Portfolio continued/Foot Foot Song

Here is my very first rough sketch for the main character of a story written by my good friend Steve Cormey http://stevecormey.blogspot.com He has fashioned the story after a song called the Foot Foot song written a long long time ago by Ray Bolger.The song also features in the story and the whole thing is really cute. I would use this song when i was a storyteller years ago.Cormey had three really dilapidated rabbit puppets with button eyes that didn't match. I used these as props and still have them here in my studio closet. The kids loved them. When my stories just weren't working and things were not going well on stage I'd just pull out the rabbits and sing the Foot Foot song. Anyway, the story, the song and more illustrations will come later. Stay tuned.

Portfolio/Silly Magic

SILLY MAGIC written and illustrated by Ronda Eden Willy and Waly Wombat lived in far away Australia. They were happy little fellows and had good reason to be. Australia is a really BIG place so they had lots of room to run around and play. And when they weren't playing they were napping. All day they could play, take a nap then play some more. When they weren't playing or napping they would do what they loved best of all...........ride their bikes!
One day they discovered a mysterious trail that lead them into an even more mysterious forest. After a while they became a little pooped and decided to take a break and have a snack on some sandwiches they had swashed in their pockets.
As they relaxed under gigantic mysterious trees they didn't notice the magic stuff falling onto them from the branches above.They gobbled down their sandwiches and still didn't notice the magic stuff. They couldn't have possibly know this was 'silly magic', the kind that makes you do the strangest things.


SUDDENLY they felt really dizzy and the world started spinning around them. Willy's skin began to tingle and and the hairs on his neck stood straight up on end.


Then he leap t to his feet and ran full speed through the trees.Wally ran after him and they ran and the ran and they laughed and they laugh. They were being really silyl and having so much fun that they didn't notice it was getting dark..............until.......IT WAS.
Willy and Wally were lost! And they weren't feeling very silly any more! They couldn't possible find their way back home in the dark, so they used their 'wombat sense'. They dug a shallow hole, covered themselves with leaves to keep warm and went to sleep.
In the morning when the sun came up they could easily find their tracks. They followed them around and around and around and around and around until they finally found..... their bikes.
They jumped on and peddled out of that mysterious place as fast as their little wombat legs could carry leaving all of that silly magic behind them.Well almost all of it!


To be edited etc

More bloody portfolio stuff / Robby the Roo

Illustration for a rhyming story called Robby the Roo.
Click on image to enlarge.Have a look at Robby's eyes in the second pic. The only thing I photo shopped. Guess I need more practice aye! LOL

Robby the Roo
built a canoe
with intentions of sailing away
he built it you see
from a eucalypt tree
it took him three weeks and a day!.........

Yes it goes on for quite a bit.

Portfolio continued/people

A possible illustration for a story I'm writing called My Teacher has Eyes in the Back of her Head.
Click to enlarge.

portfolio continued/people

"Bother", grunted Hilda."Missed again!" From Boris, Hilda and the Strange New Thing.

Portfolio continued/ Goanna

A bit silly but this actually happens. We are all told to stand perfectly still when you see a snake. This doesn't work with those big tree goannas. Their eyesight's not too good. If they panic they'll head right up the nearest thing they think might be a tree. It's a little unnerving wouldn't you say?!
Australia's a strange place.

Portfolio continued

Mutants in the Fridge (228 words)

By Ronda Eden

There are mutants in the fridge and I don’t know what to do

Slimy bits of watermelon and all this yukky goo

Something green and furry, something all gone black

Some chips all dried and shriveled and what looks like a Big Mac!

No one likes to clean the fridge they’d rather let it be

They’re scared to take the lids off things

They’re scared of what they’ll see

The meat’s gone green and slimy and it’s really on the nose

The cheese has grown an overcoat and all the spuds have toes!

The veggies are quite clever, they take care of themselves

They turn themselves to liquid and move to other shelves

And if they’re left there long enough, they head toward the door

Then when you open up the fridge, they ooze onto the floor

Each day they’re growing bigger and changing shape and color

Some are getting brighter and some are getting duller

One day they might turn into, huge gigantic toads

And just keep getting bigger until the fridge explodes!

Whoa!

Then what a job will that be, to clean up that big mess

We’ll have to think of something

We’ll have to move I guess

Just thinking of this makes me tried

And makes me hungry too

But there mutants in the fridge and I don’t know what to do.

Children's Book Illustration Portfolio continued/people

Have You Ever Had a Hot dog?

Have you ever had a hot dog
that you wore instead of ate?
The type that makes a gooey mess.
The type your parents hate!

