Beluga

Detail


Detail


Isn't that just the greatest word? Beluga. Say it, and your lips puff out and it pops right out into the air and floats there, just like this magical flying creature. This is another illustration/collage for my buddy Bonny (hmmm, that's kinda fun to say, too. "buddy Bonny"). Her terrific manuscript, Somewhere in These Days of Morning is the perfect home for my collages, and I'm so happy to be able to contribute. If you'd like to visit her blog and read a few more chapters, by all means, go here.

Meanwhile, here's the chapter that accompanies this collage in its entirety:

Beluga is a secret word for ultimatum.

Guess it's not a secret anymore. If you meet up with one, be prepared to act fast and decisively. Because a beluga does not attempt to harness its rage at helplessness. She rides belugas to get her where she wants to go. The view is glorious, and the speed is high. The ride is squeaky and breezy, smooth and violent. She doesn't care that belugas take her where the answers are. She doesn't have any questions.
©2009 Excerpt from Somewhere in these Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum (author) and Andrée Tracey (illustrator)

Now if you will excuse me, I must go and saddle up my beluga and go for a ride.

Hotel Rapid Deterioration

DETAIL


DETAIL

Time has a way of just drifting away. This is a chapter by Bonny Belgum in Somewhere in These Days of Morning, a forthcoming book of her inspired observations of life paired with my collages, inspired by her observations! Here's the chapter in its entirety:

She used to own a hotel called Rapid Deterioration,

and before that she lived in it. The whole place was done up in tasteful pumpkin. She had to move out to bring the total available rooms to 117, the correct number for any hotel on a large secondary street.

©2008 Excerpt from Somewhere in these Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum (author) and Andrée Tracey (illustrator)

Bonny always has an interesting adventure on her horizons - for more information about her writings and doings, check out her blog.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Clandestine

Excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning
©2008 Bonny Belgum

I hope you all are in the middle of happy holidays. It's been a while since I've posted, that's because I've been busy holiday-ing. But here's another chapter for the collaborative book Somewhere in These Days of Morning, written the fabulous Bonny Belgum and illustrated by me. If you would like to read the entire chapter (it's short and sweet, two whole paragraphs), you can check it out here.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Similar

Blurry? Fuzzy? It's similar, but not quite the same. Blurry is more......slippery and smooth sounding. And fuzzy has a more textural connotation, don't you think? This collage is another illustration in the upcoming book collaboration, Somewhere in These Days of Morning, written by Bonny Belgum
and illustrated by myself. You may have seen it previously in this blog as That's the kind of person she is, but that was merely a working title. Eventually Bonny felt this title WASN'T working, and this beautiful title came to mind. I love the dual interpretations of morning/mourning and days and morning. Bonny makes words sing.
If you'd like to read the chapter in it's entirety (it's very short, only two paragraphs), go here.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Packed

--excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning
©2008 Bonny Belgum/Andrée Tracey

Monday through Friday, the days are just packed.

Another illustration for the upcoming book Somewhere in These Days of Morning, written by Bonny Belgum and illustrated by little ole me. Author Bonny's just-published book Cut the Woman Some Slacks! was #25 on Amazon.com's list of new humor essay books today - yaaaay! You can visit her website for more juicy details.

Meanwhile, here's the illustrated chapter in its entirety excerpted from our collaborative venture mentioned above.



Flags are flying, people are marching in a row.

It's a business army, storming a high-rise, expertly trained in death of the spirit. Orders: Shoot to kill. There is a massacre every day, and these living dead sense nothing except fear of reprisal. They fall in step. She knows the tree frog sees this and peps in horror. She loves the tree frog for pepping. His pep can melt a building. So it should.

©2008 Bonny Belgum



OK everybody, put on your shoes now and head for your cubicle.

Bonny's Reading

My zany friend and partner in collaboration Bonny Belgum will be reading from her just-published book Cut the Woman Some Slacks! next week so get out your calendars and write this down! Bonny's book was ranked #34 by Amazon last week on the Hot New Releases list for essay books. I can see why - this collection of humorous and satirical essays will make you laugh and at the same time, reconsider how you view everything in life, from the mundane to the profound. The BOOK is on Amazon.com and the READING is September 25th at 7:00 pm at Amazon Bookstore , the oldest independent feminist bookstore in North America (right here in Minneapolis!), and I'LL BE THERE SO WHY DON'T YOU JOIN US????

