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.