the Blog

My music week

2009-09-07T19:28:00.001-07:00

One of the great things about playing in a band with a school teacher is that she comes to practice with some preprinted charts and sharpened pencils, so you can dutifully take notes for your upcoming recording session, and see all the things that you better get working on. We're finally going to finish the Onward Voyageur cd that we started almost a year ago, and I have about a week to fix all the lyrics and guitar parts that aren't quite up to scratch.

Its quite a challenge mind you, as I've had a few Duplex! rehearsals for tonight's show in Veda's backyard, as well as picking up the drums for my son's best friend's band, Youthful Exuberance. Its fun to be the old lady on the drums behind a 12 and 8 year old songwriting team and we worked pretty hard on convincing their Dad to play bass, in spite of his conviction that one should not be playing a gig after one day playing bass - he isn't taking into account his inherent musicality. Playing drums is fun fun thing. Anyone out there need a drummer whose meter isn't too bad but never does any fills? (but I don't own my own drum kit).

And Duplex! sure is fun, because after being a bass player for many many years, I suddenly find I rarely play it anymore. Since Duplex! averages about a gig a year I find I'm losing a lot of flexibility in my hands...is it time to start playing with a pick? And I can't even begin to tell you how much fun, and difficult, singing harmonies and playing bass is.

Oh, and just for fun, I was messing about with a band photo. What do you think? This is just a first draft.

The New Duplex album is here!

2009-08-22T23:07:00.001-07:00

At last, the new record from the laziest band in show business. More rock songs for small people and their minders! Topics covered: noble gases, sandwich making, photosynthesis, same-sex divorce, dogs in sweaters.

Its taken us 4 years but we've finally managed to get it together to put out our second album, Worser. I'm pretty darn happy with it, and not only because I got to do the silkscreened art. Great song contributions by everyone in the band, too. Here's a song - Orange Popsicle, by Duplex!:

[audio:http://www.anniewilkinson.com/audio/duplex-popsicle.mp3]

(I'm going to post my little demo version of it later, so keep an eye out for it!)

One really, really great thing about playing music for kids is you get to do early shows, at say, noon. This works perfectly with my schedule. Oh, and if you're trawling around on myspace or reverbnation, add us as your friend!

buy the album

2009-08-02T15:11:00.001-07:00

Recently one of my workmates was unloading some things her children had outgrown, and I picked up the book The Biggest Best Snowman by illustrator Will Hillenbrand. I was pretty intrigued by his style and the textures he was getting, and (like most picture books) there was a bit of info regarding the media he was using - the one I was most curious about was his paper, which was vellum.

Always eager to hand over more dollars to my local art store, I went to buy some but was rather discouraged to find that the heaviest they carried was something like 29lb and that that was as heavy as it got. How did he use watercolour and acrylic on it? My own experiments were horrible, wrinkled messes.

Luckily for me, googling the illustrator turned up his website and a whole section on his process! Isn't the internet fabulous for sorting out your problems for you? :) It turns out the trick is he's dry mounting the vellum. Not having a dry mount press, I've resorted to vellum spray glue, but after playing around with the mixed media bit I'm back to oil pastels. The spray glue stinks and is probably not the most environmental solution - I'm either just going to tape the vellum to bristol to keep it flat, try dry mounting with an iron (apparently some mixed results with this) or try out some Letratac adhesive sheets.

In the meantime, here's a picture I made for my new book, done with oil pastel on vellum:

I have to say I love it - I finally feel like after 2 years of experimenting I've found my materials - no small thing, I assure you! It works beautifully with oil pastel, its so easy manipulate the pastel with a paper stump.

Gratefulness You!

2009-07-07T16:39:00.001-07:00

I haven't written in a month, and the first thing I did was wade through my comment spam and came across this:

I was just reading a point on how to place your down comforter all puffy again and on the brink of all the answers said that you can save some tennis balls in the dryer to amount to that happen. how to build tabular tennis tables So how does that chef-d’oeuvre exactly? Why does this happen? Can you throw away something else rather than tennis balls? Gratefulness you!

Why does this happen indeed!