For more information, chuckles, links, directions, pictures, prose, excerpts and everything you wanted to know but couldn't think to ask, check out her website: www.bonnysamerica.com.


Let's hope she wears those ever so proper pearls.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Island

--excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning ©2008 Bonny Belgum/Andrée Tracey

Yes, September is an island. You probably never thought about that, did you. After you read the upcoming book, Somewhere in These Days of Morning, written by Bonny Belgum and illustrated by yours truly, all sorts of interesting thoughts will dance in your head. Stay tuned for more illustrated chapters, and dust off your mental dancing shoes.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Clutter

Her house was filled with clutter, but it was no match for her mind!

This is another page in the collaborative venture with the witty writer Bonny Belgum. Her soon- to-be available book Somewhere in These Days of Morninghas been a perfect canvas for my artwork, since it appears our creative thoughts are running in tandem.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Memories

Here's another contribution to the upcoming book, Somewhere in These Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum. Collaborating with Bonny on her book is such a treat, because my peculiar illustrations seem to fit her peculiar style of writing, and when a peculiar visual artist meets a peculiar writer - well, it's MAGIC! And you as a reader don't have to go to all the trouble of being peculiar, we will do it for you. All you have to do is come along for the ride - and it will be an adventure! You will look at your world a little differently - it will be a wider, wilder world , infinitely more interesting for the reading.

The chapter that follows spoke to me of memories that we all carry with us in our ancestral history, in our scrapbooks of our cultural heritage, in our DNA. Our pasts are a jungle filled with improvisations and mistakes and fleeting joys. We can't see the future, and if we are lucky or have lots of therapy, we don't care if we crash, because we know the landing is not that bad and we'll be in the company of so many who have crashed before us. It's a chapter filled with optimism. One of the advantages of a winter in our life is that we can see the world more clearly without those beautiful leaves getting in our way.

The chapter in its entirety:

She hears all the bird's songs, from all over the world, at once.

The voices from the jungle sound the most familiar. She may have lived there from before time. The birds where she stands, the birds she can see with our human eyes, are the most muted in the chorus. The jungle birds, the loudest, like to improvise. This is strange for a bird. You must trust your call as you trust your wings. The jungle birds don't care if no one answers, don't care if they crash down out of the sky. The jungle bed is thick and comfortable and never lonely.

The muted birds seem happiest on bare twigs, where you can see through the tree. They dread the coming of spring and new life. It plunges them into confusion until far away when the leaves fall and they regain control.

-excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning by
Bonny Belgum, copyright 2008

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Routine

Here's another illustration that will appear in the soon to-be-published Somewhere in These Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum. This imaginative collection of thoughts will gently take your mind's hand and lead you down the road into some pretty funny, bizarre and entertaining mental countryside! A modern day Alice in Wonderland for grownups. And I thought this image would satisfy this week's theme of "routine".

Here's the chapter in its entirety:

Cooking takes up most of her time

because she only uses her left hand, and she is right-handed. This handedness does not change after years in the kitchen, because she does everything else right-handed. The food tastes better, though. Considerably so. The left hand has a far greater appetite, inspiring subtle influences of spice and heat for which the right hand has no patience.

- excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum copyright 2008

You can say hi to Bonny on her website: www.bonnysamerica.com. Say hi for me, too, OK?

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Poof

A tornado is the ultimate poof!

This photo montage is an illustration for the upcoming book Somewhere in These Days of Morning by Bonny Belgum. Here is the chapter in its entirety:

Decoding is a state of mind

Slippery iron or chromium tubes are not carriers. Decoding is a parched landscape brimming with age, cracking all the world’s history into tiny laugh lines. If you can’t see in it the best jokes ever thought but not spoken, all the math in the collective wisdom vaults can’t help you. She and the Dalai Lama laugh so hard you can almost hear if you know where to look. Tornadoes spin them up to a little white wrought-iron tea table, where they eat lemon cakes and enjoy the brittle view.

She had an idea once, and for that she is sorry.

--excerpted from Somewhere in These Days of Morning, copyright 2008 Bonny Belgum

I love this! And to think there are many more chapters to illustrate, I can hardly wait to get out my thinking cap and scissors and paint and old magazines....! For more information about Bonny, you can visit her blog at bonnysamerica.com.