it at the correct time. Other cards I've shared from this set can be found here, here, here, here, and here.