Did the ketchup run all over you
and all over your clothes?
Did it make a bright red sticky river
from your chin down to your toes?

Did you have another, then another
then another one?
Did you make a super hot dog mess?
Did you have a heap of fun?

Well if you had a hot dog
that you worn instead of ate,
the messy gooey icky type,
the type you parents hate

consider yourself lucky
'cause when all is said and done
the one that doesn't make a mess
is the one that's .....just no FUN!

My New Chlidren's Book Illustration Portfolio/animals

New character drawings for Peggy Lou the Emu. Note Peggy Lou's head is larger to add more 'cute appeal' she no longer carries a book and pencil and I've given her sneakers that are too big for her. I have also changed my colored pencil and ink technique.

Why we live in Wyoming!

My good friend Marjorie sent me this little Poem of truths.We both wish we wrote it.

It's winter in Wyoming
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At twenty-five below.
Oh, how I love Wyoming
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Wyoming
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground.

Anon

What's Cookin' in 2008

Click on image to enlarge.This is how I describe my new web page on the Northernfront( see www.northernfront.net or links to the right) The things on the stove top are what I'm on about right now and the canisters on the shelf are what I've been doing for the past couple of decades. I had to put some things on the shelf to make room on the stove but that doesn't mean I can't reach up and grab one of those canisters from time to time. Maybe next year I'll be cookin' up something new.

www.northernfront.net

G'day! I've just signed up for a page on a very nice virtual art gallery know as the Northern Front; brain child of prominent Laramie artist Terry Reid.Actually Terry describes it as follows......" www.northernfront.net Gallery of the Northern Front: Contemporary Art of the West/ a digital portfolio and resume service for professional artists." The page will help people figure out exactly what I'm up to in my cocoon studio here on the ranch. It will help me also to figure out what I'm up to which is quite a feat in itself. Right now it is a work in progress and my challenge is to create a description of the page in as 'concise' a manner as possible. First of all I have to come up with 'tags'. So please bear with me while I brainstorm.
Children's Literature, Children's books,Children's illustration, Picture books, illustration, writing for children, cartoons and caricature, commissions, paintings, oil pastel, mixed media, equine art, horses, humor, murals, humorous poetry, Australia, storytelling, didgeridoo playing, belly dancing, Greek culture, roodroppings. That's enough for now. Go check out 'the Front' at www.northernfront.net while your waiting for my personal page to gestate. Stay tuned for the birth.

shiner

It was getting dark and i was hurrying to bring horses in. I'd halted up a couple of lovely young horses to bring into there motel rooms in the port-a-stall. A couple of days ago they walked away from me so i took a bucket to them with the tiniest amount of grain in it. One of them really thought it was Xmas and dove in to ravage the bottom of the bucket. As i pull his head up it came up faster, a lot faster than i had anticipated and BOOM ... get the picture? Not the horse's fault just careless little ole me. So now I'm deaf in one ear and blind in one eye. I'm sure none of this is permanent, just some kind of wake up call.

Whoops go to Mernie's blog

Please go to http://wyofool.blogspot.com to view my New Years Eve posting. I goofed up and put it on Mernie's Blog by mistake. You can see his new mud room there too.
Cheers and have an 'appy New Year!