So I will try and encapsulate what I've been up to for the past month:

a) my daughter was frightened by my hairy armpits recently (they're not grotesquely hairy!) and tried to put my arms down so that she would no longer have to look at them (I was lying on the couch at the time). When I told her that she would have hairy armpits too when she got older she wailed, no, I want to look like Barbie!! This is a sign that I am failing horribly as a parent.

b) I love my new house. Although we have been here for two weeks today is the first day of officially being moved out of the old. I'm writing this from my kitchen window where I am overlooking the courtyard and the crowd of children playing outside, including my own. I cannot stress enough the joy I feel at booting my children into the great outdoors after dinner.

c) Here is a little picture of my new deck. I have been foregoing my studio of late just for the sheer pleasure of sitting outside with its gorgeous view of the mountains. What is missing in the photo is the smudge left on the glass door by my forehead when I ran into it. As I later remarked to a friend, I'm not used to things being so clean.

d) some gigs again finally, and practicing once a week is starting to pay off. I was horrified lately when I came to the realization that I have been playing guitar for 16 years. 16 years!! Ok, not religiously or anything, and there was quite a long bout of only being the rhythm guitarist, and yes, sometimes my fingers still behave like they're clinging to a bass guitar, but shouldn't I be better by now? The tradeoff though, is that I am not so professional that I find it a chore to practice every week. In fact, I love it.

e) Mood lately: I'm a happy happy camper. Grateful Me!

The Big Move

2009-06-05T11:20:00.001-07:00

We take possession of our new place today, but we haven't even begun to pack - luckily we have the whole month. We have been spending most of April weeding out all the things we've accumulated over the last 6 years, and once again I despair over my giant footprint. I'm trying to gather up all the toys that my children don't play with, and the awful thing is this: one tiny piece is missing from this toy/game, rendering it useless if I don't find it, but surely it has to be in the house somewhere! And what if I get rid of this now and it turns up when I start moving out the furniture? I already had one instance when a boot of my daughters went to Big Brothers and the other one was mysteriously left behind. That nagged at me forever.

Seriously, there has to be a better way to deal with stuff. Obviously, acquiring less of it would be the best place to start (and that should be easier considering the jump in rent that we've undertaken) and I'm really thinking that I'm going to buy only second hand toys from now on. My daughter's birthday is coming up and she's dying for one of those new disney princess dolls, and so far they have not turned up on craigslist. If I buy something on ebay is it really better considering what it takes to ship it here?

Meanwhile I have been working on my third picture-book (number one is still out in the world, and number two was ready for sketches when I was sidetracked by number three). Its amazing how difficult they can be to write - isn't there a better, simpler way that I can say this? Also compounding my difficulties was the fact that this time I created a story around what I felt like drawing. It may be to my benefit that if a line doesn't feel right I will literally have a physical feeling about it, and I have to keep writing and rewriting it until I can read it without that nagging sense that those lines are just wrong. I think I may have got it, though, and I'm keen to continue with the sketches!

all about the tourney

2009-04-24T10:29:00.001-07:00

So you may have noticed from my twitter update that we won the international tourney out in Delta last weekend (which just goes to show you, we WILL drive an hour for 19 minutes of ice time). It's taken until today to start feeling slightly like myself again, to get over the exhaustion and the aches and pains that left me largely immobile yesterday. It was worth every minute of it.

Highlights included meeting some fine new hockey players (our team was two teams combined, as neither could get enough players out), bonding with my Kaos team-mates (have I mentioned lately how great they are?) and playing alongside one of the best defencepersons I have met in awhile. And there was a hot tub in there too - the only down-side was two days of greasy pub food.

But most of all, it was pretty satisfying to beat 3 American teams (we faced off against Canadians in the final), one of them being a university team, the USC Trojans. Are there divisions in university hockey? I was slightly confused by our beating them, although they gave us the best game. I was also surprised at how apologetic they were on the ice - not the kind of behaviour one expects from Americans, and this was true for all three teams we faced - they kept saying sorry at the slightest bump. And the more they apologized the more I was like:

So much for the unapologetic Americans and the nice but boring Canadians!

Homeless Pt. III

2009-04-23T19:33:00.001-07:00

About one hour before the realtor called to tell us our house was sold, we were offered a 3 bedroom in a co-op one block from our house. Can you imagine any better timing? We got a bit of help from my friend Vanessa who put in a good word for us (and now tells me to bloody go to church already, because someone sure is looking out for me - I think it's just her, so I'm going to make sure I have lots of extra sugar), and the best thing (aside from living next door to our best friends) is that we won't have to leave our neighborhood. Our son gets to stay in his school AND there's a secure playground outside where he can go play with a bunch of kids AND we won't get kicked out yet again because someone wants to sell AND we get a whole month to move.......phew.

