A Blog Post from Harmony of The LadyBugs

Hi I'm Harmony and welcome to The LadyBugs daily blog.  A little bit about me.... I live with my boyfriend, Don Hapithus.  He's a musician and goes by the stage name, Happy Cricket.  We have a son, Liverpool, who is named after the hometown of our favorite band, The Beatles.  Liverpool is a bedbug from New York City who we adopted after the infestation left so many bedbug children homeless.  I know what it is like to lose my family.  I grew up on a farm and my parents and relatives were killed be pesticides.  As a result I am a staunch advocate of organic farming.  It's much better for people and bugs.  If you buy organic produce and find a bug in it, just gently place him on your windowsill so he can find a new home.

REAL FOOD

The LadyBugs' debut album is called "Sugar is Poison" and contains a song by the same name.  It talks about how important it is for kids to eat healthy foods.  This is something The LadyBugs are very passionate about.  If you want to improve the quality of the foods you serve in your home, I recommend a book called "Real Food" by Nina Planck.  The book is an easy read and explains why processed foods are so bad for you.  Nina recommends eating food that's as close to it's original form as possible. 

KIDS WITH FOOD ALLERGIES

What if your kids can't eat foods in their natural state because of food allergies?  Some kids have very life threatening allergies to certain foods like peanuts, eggs and dairy products.  Well, I'd like to recommend a book called "Kylie's Special Treat: A Food Allergy Fairy Tale" by Letizia Barbetta with beautiful illustrations by Wendy Sefcik.  It's a story about an artist named Kylie with severe food allergies who makes a special treat for a baking contest that will be judged by a Prince.  Does she win the contest?  Buy the book and find out.  Thanks Letizia for writing a book about this difficult topic.

The LadyBugs are experts in helping parents talk to their kids about difficult topics.  Share your comments and let us know what topics would interest you.

Until next week,

Harmony

Dorothy - My First Official Blog Post

NEWS
Hello and welcome to my first official blog.  I will be using this blog to let people know what is going on in my creative world. You will also be hearing from the members of The LadyBugs about a variety of books, films and other resources that deal with difficult subjects affecting kids.

ABOUT ME
As you know, I created The LadyBugs a couple of years ago.  Since then, I've released a LadyBug album, Sugar is Poison, and created an animated comedy series which is in its second season on Blip.TV.  I plan to continue the series as long as possible, so I created a survey to get feedback on what you like and don't like. Everyone who completes the survey will be entered into a drawing to win a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate.

Click here to take survey

ANIMATION
A lot of people have asked me about animation.  If you watch the web series I animate, Meet The LadyBugs, it is pretty obvious I don't have a lot of training. :-) I actually purchased a pretty inexpensive program called Anime Studio Pro. The great thing about this program is you draw a character from various angles.  Then you animate the character by inserting and moving their bones.  It makes it much quicker and easier... and it still has that folksy look as if it was drawn by hand.  It's a little hard to get into at first, so I'd recommend checking out some great online tutorials.  One I like is AnimationTrainer.com hosted by Eric Moore.  He takes you step by step through the learning process on the key features you will need to create animation.  

ON THE WEB
Since creating Meet The LadyBugs, a lot of great things have happened.  I won an award for Best Screenplay (produced) at the Broad Humor Film Festival in September of 2012.  I also was invited to join the Writer's Guild of America East.  I've had the opportunity to meet some really talented writers and directors with their own web series that I'd like to share with you.

Brooklyn is in Love
If you enjoy shows like Girls and Sex and the City, check out Brooklyn is in Love by a very talented writer/director/producer, Danielle Earle. The show follows a group of twenty-somethings who are confronting the challenges we all face when life doesn't turn out the way we expected it to.  The series also features some terrific performances by talented actors, most notably, Miranda McCauley. 

Disciplinary Actions
I've also been enjoying a new web series called Disciplinary Actions directed by Tony Clomax who also co-wrote the series with its creator Dianna Smith.  She describes the series as Law and Order meets The Practice with a focus on stories of union and non-union workers.

Strand
If you're a fan of science fiction, check out Strand written and directed by Amanda Cole.  It definitely has a J.J. Abrams feel to it.  In this series, Scientist, James Roy, tries to keep daughter, Rae, safe while bringing unpredictable elements back to their hiding place. Meanwhile, his outlawed invention, an Oracle, tracks Rae in an effort to connect.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
The combination of the exorbitant cost of cable, the depressed economy and television series leaning toward reality rather than the traditional written fictional shows, it's great to have these web series as an alternative option.  So next time you complain about having 700 channels with nothing to watch, check out one of these original web series.

That's all for now.  Please post comments and share my blog with anyone who might be interested.  And stay tuned for blog posts from The LadyBugs themselves!

Dorothy Wallace