Oh, to be an artist ...

Can you draw or paint? I used to love drawing when I was younger. I would sit for hours and draw pictures. It's not something I stuck with though, so my skills never got very far. My girls, on the other hand, are really good at drawing. Nicole does amazing real life sketches as well as the cutest cartoon drawings. The boys are good at drawing too, especially Nathan, who seems to have a knack of creating the most bizarre facial expressions. Basically, everyone in my house loves to draw, except for Rick. It's just not his thing, so we let him do the bills instead.

One thing I wished I could do was paint. I love watching people paint and I love seeing the finished product. But again, it's not something I got into, so I know very little about it. This photograph is one of two paintings I've ever done in my life. Yep, it's a paint-by-number kit. That's about as far as my painting skills ever got. Don't look at it too closely! What I like about it is that my mom painted the very same picture when she was younger. I grew up seeing my mom's painting at my grandparent's house. Many years ago, when I saw the kit in a store, I knew I had to get it. The picture below is also a Jesus painting, and also one of those paint-by-number kits. That's the extent of my painting talent. How I envy people who can do it for real!

Today's stop for A New Job for Dilly is at Nikki Shoemaker's What Comes From Nikki's Pencil blog. She features an interview with Lisa Oakman, the illustrator who brought Dilly to life. I'm always amazed to hear the process involved in illustrating a book. It's more complicated than most people know. Lisa discusses what she goes through to get an idea into an actual picture. It's really fascinating. What is really cool, at least for me anyway, is that both Lisa and Nikki are illustrators who are working on my stories. Lisa illustrated A New Job for Dilly and has already started book two in the series called A New Friend for Dilly. Nikki is working on a book called Lemur Troops & Critter Groups, which is the first of a 3 book set. Both have a unique style and I'm blessed to be working with them.

Don't forget you can still be entered in the drawing to win a free, autographed copy of A New Job for Dilly. All you have to do is leave FOUR comments during the blog tour. There's still time to go back to the ones we've already done this week. For the schedule, scroll down and you'll find all the stops. Don't forget to visit Nikki's blog today. She has just released another picture book called What's Wrong with Mud? and has details how you can get that on her blog. I want to say thank you to Sherrie, Beth, Elysabeth, Sharon, Adrienne, Nikki, and Lisa for their participation helping with this blog tour. In addition, thanks to everyone who's stopped by the tour to read and/or leave comments. It's not over yet -- tomorrow Dilly is featured in his very first celebrity interview -- go, Dilly, go!