Springer Mountain

More research for the picture book I'm illustrating, "The 12 Days of Christmas in Georgia." Did you know that Springer Mountain is the beginning of the Appalachian Trail? Well, it's in Georgia and makes for a lovely bimble.
     This past weekend, we headed up to North Georgia and stopped at R&A Orchards for lunch and peaches!

     And then we headed for the mountain. About 20 minutes in on a National Forest road and we were there! Well, sort of. We parked the car and then hiked a mile uphill. THEN we were there!
     And boy was it worth the trip - it was gorgeous.
     There are two plaques when you get to the official start of the AT - you can see one of them in front of Stan (the hubsmeister) embedded in the rock and the other in this second shot. There's also a mailbox of sorts built into the back of the rock to hold notebooks for geocachers and notes/postcards people want to leave for whoever is there next. Pretty cool.
     We also checked out the camping set-ups nearby, and dang. It's like five-star camping up there! And if it wasn't for the bears (which have been problematic of late according to a posted sign) I'd be all over it.


     It's going to be tricky to illustrate this one. If any of you are hikers, you know that the view surrounding you most of the time is pretty limited in scope (rocks, trees, the uphill climb). Every now and then you come to an open vista like the pic above, however, it can be hard to relate that information to surrounding context. So, it will be challenging to draw. But now that I've been there, I have a much better idea of how to tackle it!

Georgia Music Hall of Fame

     Did you even know about this? In honor of all the fabulous music and musicians that have come out of Georgia (it's an impressive list), the Georgia Music Hall of Fame was created in Macon, Georgia. And while it may seem like an odd idea going in, I challenge you to leave without a tear in your eye or a new sense of pride in the state of Georgia.
     We dropped by on our way back from Tybee Island - again for research. My main characters in "The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia" visit the kids section of the museum and I could find nothing online to help me figure out what it really looked like.
     It was a quiet Sunady and Hubbie and I walk in a little wary of what to expect.
     The main display is filled with era-replicas of cafes, diners, churches and other typical music hang-outs. In each are displays of guitars donated by their famous owners:

Actual outfits they wore onstage... (my fave was the B-52s - dang she pulled off something I never could!)

And old band posters. Stan even found one from his fave band in college - Dreams So Real!

     But what we really went to see was the Music Factory!

     This is where the kids can go wild and really experience music. There are booths where you can make and record your own music, become your own percussion/rhythm section, and play piano with your feet. There's a stage where kids can grab all kinds of instruments and become rock-stars (apparently adults like this too...)

     Stan really enjoyed the "Slap Organ" - an instrument made from PVC pipes and operated with flip-flops! It was AWESOME!!
     Best of all was the video the museum put together on the incredible music scene in Georgia over the last hundred years. I was blown away by its scope, and the pride of the musicians over being Georgians and Southern and being connected to all those ghosts and spirits that seem to weep their way into the music.
     But what really got me was listening to people passionate about what they do. It doesn't matter if it's hang-gliding, motorcycle riding, or creating picture books. A life given over to a passion is an awe-inspiring and incredible thing to see and/or experience. I think the hardest part for most people is figuring out what their passion is. But once that's down - the adventure is ON.
     They say success comes from one part talent plus ten thousand hours of practice (Stan worked that out to be about ten years) and the passion to stick with it for that long (I'm at year 8 with kids books). And there we were surrounded by the sights and sounds of people who were living proof of that theory being true.
     The chill bumps stuck with me throughout the museum - we were completely sucked in by its energy and ended up staying MUCH longer than we intended.
     If you can make the trip - even if you're not a crazy music junkie - I highly recommend it!

Tybee Island Research

     No really. We went for research. It had nothing to do with the view (click to see it bigger):

Or the sunset:


Or having dinner with fellow illustrator/SCBWIer Daniel Powers and his wife Silke

at A.J.s where Stan and I saw an enormous Manta Ray jump out of the water several times. (All you have to do at the coast is say, "Look!" and point and everybody within a 100 yard radius will stop and watch with you.)

And it had nothing to do with the pretty little light house at the north end of the island, or the shrimp salad and raw oysters at The Crab Shack:


     No. I was there for research... for that new picture book I'm illustrating for Sterling Children's Books - "The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia" (Christmas 2010) written by my friend, Susan Rosson Spain. (Sterling is doing one of these for each state and I'm honored to be the illustrator for Georgia!)
     I'm supposed to draw my main characters standing on the pier looking at ... something in the water and I really needed to get a feel for the place, y'know?
     It was a bit hard to do at first because they're filming a new Miley Cirus (Hannah Montana fame) movie right now. Can you believe they set up an entire carnival on the beach just for the movie?
     It was cool to see, but a little sad that they wouldn't let anybody in to enjoy the rides (and boy was there a crowd!) Miley is back there somewhere:

     Yeah, this is what we drove all that way to see - the pier

which was a really stunning architectural feat, must say. The pavilion had these gorgeous arched supports - how did they do that!?

     Y'know, all jokes aside, there is something about experiencing a place, the temperature, the light, the reflections and shadows, that you just can't get from simply viewing photos online. Did I have to do this to create this illustration? Maybe not, but boy am I glad I did. I now have a context against which to place my mind's eye as I draw and I'm certain my illustration will be stronger because of it.
     On the way back from Tybee we hit yet another destination for the book which I will write about tomorrow! (No hints...)

Habitat for Humanity - Global Village

     Hubbie and I have begun a new adventure - exploring our own state of Georgia. Why? I'm illustrating a new picture book for Sterling Children's Books - "The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia" (Christmas 2010) written by my friend, Susan Rosson Spain. Sterling is doing one of these for each state and I'm honored to be the illustrator for Georgia!
     Despite living here most of my life, I'm learning tons because I need to visit several of the sites to be able to accurately illustrate them. For instance, Saturday we visited the Habitat for Humanity Global Village in Americus, Georgia to see examples of the houses they build all over the world as well as the bricks that make them possible.

     The first part of the tour is an example of the typical shanty towns found throughout the world. And although it's not supposed to be specific to any one region, it looked exactly like what Stan and I saw in Nairobi, Kenya during our honeymoon. The example is quiet and clean, but it's not hard to imagine the noise , smells, and lack of water and privacy people have to deal with.
     What struck me strongest was the school:

     Can you imagine the dedication it would take to try to learn in this environment? A friend of mine who works with CARE (with offices here in Atlanta) mentioned another concern students hit - there will often be a bathroom nearby for the male students, but not the females which keeps many of them away for obvious reasons.
     Also humbling was how it doesn't take much to elevate the conditions for people. Most of the houses we saw had no electricity or running water. The connection to the outdoors was much more tangible. For instance, here is a typical school in Africa:

     The homes Habitat for Humanity creates in other countries are not luxurious by American standards, but they can be life-changing for the people who receive them. Hand-made bricks are a big part of that. This is what I needed to see:

     They pack a slurry of ground and water and pack it down into the cavity then use an arm (not showing) to press it down into a brick . . . one at a time. It's hard work and can take two people several weeks to create enough bricks for one home. But the bricks have an interlocking design that makes them much easier for novices to use. In other words, they work.
     Want to help? You can buy a personalized brick at the Global Village for a donation of $100.
     All said, it was a wonderful Saturday bimble. Americus is charming. We ate at a new restaurant (Sue Baby's?), bought fresh veggies at their farmer's market and enjoyed the scenery all the way down and back. Mostly, we returned home with a humble feeling of how incredibly lucky we are to live where we do.