Life begins at 40 (Home)

inlandwest:

for they draw and cook (link) and (link)

Meet Cortez the Gnome.

Cortez is four inches tall and lives in a shaggy bark juniper tree, way out west. He loves food and adventure, and he’s the subject of a new picture book by Amadee Ricketts and James Orndorf.

For the past year (children’s librarian by trade) Amadee (textless) and I have been working on a children’s book that combines our love of hiking, the west, and photography along with my childhood Jeremiah Johnson daydreams and her love of miniatures (she has a bit of macro obsession those that follow her might have noticed).

Nearly all of the materials used in making the sets and objects in the book are things we found in the desert and mountains while hiking over the last year.  We learned a lot about native plants and were eager to find the next rusty can dump to see what we could scavenge.

We did a few recipes for they draw and cook to celebrate the next step in the process of the book.

You can see more of Cortez at cortezthegnome.com