Honestly though, how wrong were we in thinking that the place wouldn't sell quickly? 589,900 for a 3 bedroom duplex (better make sure you have a cat for the small rodent problem) when there's a 9 bedroom 5 bathroom house for sale about 4 blocks away for less that. We thought that the real value is in developing the lot (its huge) and the economy is rotten and it's a bad time to develop blah blah blah....but people are buying even if they barely look at the place, and Canada's economy is hanging in there and for that reason yesterday the Globe and Mail called us a nice but boring nation.

We'll see if we're that boring. Tonight is our women's hockey tourney where we get to face off against some Americans, and trust me, we take our hockey very very seriously, over here.

Band Practice

2009-04-09T10:53:00.001-07:00

Its odd how some nights you can go to band practice and your instrument sounds like shit, and then the next week its amazing. A week ago I could barely tolerate the tinny sound of my guitar, even rolling off all the treble didn't do anything. Last night it was fracking great and I have no idea why. It's too bad that I'm always forgetting things - I've been short one guitar cable since our last gig and the kids scattered my guitar picks all over the living room (but luckily I had the one that Christine gave me last week in my pocket) and worst of all I broke a string and forgot to put a new one on. I am seriously pushing it with how old my strings are, and how sad is it to show up to band practice with a 5-string guitar?

The thing about playing in a band with two songwriters is there's no shortage of material, and we were working on Christine's new song in which I was having a grand old time with the delay pedal, rendering my bandmates near-deaf. It took us awhile to navigate our way through 3 segues (Third Segue same as the First!) but by the end of it we'd trimmed it down to 1. I'm pretty excited about it, and I'm keen on getting myself some more fancy effects.

The time has come to try and get the band out there a little more, and I've got some BIG plans in store (she said, rubbing her hands together excitedly).

Hockey

2009-03-26T11:56:00.001-07:00

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There is one team in our division with a player with 53 points in 18 games, and she's scored 8 goals on us in the two we've played against them. It's been driving me crazy that she's just one person, and we haven't been able to stop her. I was ready for her on our game on Wednesday, but unfortunately she wasn't there. We ended up winning 2-0, and it was a hard enough game for us (we had a full bench, they were quite shorthanded), but considering they have lost every game without that one player, I hope it tells them something. Often in women's hockey you will find a player whose skill far outstrips the division they're in, and that's usually because of a girlfriend or group of friends they want to play with. I just feel its unsportsmanlike.

Our goalie was outstanding though. She's quite humble about it too, which really makes up a part of why I'm in love with my team this year. Ok, I'm also loving our new great forwards and the winning and the great team spirit from everyone. But last year we had a troll for a goalie (there's really no other way to describe her) who quite blatantly blamed any losses (and there were a LOT of them) on the team, derided the D, and we ended up dropping a division and losing all the time there too. It was quite disheartening, and doesn't say much for finding such a key player via craigslist.

Homeless Pt. II

2009-03-13T09:49:00.001-07:00

I'm still soon-to-be-homeless, but it was really great how a few people quickly jumped to my defense (hi Scott), and maybe it illustrates that the city does have some feelings about homelessness or, at the very least, dislikes being accused of causing it. But I was in error thinking it was their fault, and so I'm sorry for shaking my fist at you, Gregor (but I'll still face off with you on the ice).

It would have been nice if someone could have at least told us what was happening, since we're the ones to be the most affected by it.

I did find these things interesting:
a) that wordpress seo plugin really works, and
b) when the City Caucus blog wrote about this they mentioned me as being a single mother, and while not expressly saying it, gave me the impression "someone give this poor woman a job". This info was quickly corrected, but it made me wonder - does it make it more interesting, more of a plight this way? Because the truth of the matter is, I mostly can't afford Vancouver rents because I've chosen the lower-paying job that I absolutely love (illustration) over the higher paying design work. (Actually, I currently have a tiny part-time design & computer job which I rarely mention because, even though the work is mostly interesting and I couldn't possibly praise my co-workers and bosses enough, it's not really me.) So I can whine about the price of rent but I'm sure there are a lot of you out there that would say, its your own damn fault - we work 40 hours a week at jobs that don't really mean anything to pay for our rent, so quit your bitching. Does a mother of two with a great husband (who does his share of house-cleaning) and a million resources to fall back on make less of a story, or a better one?

