[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

Inspired by the recent blog posts of Saira Zhang, delightful little dittys for children to laugh & squeal over, I've dredged through backup hard drives all afternoon in search of a children's story I wrote in Australia, nearly twenty years ago. 

The story was a true story of a painting created by my artist friend, Dorothy Hall, who drew the illustrations for my interpretation of her story.  She'd told me a pensioner had seen her detailed watercolor of a rural creek, had loved the painting because it was 'so real he could almost see the mud crabs in the water...' and had paid a portion of his allotment each month for almost two years, to acquire it. 

I was very touched by the man's connection to the painting, his need to have it in his life; his commitment to long term financial sacrifice, the delayed gratification, to be able to own it.

Dorothy painted truly exquisite nature portraits.  She drew her inspirations from the little nature preserve that she and her husband, Max, had created on their property.  There were many stories about their experiences with wildlife and native plants.  Dorothy had already been persuaded to illustrate a true story of restoring a fallen baby bird to a nest she knitted when a storm destroyed the original (The Littlest Honey Eater), after her first, Kenny, Koo and Rocket the Roo (both written by Gwen Deem).  The books were a success but Dorothy was not happy with her illustrations, "I can't draw people!" she'd anguished.  It was true.  Whereas her animals were perfect, the humans looked awkward, stilted.

The obvious solution seemed to simply anthropomorphize the story to utilize her wonderful talents by illustrating humans as animals. 

And so she did, and I did, and we produced a credible rough draft  to send to publishers. Not complete with all the illustrations, however, but enough to demonstrate her skill. 

There were several positive responses, but before I could follow up on them the season for sailing North was upon us: we had to depart Maryborough.  I left the manuscript with Dorothy, had hoped she would be able to continue with the project but...painting, not publishing, was where her heart was.  So the years have passed...as have Dorothy and Max. I only recently learned this,  and that a coffee table book of her life work was being published...sans her perfect little illustrations for Howard Hyla. 

Somewhere in a trunk of photo albums I have a photo of Max and Dorothy, but in the meantime, there is also the illustration of Mr. & Mrs. Brushtail Possum that Dorothy made of themselves...for her wonderful story of a painting an old pensioner paid for on 'lay-by'. 

It may be still possible to postumously publish our Howard Hyla book, so if you wish to download the PDF file, Howard Hyla Buys a Painting,  to read the story...would you please comment with a bit of feedback?  Thank you!