Full Circle with Baby Bear Counts One: Part 2

When my sons were little my Mom-in-law, Jewell Russell, introduced me to The Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown.

Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon, is an alumnus of Hollins University, where I now teach in the summer program.

I read the Noisy Book and the others in the series and they were delightful read alouds for little boys.

Baby Bear Counts One is MY Noisy Book.

The books opens with:

Deep down in the den

Baby Bear perks his furry ears.

Thockthockthockthockthock!

“Mama, who woke me? he asks

“That is the woodpecker,” says Mama

“hunting beetles before winter comes.”

I have always loved the sound of a woodpecker, hammering away somewhere deep in the forest. Last fall I saw these freshly pecked holes not far from my Mom’s house. What a racket these must have been in the making!

Not to mention–a great deal of labor for the woodpecker.

My first sketches are very small and rough. You can see the Woodpecker on this one in the upper right.As the book progressed the woodpecker moved…

and got quite a bit bigger, or rather, closer to the viewer…The linoleum block is in progress here. I printed it with black ink and painted it with watercolors.And the finished print looked like this.