My Children's Favorite Show

2009-03-06T10:42:00.001-08:00

My kids have been pretty obsessed with this t.v. show lately, and I have to limit the amount of time they spend watching it, because they pretty much want to watch it all the time. The hardest thing about that is that I love it too. But when your 3 year old (ok, almost 4) twirls around in the middle of a crowded restaurant, singing at the top of her lungs "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor", you do have to pause for a second and wonder whether its really all that appropriate. But how can I stop her when I can't stop myself?

To be honest though, I have to say that I prefer her liking Flight of the Conchords to the Little Mermaid - I had a discussion with her Swedish Grandma about how disturbing I found that movie, how much she changes herself to find her prince (although my husband counters that what the prince really loves about her is what is essentially unchangeable, her voice), and every time I read the book to her I can barely contain my disgust. What really appeals to my daughter about FOTC is the songs (her current favorite is If You're Into It), and probably the fact that the rest of her family almost passes out laughing watching it. It's pretty damn funny that she likes to pretend we're the great romantic figures in her world - she's Sleeping Beauty, I'm Prince Derek, she's Ariel, I'm Prince Eric, she's Coco, I'm Bret. Sally doesn't figure in because she broke their hearts but Brahbrah, well, there's no such name as Brahbrah.

She doesn't get that there's only what may be the very last 3 episodes in the world or that the only tickets left to their Vancouver show are 4 times the price because Ticketmaster is scalping their own tickets and therefore we can't afford to go, and for this, at least, I'm happy.

Homeless

2009-03-05T20:26:00.001-08:00

One of the big campaign promises from Vancouver's mayor (whom I voted for) was ending homelessness, and contrary to all promises, the city has just kicked us out of our home. The owner of our rental passed away recently with no will and I mistakenly imagined that there would have to be an amount of time that passed before the city, the trustee, could sell. What if an heir turned up? I guess I was wrong.

What's a little more insulting is that we haven't actually had official word from the city, we just had realtor Barbara (BrahBrah) Graham call up to ask if it was ok to show it this Sunday. During dinner, yet - I knew I shouldn't have answered the phone.

Brahbrah seemed to be slightly affronted that this Sunday was not convenient, like I was just saying it to get back at her because I was pissed and NOT because I'm having my in-laws over for a brunch like we do every year when they visit us from Montreal, so we can also invite over those friends that we're closest to and share what our lives are like when they're not visiting us.

Why does the city have to kick us out of the place where my daughter was born? There's a property manager, its not like they even have to look after it. No, they'd rather move us all out into the street. It's looking pretty likely that the best possible outcome will be finding a basement suite for double the amount we're paying now somewhere way the hell out so that my son will have to change schools and we'll have to buy a car just so we can get anywhere.

I shake my fist at you, Gregor Robertson.

Lately...

2009-03-04T21:24:00.001-08:00

Its interesting the response that I get when I tell people that I'm using oil pastels - most often they look at me like, you're a glutton for punishment. I always have to respond that they're not as hard as watercolors. I used to think that I was doomed to be a failed watercolorist for the remainder of my life, but I was quite pleased to discover yesterday that I'm actually enjoying the pastels more.

To be honest, I still struggle with the oil pastels, but I made a pretty exciting discovery - the colorless extender. There's two of them in my box of Erengis that have been largely ignored, but I tried them out as a replacement for the white that I sometimes lay down first. Here's the result, which gave me some nice translucent areas in the background and on her face:

The nice thing about it is it gives you some nice washy effects, and if you color your paper first you can scrape back to the white of the paper.

Another thing I've been playing with a bit is mixing the pastel with linseed oil, and because I was doing some washy areas I used some mod podge as a size. This was maybe less successful because of the blotchy areas, but maybe worth exploring further someday:

Anyone else out there having fun with oil pastels?

Julian keeps time on The Penguin's "Just the Tip of the Iceberg"

2009-02-06T20:43:00.001-08:00

click to see it a tiny bit bigger.

