St. Jude's

I received a beautiful letter from the Director of Child Life at St. Judes, agreeing to accept my donation of Princess Power Packs for little girls to color during their chemotherapy.  I am ecstatic. 

I had, this very day, read a sentence that I knew had been conceived specifically for my consumption in The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd:  August the beekeeper, says to Lily, the narrative character; "Actually, you can be bad at something, Lily, but if you love doing it, that will be enough."

I stopped reading and closed my eyes to soak in the wisdom.  I love art, and exceptional draftsmanship and talent thrill me to my toenails.  My own work will never be brilliant; but I will always love it.  Maybe that really will be enough!  Here is my confession, vulnerable and unrealistic though it might be:  I desperately hope love will be enough.

I'll put together as many Princess Power Packs as I can afford and bundle them off to Memphis, with love oozing from every page.


Stay tuned...

A Princess Detour

A friend suggested I should make sure some of my princesses were bald, in solidarity with little princess fans who are undergoing chemotherapy.

I loved the idea--in fact the whole point of Kat Green Store is to draw things for people who like to color-- especially things they have specifically asked for.

I have no idea where this will go; so I wanted to blog the journey, in case it gets interesting.  My friend, who has been deeply involved in fund-raising for City of Hope most of her life, said I should contact St. Judes.  She always thinks big.  She also advised that I could always ask for the Child Life Director of my local Children's Hospital.  This will take a bit of research and courage, but doesn't everything?

Here are the three pictures, colored.  Each "Princess Power Pack" will have one colored picture on the front and all three line drawings in the pack.  I'm going to make these as inexpensively as possible, because I want to donate them and my means are modest.  I think they will be fun, though.  I'll get clear plastic report covers  and wrap them in a pink ribbon tied with a bow.

Wish me luck.  And if you know a little girl undergoing chemo, or if your daughter has a friend or classmate who has lost her hair, please let me know.  I'll send you one right away.

Here's our princess, working on her wig with her princess pall. 

Princess Power in action.  Friends make even bad days good.

Princess Power:  Friends bring her-- and swing her-- along.

All Dolled Up for Christmas

I took a short break from drawing princesses, to finish my "Little House on the Prairie" Barbie outfits for three of my grand daughters. 


I'm not a particularly skilled seamstress, but I love the design phase of sewing.  I like the notion that "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well," but I also believe anything constructive is worth taking a stab at even if you can't do it well.  I have known people who never sang, danced, spoke to a large group, skied or even played softball because they couldn't do it well enough.  That seems like kind of a shame.  I believe in setting a high standard and exercising the discipline to improve; but let's not overlook the possibility of just taking a shot and calling it good if it was a new experience and a fun impulse. 

I don't think my grandkids are going to be too critical, and I had a ton of fun sewing these tiny outfits.  I'm not going to enter them in the county fair.  I just want the kids to have some fun imagining that their Barbies are frontier girls way out on a distant prairie. 

It's midnight on Christmas Eve, and I am smiling, thinking of millions of very excited little children. 

Working on chemo drawings

I drew some preliminary sketches tonight, of a princess who is undergoing chemo. I really like this idea, suggested by a reader.  In this series, I want to include the drawing I started, below, of a princess being half-carried by her friends.  The princesses are having fun swinging their friend between them in her formal gown. The princess who is being treated for cancer is having the most fun of all in this scene. I will also include a princess with no hair in her royal bedroom, with all the imaginary elaborate trappings, with her friends sitting with her on her bed playing with their dolls.  Maybe I'll perch a cat on the bed with the girls.  The third drawing I am thinking of will be the princesses playing with wigs on forms.  I want to emphasize that the girl's friends will stand by her as she manages her treatment, and there will still be good times, even on the bad days.  She will still be the same princess and her friends will love her exactly as before.

 

Great Suggestions from Readers

A friend suggested we should add "marathon princesses," in honor of our webmaster who is a devoted runner.  We had so much fun with that drawing, another reader suggested something a bit more important:  "How about a princess with no hair, due to chemo?"  I thought that was such a great idea, I am definitely going to work on that next.  Most of our products result from a friend who is looking for something specific for her child or grandchild, and we are always excited to hear their great ideas.

What are little girls made of?

I'm planning a trip to Southern California later this month, and getting excited to discuss a new KatGreenStore product with my daughter, my web designer, (who is my daughter in law), another daughter in law, and a quorum of my granddaughters (five of the eight will be there).

I have been building a display for the Seattle Cup Cake Camp, and sharing photos of the progress, from the first sketch through all the trial paintings through to the finished princess.

 Here's the princess, who will perch on my table to welcome little girls to the KatGreenStore Princess Party. She almost looks three-dimensional, but she is not.  She's just a painting on foam core, cut out and dressed in a real gown.  Her crown is also just two dimensions, but with real (fake!) jewels glued onto the foam core.

During the facebook discussion during the long process of creating this princess, my daughter and daughter in law made a few suggestions about the party.  Maybe little girls would like to color a life-size paper doll.  Maybe they would like to color legal sized pictures of this princess.

I decided to add a paper doll to my store,with free downloadable gowns to color. They're not life-size, but they are 11" X 17".  That's quite a lot of ground to cover with a color crayon. I'll check with my daughter in law to see if it can be easily reproduced and printed.  If not, I'll show a picture of the colored doll, but I'll just sell her as a drawing, so little girls can color the doll and the gown or gowns she chooses.

It's all about figuring out what little girls love to do, and making the right products available.

Here's the princess as a paper doll in her satin slip, waiting for a little girl to color a gown for her.

Yet to be seen:  Will real-live little girls want to color gowns for a princess paper doll?  If so, here's one of them.

To make it easy, there are no tabs!  If you are old enough to remember, you might recall that paper dolls' outfits had tabs that folded down at the shoulders and waist.  It was a nice theory, but those tabs did not anchor the paper outfit onto the paper doll terrifically well. They were a bit discouraging for a little girl to handle. My thought is that the paper doll will be laminated, and the little girl can color the gown, cut it out, and just tape it on with a few pieces of scotch tape or masking tape, rolled and applied on the back of the gown.  It would be easy enough to yank off the gown and try on another one.

Ultimately, my goal is to figure out stuff that is tons of fun for little girls to do, to encourage their joy in creating and their love of color; and to provide projects that are just as much fun for their mothers and grandmothers to help with.

Coloring is not only low-tech, but completely no-tech.  An old-fashioned do-it-yourself paper doll might be a nice break from the Dual Screen, and something that the kids can do while chatting with their parents.  Actual chatting, that is, with human voices and no electronic devices in their miraculous little hands.