My Mom Rebekah is a woman of many, many talents, although she wouldn’t see it that way. She’s recently added ‘published author’ to that repertoire. One of my favorite talents of hers is her artistic ability. I can remember growing up and being in awe of her ability to make things come to life. Norman Rockwell is my favorite male painter, but without a trace of hesitation, I can say that she is my favorite female painter.

She imbues every painting with so much life, light and color. To me, she has an instantly recognizable style. They seem to leap off the canvas. She’s also tried her hand (successfully, in my opinion) to wood carving, ornaments, gourds, pumpkins, and the like. While not having a lick of this kind of talent myself, I do enjoy bragging about hers.

Our book is full of illustrations, and when it was returned from the publisher, we decided to sit down and see if there was a different way we could approach some of the photos. I used royalty free images from the web, but while they were sufficient, they were definitely lacking in…personality. Mom offered to try her hand. She hadn’t yet conquered illustrations (only because she hadn’t tried it yet) and was up for a challenge. I gave her the manuscript and a vague idea of what I was looking for.

The day I took Hannah’s photos, we had dinner with her and reviewed some of her ideas. I loved them. Seriously, I loved them. As she gets them done, she has been sending me samples. She keeps thinking I’m kidding about how crazy I am for them, but I’m not. Seeing her work takes me back to my childhood, and gives me nothing but happy feelings.

I wanted to share a tiny sample here, because I want you to be as excited as I am. This is the first of many good things that has occurred as a result of getting the manuscript back. Her illustrations are going to make this book amazing.

This weekend, we’re working on the cover, and I cannot wait. 

Right at 35 days before my 35th birthday, Rachael and I found out that a book we wrote about our experience making our first film “No Lost Cause,” was being returned to us by the publisher after a year of waiting for it to be printed. Instead of wallowing in our collective misery, I committed to blogging every day while I searched for ways to overcome this perceived rejection and obstacle to our goal. I currently also have about three other projects brewing at the same time, and write about the progress of each of them. This is part of that series.

Read the first entry here: https://ashleyraymerbrown.com/2015/01/23/35-days-to-35-dealing-with-rejection/