Books to Read, Online Image Resource

I've been dealing with the local loss of the young man who died last Friday. On Tuesday night (and in the afternoon) there were visiting hours. The line stretched out of the funeral home and stayed out there until nearly 9:00pm, which was when the visiting hours were supposed to end. from 7pm-10:00 hundreds of people honored Chris Dove, his family and his love and service for others. What a testimony to a life well lived, though short. He was a Young Life minister.

If you're an illustrator with free coloring pages online, Here's a place to add your link, so that people can find them.

I've found some more good books to read. The first is Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac. It's a historical fiction book for young adults about the Navaho Marines of WWII who helped America win the war. I've always been fasinted by them. I heard that the last Code Talker recently died. What a great loss. They are unsung heros in so many ways.

I also saw a book that is now on my wish list. It's called The Art of Reading, and is from RIF. It celebrates 40 years of books and reading, by highlighting 40 illustrators, and their illustrations depicting their favorite childhood book and how they interpret it. It's a Must Have book for children's book illustrators and writers.

I also borrowed a book from the library by Deborah Wiles called Each Little Bird that Sings. It looks wonderful.

For the illustrators out there, when searching for images to use for reference in illustrations, you probably use Google images. That's always been a great resource for me. I also have a huge stash of Family Fun magazines, Martha Stewart Kids mags, Mary Englebriet mags and others, but there are times I need to find an idea faster than the old fashioned way of riffling through magazines. Now I've found another online source. It's Inmagine.com.
The images are copyright free photos for use in publications I imagine, but the fact that there are many images of active young children, families, pets, indoors and outdoors is fantastic. I needed an image of a young girl twirling in a dress and found a good action view. I won't use it exactly, but it does show good action.

I'm now on my third children's illustration for a book. So far it's been a wonderful experience, and has been going faster than I imagined, but I've got to get the concept in my head for the next few illustrations. There are several ways they could be done. Decision making is not my forte.