the year gone by

YeeHah! Here we are again at the end of a year thinking about the year to come. All in all it's been a pretty good one.We've been back in the States now for 18 months and have achieved lots as far as getting the ranch and our lives here back together. We have over fifty horses here now. There were only 15 when we returned from Australia.
My biggest personal achievement this year was giving up alcohol.It's been almost a year now! I've never in my adult life done this before. It's great!A lot easier than just cutting back. That never worked!Of course I still like to watch people drink. It's fascinating
January was a month of glad and sad. The glad being; we purchased Flambeau, the horse i had been training for several months (figured i just had to have him); and the sad, our good friend and horse boarder Roger, a beautiful, big, gentle giant of a guy, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was not much older than forty!
The winter was wicked with temps way below zero. Some weeks, when the merc rose above zero we declared it a heat wave. Anything that could freeze and break,DID!
In April we escaped for a week with a trip to California to visit Corky, Cindy, Mernie's Mum and of course the new grandson little Finley. Very nice relaxing time. Put on 5lbs!
The warmer weather when it finally came,was much appreciated and savored to the limit. Flambeau and I completed our first endurance ride in Denver; 21 miles of strangling my horse and 4 miles of pleasant riding. The Kenlyn Challenge takes you over and along streams, on paved walking and dog paths and under I 25 several times. Of course Beau was too nutso to notice any of this.
The following rides in Wheatland, Laramie, Nebraska and Denver were much better. He figured it out pretty quickly and has become a fantastic endurance horse. We ended the season with our first 50 ( a real endurance ride)in Denver.
Rod and Beth got hitched in May. We attended the wedding which was terrific. Lots of happy, fun loving people;A good start for our best friends and a lovely couple .
In Sept Mernie's Mum came to visit for a few weeks. Although her memory is not good, she is such a dear and an expert folder of laundry. I never did quite get the hang of that and now she's back in CA. we have reverted back to scrunched up clothes.
I turned 51 in October. Yikes!
Did lots of riding with my riding buddy Michael even at night under a full moon. Life doesn't get better than that!
Great news, BETH IS HAVIN' A BABY! Rod wants to call it Fritz regardless of the gender and there's lots of discussion going on about that in the Keller household right now! Oh Rodney!
In November I spent 3 lovely weeks in Australia with my family in spite of the fact that i got a nasty cold. I've been told its not good to fly with a cold and now i know why. I've been home for a month now and my ears still haven't popped.I'ts left me with some hearing loss in my left ear.Maybe it will get better and maybe not. We'll see.
Dad turned 87 while I was there! He's still going strong although he still whinges a bit; especially when his horses are losing.I got to spend a lot of time with Dad and with my sister Julie and that was precious. Spent some nice time with my sister Kaye. She is looking great and doing really well. I also got to see and ride our horses which was fortunate as in December, our 8year old standard bred Forrest died of a severe bout of colic.Our good friend Graham called to tell us but got the horses mixed up. He was sure it was the older of our two horses and so I assumed it was Fonzie.Although he did say Forrest to begin with.For those who don't know them well they were something like bookends. So now we have done some grieving for both horses.
Mernie has finished a wonderful addition to the house; a mud room at the front that i can't image how we did without. It's a place to come in out of the cold and unload those 10 layers of clothes and shake of the 2 bales of hay you've collected in them.Not to mention the boots with the huge globs of mud and horse poop on them! Mernie is so clever!
Mernie and Rod are finishing off the year with some serious beer making so you can guess what their new years resolutions WONT be!
Take care everyone and make 2008 the best year ever. Luv ya all.
Happy Trails from Ronnie and Mernie with the world On A String at the Ranch.
Don't forget to go back into previous blogs for more roodroppings!
(It would be lovely to have some comments so i know that I'm reaching some of you out there.)

Cruisin the Yorkers etc

Three weeks Down Under with the temperature hovering in between a lovely 75 to 100 F.Got to spend a lot of time with my sister and my dad which was the purpose of the visit to start with.Sister Julie and I stayed at her lovely cottage in Moonta before losing our way all over the southern Flinders Ranges looking for my horses. No, the horses are not and have never been lost, they are being looked after like kings at one of the South Australia's best bed and brekky accommodations, Bundaleer Homestead(previously blogged). It was us who were lost. Surprise, surprise! We just couldn't seem to follow anyones's, including our own directions.When we finally found the place where they were we still couldn't actually find them. They were there somewhere hiding on 250 acres of gum studded, rolling hills and bushland. After disturbing numerous mobs of roos enjoying their mid day naps in the shade of giant eucalpt trees we found 'the boys' grazing away merrily. By that time what had found us however was the 100 plus degree heat and swarms of pesky, sticky little flies.Ah Australia I had forgotten some of her finer points!

See here sister Julie in her little red sportsy job at Pt Hughes on the Yorke Pennicula not far from where Greg Norman is greating an extravegant playground for himself.We were pretending to be movie stars.Darrrrlings!

Stanley out to stud

Went home to Aus for my Dad's 87th birthday and here is the bonza birthday boy blowing out an obviously well abreviated number of candles.Note the badge. A token compliments of my nephew who acquired it after more than a few beers at a Melbourne cup race day celebration.Dad doesn't get around as well as he used to but his mind, like his wit is sharp as a tack.

Ester

Ester

This lovely black mare is for sale.See her here with Jessica strutting a little of her stuff in our arena.I will have her owner post a little more about her soon. 'SOLD'

More toons. Some endurance riders i know.

pure caricature

My horse Flambeau needs some orthoscopic surgery on his left fetlock. So I'm turning to caricature to raise the money.I'm specializing in people on their horses and if you don't have a horse i can put you on one. Fancy being immortalized as the man from snowy river or Lady Godiva.Anyway personalized sketches will cost about $20. Drawing them is easy scanning them into the computer however is really challenging me.