Book Review: A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas

A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas is a boatload of fun for any pint-sized buccaneer. My son received this book for Christmas, and I squealed a bit in excitement myself. I had already drooled over the artwork by Sebastia Serra in the bookstore a few weeks earlier. It's fun and well written (by Philip Yates) but definitely a long, repetitive read. Anything involving a take on the Twelve Days is going to be, right? Good thing the action-packed illustrations and surprise twist make it all worthwhile for the parent reading this picture book. It is actually a follow-up to A Pirate's Night Before Christmas which I'll need to check out soon.

I'm going to continue geeking out over Sebastia Serra's illustrations. Check out his blog for more examples. The simplicity of form, vibrant yet sophisticated color palettes and stylized characters place him firmly on that list of 'artists I am influenced by' that we all like to keep close to heart.

Sneak Peak

Be sure to check in with the PBJ's next week for a super fun celebration week

and book giveaway. We will be reviewing Ladybird's First Favourite Christmas Book, illustrated by our own Alicia Padron! And beginning on Monday you can leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of this adorable book. It's big and beautiful!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Olive the other Reindeer!

One of my favorite 'contemporary classics' in the realm of children's books is "Olive the Other Reindeer" by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh. First it was released as a book, then it became an animated holiday TV special (with Olive voiced by Drew Barrymore, with many other actors of note in the cast), and then it became a bevy of licensed merchandise (of which I personally have an advent calendar and greeting cards!)

Enjoy some Olive animated clips here:
http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/olive_the_other_reindeer.htm#

Check the original book out on Amazon (you can pick up a copy used for a buck)!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Olive%2C+the+Other+Reindeer&tag=ovgcom08-20&index=dvd&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

A Doggy Christmas

Here is some art I made for my girlfriends in Bible study. We each have a dog and I was inspired one day by a doodle I had done of Kassie the Collie when she was visiting at my house.

Well, one thing led to another and I used the characters I drew of each of the dogs and created a repeat pattern for gift wrap and gave each dog a toy wrapped in the paper this week for Christmas. The dogs loved it! :)

The wrap was quick and dirty and not particulary Christmassy, but with the characters on separate layers and the wonders of photoshop, I decided to group them together in a Christmas card.

My dog is the Airedale named Mack. He came to me as a rescue in June. I drove up to Oregon from the Bay Area to pick him up, trusting the rescue group who told me he was a really good dog. Here is a picture of what he looked liked when I first saw him. Oh, he was skinny! We took two days to drive home and he slept the entire way he was so exhausted from running as a stray for who knows how long.

Well, here he is today! He has gained 15 pounds and grew in some hair on his legs.

In November we had a new Petco move into our neighborhood and they had a photo shoot special where you could get your dog photographed against a white screen. He is still a puppy and gets very excited if a blade of grass moves, so it wasn't easy to get him to sit for a portrait.

The photographer was sooooo patient and managed to get six great shots of him. Several had to be cropped because I was in the shot holding his rear end down so he wouldn't move. Isn't he cute? What a great dog he has turned out to be.