Moose In Boots- Page 8

I was afraid I was going to have to do this page at least a couple of times. Or, at any rate, sections of it and then put them together with digital magic. But, I didn't mess up!

You need to understand that this is the left side of a two-page spread. You'll see the rest of the pictures another day. But some of these words aren't going to have anything to go with them yet. I may add some darker green for the trees above the wolf. Actually, I can test how that looks on the computer to see if it looks good.

Here is the concept page with some color I added with the computer a long time ago. It makes it hard to see the pencil drawings, but you get the idea. I actually had a few different concept drawings because I changed one of the animals and the placement of some things. (Just this week I thought about adding a spruce grouse because they also have special feet and they are very pretty, and they live in the northwoods. But I decided I should stick with familiar animals.)

And here are the pen drawings before I added in the color. I did the hardest one first and then held my breath until I finished the rest.

It was a really busy day. I did all of this except the color in the morning because this afternoon I had to do errands, grocery shopping and bell choir. I also managed to walk 3 miles.

Miles hiked in 2026: 33.5

Ludington School Forest, various trails, 3.0 miles/

See Moose In Boots - page 7

Moose In Boots - Page 7

One more page.

I'm beginning to feel like I have ADHD. I do one thing on the painting and that has to dry or almost dry. But that means I can do something else for about 15 minutes and then I need to go back to it. I'm beginning to feel a little bit fractured.

Not too much to show on this one. Here's the concept. I used two printed copies of this to try out a couple of colors on the tent. But this picture is before I colored things.

Decided on blue and gray. A brighter color drew the eyes to the tent too much. Here's the first wash.

And the second wash. Basically, I colored every area before I started putting in details with pens.

What I actually spent some serious time on was trying out techniques for page 24. That one has to be different and I don't know what the heck I'm doing. But I fooled around- watched some videos and sort of made up something else, and I think I'm getting close to what I want. I'll show you those when I get to page 24, which will be a while.

I also managed to edit some.

Don't know if I'll finish a whole page tomorrow. It will be a busy day, and the next page is a little different too.

See Moose In Boots- Page 6

Moose In Boots - Page 6

Today went well... as far as working on Moose In Boots! But again, this is about all I did. Here is page 6

Here is the concept drawing from 16 years ago.

A few process pictures that might be slightly meaningful. This was the very first color I added. The rocks were fun. They just got blotches of gray, purple, and green. Then I worked with them later to create the rock shapes.

At that point I could "see" enough of the picture to know that I didn't like how it looked as it the landscape just falls off to nothing beyond the rocks. Lots of northwoods landscapes do fall away steeply, but there is usually a low area in the distance. I thought about just taking a chance on putting in the color. But by then, I'd invested a lot of time in the rocks and trees already, and I didn't want to ruin it if that didn't look good. So I painted a strip of ordinary paper, cut it out and laid it in to see how it looked. Yes! Much better. I knew I dared add a distant layer of color.

This is also possibly interesting. I wanted to be sure the hemlock bark was going to look OK. First I tried a couple of sample trunks on the scrap page on the left. The top one is too dark, but I was happy with the bottom one. The strip on the right is part of the actual page, but before I added the shading. Looks kinda weird, right! But I think the final tree looks good.

Have you noticed that I've been trying to add in plants that belong? Page 1 has marsh marigolds. Page 3 has Canada anemone and pink ladies' slipper. This page has bunchberry (ground dogwood). The trees on this page are a baby white pine, the tall and small hemlock, and a maple tree.

As I said, I didn't do much else. I feel good about finally getting serious about this book, but I also know I should be doing some other things too.

See Moose In Boots - page 5

Spirit of the Woods Hike- February 2026

Today was the annual hike and attached chili feed. We had a big group despite the cold and snow. We think 25 people hiked. A couple of them did not get in the picture.

The snow was unbroken, but our two stalwart Dans led the way and most of the group did a total of about 3 miles.

I turned around earlier. My knee is still sore, and I want it to get better not angrier. The return woods was quiet and the trail was nicely packed after all those people had been on it!

The rest of the event is held at the warming shelter at Big M Ski Area. Loren does most of the work for this. There's a nice wood stove, and she heated the chili. She's dishing some out in this picture.

People also brought other foods to complement the chili. There was lots of food! This is just one secton. (It's hard to take good pictures in the building because the light is from those huge windows and it's hard to get a shot without a big blob of light behind it)

We think the total head count was about 35. It's a great time every year, and having a slightly warmer indoor place to visit makes it really nice. Several new people came.

Miles walked in 2026: 30.5
Hike 100 Challenge: 10.2 miles

North Country Trail, Manistee Co, MI. Madison Rd north about 1.2 miles out and back

See SPW- January 2026

Moose in Boots- Page Five

Yes, I can count. I know that 4 comes after 3. But...

In order to do page 4, I need masking fluid. Mine is all dried up. Hobby Lobby (our only halfway decent local art supply) carries some. It had 3 reviews on line, all of which were bad. They all said that it doesn't come off the paper, tearing it and ruining the picture. Um, nope.

So I have ordered a different kind. But until that arrives (Tuesday or Wednesday), I have to skip that page.

Then I got serious about finding the original drawings. Took over an hour, but I've got them. They were actually in one of the places that made sense for them to be. It's just that it was the last of the places I thought to look. So now those are all re-scanned and saved. Losing the old computer files isn't too big a deal because I had printouts of everything, but it just takes more time.

I also located my watercolor pencils which are very handy for small spaces

Good thing page five wasn't too hard.

Here is the concept drawing. You can see that I seriously improved the cardinal. I'm also trying to remember to keep everything important a quarter-inch from the edges so they can bleed off the page when printed. I have to redo the computer files for the first two pages, but that's not hard. And I had thought to have bark stripped by a porcupine, but they don't really do that on aspen, so I skipped it.

So, I didn't really start working on today's page until about 11 am. And I needed to fool around to make sure I could get a nice gradient of yellow to green in the background. Here it is just before lunch.

And again, at about 3 pm.

I also had to run an errand and get groceries. Managed to edit a little bit too. So, all in all, today went well.

See Moose in Boots- Page 3