Having great fun this year at Bindlegrim studios working on dimensional art and lanterns, yet there are, as a reminder to self, at least a couple of new print projects in the ol' bindle that need to be accomplished before the summer is done!
One, previously mentioned, is self-publishing short story writings under the working title "Sketchbook of Straw" and it is hoped this might be a series of small books containing perhaps a few stories and poems in subsequent volumes. The first volume will definitely contain two works titled "The Herbivorous Witch" and "The Jitter Dance", while two other stories are near completion with working titles "Ol' Bugbag" and "The Thief of Pumpkin Heart".
Project two, is converting last year's Halloween poem "The Pumpkin Dream" into a large format coloring book. Here are a few examples from what would be a book of about 40 drawings:
As background to this, while working on the original book , I had felt
the simple graphic designs of the original art style would be appropriate for outlining
in black and white - allowing the kid at heart to choose their own
color palette. (And since I've previously had some great fun creating free 8-page downloadable coloring books
while working at Microsoft) it seemed like a natural progression. And
so I've begun work on transforming the original art from The Pumpkin
Dream into outlines, and am about halfway there!
Stay tuned for more news of publish dates for these two projects as the summer passes, when the air begins to whisper of the expectations of the fall holiday season.Until then Bindlegrim is stubbornly trying to doze the summer away beneath the drone of the cicadas. Wake up, Bindlegrim!
Okay, so if you haven't figured it out by now, Bindlegrim is obsessed with the holidays, but, perhaps begrudgingly, even he has to admit there are a million interesting (non-holiday) worlds to discover here on earth's little corner of the universe.
So if you enjoyed the Christmas and Halloween coloring books you might also enjoy these eight page coloring books featuring animals from the forest, the farm, and even aquatic animals).
This is free content from office.microsoft.com that I had the joy, while on contract, to create from their clip-art library as downloadable content in the permanent template library. (The result of this blissful project was 5 coloring books taking advantage of one particularly great style of art: #1450).
And, speaking of great style, if you want some fun color-minded music to enjoy while you break out the crayons --- have you ever heard this wonderful mix of poetry and jazz from 1967 called Colors by Ken Nordine???
Did that get you in the mood to color? Below are thumbnail galleries of the three coloring books for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full size downloads.
Of course Bindlegrim can't let a blog entry end without mentioning the holidays a couple of times, and if you are reading this entry around Halloween or Christmas, check out additional 8 page coloring books for those festive occasions:
As a side note - part of the beauty of templates and of Word 2007 is the ability to customize to suit your own tastes. If you didn't catch my original blog entry (on the Microsoft Office blog) that explained the above procedure (creating Word art from the Clip Art library) -- I have recreated the content in this blog entry here.
Christmas time is coming around again, reminding me of some free things you can enjoy created when I worked at office.microsoft.com -- creating free holiday content from their extensive clip-art library to create free downloadable content as part of the permanent collection of the template library. (I guess the keyword there is FREE).
One day I was given a task to fill in some content gaps per public requests for coloring sheets. The goal was to come up with at least five coloring pages of animals. Well, I couldn't help but run with this project, (and betweent managing the website), created 5 coloring books (each with around 8 pages), taking advantage of one particularly great style of art: #1450. The result was three with animals: (forest, farm, aquatic) and then, of course, Christmas and Halloween.
The Christmas book was also a bit more than just a coloring book, but was inspired by the activity books I used to receive as a kid during the Christmas vacation school break... and so in addition to pages just for coloring, there are also connect-the-dots, word jumbles, word finds, and pages for writing in your on text.
Below are thumbnail versions for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full size Christmas Activity / Coloring Book download:
And if you like these (especially Santa there in the last image) don't forget there is full stationery set with letterhead, gift certificates, envelopes, gifttags, and more blogged about here: Summer Santa Stationery Set.
As a side note - part of the beauty of templates and of Word 2007 is the ability to customize to suit your own tastes. If you didn't catch my original blog entry (on the Microsoft Office blog) that explained the above procedure (creating Word art from the Clip Art library) -- I have recreated the content in this blog entry here.
One of the awesome perks of my contract job at office.microsoft.com was getting to work with their extensive clip-art library... and getting to create content for any gaps that might have been occurring in their free download template library... and of course it was a real thrill to create some fun holiday fare for Halloween, Christmas, etc...
One really fun project was to create five download sheets that children could color. Well, to their pleasant surprise, well within the time frame given, I went a little overboard, and actually created five coloring books each with a theme and about five-eight pages in each download. There are three with animals: (forest, farm, aquatic) (P.S. looks like the older Word 2007 versions were dropped for upgraded versions in Word 2013) and then, of course, a Halloween (in an updated Word 2007, or newer Word 2013) and a Christmas coloring book (also in an updated Word 2007, or newer Word 2013). (Links updated 9-16-2013: I am guessing these new versions offer improvements though sadly for me they don't reflect the large number of downloads these received the past few years...)
Since it's that time of year here are thumbnail versions of the Halloween coloring book for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full large size Halloween coloring book (in an updated Word 2007, or newer Word 2013) download:
As a side note - part of the beauty of templates and of Word 2007 is the ability to customize to suit your own tastes. If you didn't catch my original blog entry (on the Microsoft Office blog) that explained the above procedure (creating Word art from the Clip Art library) -- I have recreated the content here:
Customize your Clip Art with Word 2007
Background and ideas:
A previous blog entry discusses Word 2007’s ability to turn downloaded clip art into editable content. Building on this idea exponentially extends Office Online Clip Art library content. Grouped and stylized to your own devices, clip art customizes to fit business document color-schemes, or arranges and overlaps within animation storyboards, and on and on.
Again, some good styles (with uncomplicated line and shape) are #1450, #1434, or #1255. Much of Style #1450 appears in the following templates (see above): Aquatic animals, Farm animals, Forest animals, Christmas, and Halloween. And has founds its way into Word stationery themes for the Summer Santa and the Halloween correspondence set.
For this example, here is one page from the Farm animals coloring book:
The scene:
Flowers
A tree
And various shapes drawn in Word
The cast:
One frog
Two frog!
A boisterous fowl
And 1 awed snail
The video below reviews Word 2007 methods for separating vector clip art. It then shows regrouping, copying, and arranging shapes one in front of another:
Review of these steps:
Import clip art into a new Word 2007 document.
Right click on your selected clip. Choose to Edit Picture, and this will show the image highlighted inside a dotted-line bounding box.
Click and drag the mouse inside this box from one corner to the other to capture the most pieces of the art initially possible.
On the Ribbon Format tab, change the Shape fill to White, and the Line color to Black.
This will reveal shapes in the art you might have missed. Keeping all your original shapes selected, Control-click to gather any of the remaining shapes.
Repeat step 4-5 until you’ve gathered all the visible shapes.
With all shapes still selected, right click Grouping - Group.
Copy or Cut your grouped image outside of the bounding box. Delete the bounding box and unwanted images inside of it. (Note: a stray bounding box can cause headaches by pushing around other objects).
Optional: Right click to Ungroup your art, and re-group it into smaller sets. (Note: Overlapping objects may take practice. Lost objects may have gone behind a larger one. Be prepared to backtrack).
You can now arrange your art within the overall document Use the Format tab in the Ribbon to Arrange shapes/groups with Bring to Front, Send Backward, etc.
Final suggestions:
Have fun! Play with Word 2007 styles to create text, color variation, stage placement, or texture and photographic elements.
