I have a MOST favorite book from my childhood. It is the charming, "Miss Suzy" by Miriam Young and illustrated by Arnold Lobel. I loved how Mr. Lobel made little worlds for smaller things like squirrels, mice, toys, etc. I loved miniatures and always wanted a doll house. This book felt like a doll house.
The picture above is from that book and is about a squirrel who lived in a cute little house in the top of a tree until some mean squirrels kicked her out and she had to find another home. In someone's attic she found a little Victorian doll house to be able to stay in. I loved that doll house she moved into too. Arnold Lobel illustrated the front of it and also drew little pictures of Miss Suzy sitting on furniture or little bits of rooms and my imagination went crazy with how the house was set up and how it looked in every room. So I drew how I thought each room probably looked. I tried to draw the front of the doll house as best as I could copying his drawing from the book, but as for the other rooms I made up a lot of those and some of them completely.
I found this old book in a box in my parent’s garage 3 years ago and inside the book were my drawings from 5th grade! It was so magical finding my old drawings! I shot back to being 10 years old again. I think I had even drawn Miss Suzy and her toy soldier friends that she finds later in the book who help her win back her house in the trees. I vaguely remember drawing the characters in the book and cutting them out and then playing with them on top of my drawings of the rooms like they were in a doll house. So here are my drawings.
This is the outside of the doll house that Miss Suzy goes to live in for the winter and the front living room. I remember drawing my mom's vase in that room. I decided that the living room led to the upstairs and also to a family room connected to a kitchen.
Here is the family room/kitchen on the top picture. The second door way I made led to the outside deck. I drew my mom's lamp and chair and one my mom’s antique dolls and created that doll stand for her. In the kitchen I put some of Miss Suzy's stuff from her first house because I thought she would miss her acorn cups. The family room had a firefly lamp. I figured she would probably put them in her new house after a couple of weeks of living there because those sorts of things were in her first house. The second drawing is the upstairs hallway. I remember making the staircase top look like my favorite kind of fence that I would always draw at Halloween time going around a graveyard. :) The hallway led to Miss Suzy's room and the bathroom and what you couldn't see from that angle is it leading also the the guest room (spelled "gest room" in my next picture).
So here is Miss Suzy's room. I remember that the bed was in the book and I loved it! Miss Suzy would bounce on that bed when I would pretend. Doesn't it look bouncy? I put my parent's dresser in this room. It's so fancy! :0) The second drawing is the guest room where the toy soldiers slept. I put our glass coffee table and vase in this. That book on the table was a photo album that we had in our house that had old black and white pictures of my ancestors. That second doorway in the room was going to lead to a bathroom, but I decided not to draw a bathroom because I was just too excited to play with my drawings.
I am so happy to find these and remember little me and how I would think. I worked on these drawings for a long time. I was so excited about them that I remember bringing them to a big Halloween Sleepover to work on them and even being made fun of a little, but I didn't care. I'm glad I was a geeky enough kid to want to make these because now I have these to help me remember a smaller me. :)
Well I couldn't help it. I had so much fun on Monday drawing and painting I had to do it again today. Maybe what I was inspired to paint today will fit into next week's art journal. We'll see... :)
