Water Under the Bridge

It has been over eight years since my last post and I won't even attempt to fill in what has happened during that time. My reason for starting this blog was to establish an online profile to create interest in my books, and nothing has changed in that regard. I apparently dropped the ball on figuring out social media and continued doing what I love; illustrating children's books. I finished the collection of the Wantstobe books (10 total) with the collaboration of a very talented writer; Valerie Harmon. You can find all the links to check out the Kindle, paperback, and enhanced versions (animated with sound effects, music and dramatized narration) on our website wantstobe.com.

My husband was tired of being an illustrator's widow so he pulled me into house remodeling projects for the next seven years. We could have had an HGTV series called Midlife Makeover with all that we did during that time; including the drama. We finally finished our "last" big project this year. I'm not sure our kids believe that we are done, but now we're helping them with their fixer uppers. The title of the series is now more accurately called Retired Renos.

Between house projects I jumped on the computer to begin the next phase of my dream; making animated picture books. The name Tapdoodle came to mind as I thought about young viewers tapping on the screen to operate large equipment in my first book called Construction Works. My grandson requested I make a book about cooking and 5 months later Cooking Works was added to the list. Since my first blog, 10 more grandchildren have come into the world and I love to see their reactions when I share with them my latest book. I can imagine thousands of children's eyes growing large when they tap on the screen and a helicopter scoops water out of a lake to put out a raging forest fire (see the animated page in the attached video). In order for this to happen I have to put out the word that my books exist! You can find links to all my books by clicking on the "shop" tab at the top of the Tapdoodle Facebook page here.

In future blogs I plan on sharing about the process of creating animated picture books so I'll be in touch (before 8 more years have passed).