The world is a lot right now, so take a break with this relaxing coloring page. Can you find the hidden ghost? Hint: He’s looking at his cell phone.
First, download this bucolic scene of a bear and his son on an apple-picking trip. Print it out at the local library or family court. Set up a projector and transfer the image into a large, stretched canvas. Enlarge the image to eight and a half feet by eleven feet. You’ll probably want to lay the canvas flat on the floor. It’s big, so rent a warehouse space to accommodate the painting and the mattress you found.
Did you sign the lease and have the utilities turned on? Put out the rat baits? Okay, throw away your phone. I’m serious. It’s too much of a distraction. You have work to do.
Cutting ties with everyone and paying for your new studio is probably stressful. Go for an invigorating hike and look for plants and berries to grind into pigments for your coloring sheet. Experimentation will take months of trial and error to determine what makes what color, which compounds are lightfast, and what is and isn’t poisonous. A YouTube video would help, but you threw away your phone for some reason.
Okay. By now, you have your colors together and have burned through your savings. It’s time to make the tinctures into paint. For this project, you’re going to use egg tempera. I’ve never tried it, as it looks complicated and frustrating, so let me know how it goes.
Time to paint! Blackout the windows with garbage bags and work by candlelight in a relentless morass of intrusive thought and never-ending darkness. Day and night have no meaning. There is only coloring page. Find a song that reminds you of a bad breakup and play it on repeat. When you finish your painting, set it on fire before anyone sees it. As your old life crumbles and your credit score drops, look around at the squalor and filth and notice how trivial the problems of your old life seem in comparison.
That’s the magic of art.
Okay.
I just returned from a book tour for Pizza For Birds—a couple of things.
First, Milwaukee is lovely. It was walkable, not too crowded, and had a modern museum; the people were super friendly.
Okay, the best part. My pen pal Edward came all the way to Milwaukee to see me! He was in the front row of the presentation and made these shrinky dinks of my characters.
People are great, especially Edward.
Share this post to your secret crush! Or, someone who might like it. Up to you.
Thank you for always making me smile. Your books are well-loved in our library.
I absolutely love the shrinky dinks!! Your fan is the BEST! I also once had a very cute fan make a shrinky dink of my book character Chloe Zoe! But it was just one shrinky dink—not nearly as impressive as your vast collection! Cheers!