Three Friends and the Magic Tree Wand
An Ecological Adventure
The Making of Three Friends
a word from Marty
Three Friends was conceived in January of 2000 while I was living in the beautifully wild Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I hiked each week in the National Forest, letting the plants, skies, and wildlife fill my imagination. One morning, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, I awoke with a story in mind. It was a tale of adventure about two children and their dog, who find a magical stick. The stick's magical properties inspire the children to help make the National Forests healthier places.
Six weeks of typing in the early mornings and late evenings produced the first draft of Three Friends. Since then the story has been read by numerous friends and has been edited a number of times to produce the version you find in the book.
Last year, I approached Terry Stewart about creating some illustrations to accompany the story. Terry spent many hours outside of his professional interior design work to bring the story to life with his energetic images.
a word from Terry
Although finding the time was not always easy, creating the illustrations was in the end a particularly wonderful experience. First of all it was an honor to be asked to do this. Then being swept away by the excitement and intrigue while reading the story, it was not long before I was recruiting family and friends to pose for scenes and digging up photos of Marty's family to use as subject matter.
After narrowing down preselected passages, sketches began, figure studies were performed for each image, research was done for settings and details, final drawing and painting then pulled together the process.
The last step on the artistic end was working with Dori Olds, a good friend and professional graphic designer whose contributions with the cover titles and technical expertise were invaluable.
