Typing is a difficult thing when you have to do it wearing a splint. There were a few times in last night's hockey game when I wanted to shout "what the hell are you doing?!!", or more specifically, "why are you brutalizing me so badly when I'm playing defence?" or, "why did you slash me so hard that you managed to break my finger through my glove when I don't even have the puck?" or also "why are there two of you on me when you're on a penalty kill, don't you know you should only send one in deep?". Suffice to say we did not have the best game last night in spite of the numerous penalties the other team had, to the point that for one whole power play we couldn't even manage to get it out of our own end. And while rivalries always surface in the game of hockey, a slash that breaks my finger only leads to something deeper. More like and out and out war. Watch it the next time we're on the ice, you @#$@# Penguins!

Thank god its only my ring finger which seems to see only very minimal use in my daily life. Although it is a little difficult holding a pen with the splint, so its going to have to come off for some daily drawing sessions.

Kokeshi

Here is my girl for the Kokeshi show coming up Nov 3rd at Subtext. I'm going to have to make a few more of these because it was quite hard to part with her (Dan, can we go to Lee Valley tools soon so I can buy some wood?? :). Having been a musician for most of my life I've grown used to not having to give up my creations, or sharing my creations and still getting to keep them. I'm not sure how other people deal with it. I suppose it helps if you get to hang on to it long enough that you get tired of looking at it.

Here's a little advertisement to the show. I wish I could go.


My little bunny met with a fairly positive response at the silent auction to raise funds for my local family centre and it was a nice boost to my sagging sense of worth as an illustrator. I've become a little manic in the frequency with which I check my email, hoping for one that's asking me to work and it hasn't arrived yet. I can't expect things to magically just happen but I always do.

In the meantime I've decided to work on my own book, and its taken me 4 different stories before I finally wrote one that I actually feel good about. It had to give me the same feeling as two of my favorites lately, Fletcher & the Falling Leaves (which I must admit to having a HUGE influence on my own story and inspiring my new love of foxes - thanks Christine!) and Lost and Found. I was surprised to hear in my recent children's book illustration class that most publishers consider the art as secondary to the story, because the pictures are everything to my kids. With my 2 year old we don't even bother reading the story most of the time, or if we do I'm just making up my own version. She'd rather point out things in the pictures. I won't even pick up a book if the art doesn't appeal to me, good story or not. I wondered if that was because I'm so interested in picture book illustration but it seems to hold true for everyone I asked. If the story is terrible it doesn't matter if you can make your own story out of the pictures.

Here's the first completed illustration. I haven't even done all the sketches yet but something compelled me to finish one, I guess I needed to set the tone for the rest of the book.