My Messy Table

2009-01-31T19:06:00.001-08:00

erengi art aspirers
caran d'ache neopastels: caran d'ache neopastels
sennelier: sennelier

I've been working from home for the last few days, which has meant toting all my art supplies from my studio to my house. Fortunately I'm pretty portable these days. I have less space working on the dinner table, and it doesn't take long before I'm spread out everywhere, especially now that I have 3 different brands of oil pastels I like to use.

I just bought a box of Erengi Art Aspirers having read a few reviews comparing them to my much beloved neopastels.They were on sale and in spite of having to get them shipped from the States were still a pretty good deal. An example of overconsumption though - I did not need to buy more, but now I have a lovely new range of colours to play with!

I'm working on the color images now for the picturebook for Rubicon, and this is the tough part for me. I've read a bunch of books on colour and it still pretty much boils down to instinct. They'll either feel right, or they won't. Its funny that I've been having troubles with skin tones - why is it in nature we never look at someone and say, your complexion completely clashes with the landscape! Wouldn't that be funny. But my kids were far too orangey in the beginning, and making them a little darker brown sure helped.

Here's a version I played around with a bit on the computer. Not the final piece, though!

click to view larger

As Good As I Get

2009-01-30T21:36:00.001-08:00

I've just sat down in a cafe with my coffee and realized that I haven't brought the pen for my tablet with me, and while I do have a pencil here to do my drawing I don't have any paper, all because of my silly rush to get out of the house.

Part of the reason for trying to get out of the house quickly is because I should have been working all day, but instead I went to stick and puck (and here I am still not working). Its seriously been about a year since I've done any practicing on my own, and I have come to the conclusion that I am as good as I'm ever going to get. I simply cannot seem to get better. Ok, one could infer from that, that maybe I should go to stick and puck more than once every year and maybe I would get better, but there are things that I was doing better a year ago that I can't seem to do anymore. Like handling the puck while skating backwards, or my backhand. And because stick and puck is so much more exhausting than a regular game, every now and then while I'm resting I like to check out the skills of all the men on the ice (men everywhere! I was the only woman, and I had to change in the bathroom because they took up all 4 dressing rooms!), and I realized that here is where I need work: backwards crossovers. mohawks. stopping left foot first. A proper hockey stop. Speed. A quicker start. stickhandling. my backhand, forehand, slapshot, and wrist shot - I'll probably never manage a snap shot. Actually, probably the same for the slapshot, and part of me thinks, who even cares about a slapshot? Although, being a defenceperson, the likelihood of my hitting top corner from the point with a wrist shot seems very, very, unlikely. At this point the only thing that I seem to do well is wear my helmet properly, although by the end of it I was getting this pain in the side of my head so maybe I can't even do that well.

Seriously, I'm not discouraged though. I've come to terms with the fact that some of those beautiful goals that I see on the tv I will never, ever be able to do. But that's ok, cause the main thing is I'm still having a hell of a time playing.

A Dream Come True

2009-01-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

Most musicians dream about having their band mentioned in Rolling Stone, for me, its on the Canucks website (it’s down at the bottom).

Illustration Friday - Sail

2008-08-09T12:12:00.001-07:00

Set Sail in a giant balloon.

2008-08-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

In my ultimate geekdom, I have to write about my new set of Caran D'ache neopastels because I'm an happy, happy camper. Aren't they beautiful? Its kind of odd that I was getting some illustration work without fully understanding my medium (lucky for me, but makes me think that for the few projects I've already done, I now could do better- won't it always be like that, to a certain degree?) but I finally think, now I'm getting somewhere! and it all has to do with having the right pastels. From using the neopastels I've discovered that the Senneliers and Holbeins I was using were just too soft for me to manage. These have great colours, and are soft enough to blend well and yet not so soft that I can't get any detail. I love the tin box too because I can tote them to and from my studio when my kids demand that I do some work from home. The only downside is I can't find them in Canada, so I'm going to have to convince my local art store to carry them for me. Ok, that's the end of the advertising, I swear.

Here is my first little picture:

2008-04-06T21:31:00.001-07:00

ooo, my new moleskine cahier from paperfarrago on etsy came in the mail. Its good timing too because I'm in a crazed drawing mood these days and my sketchbook is almost full. Its not as though I have nothing else to draw in, having a sketchbook as well as an art supply addiction, but one down means I get to add another.

My son is a bit of a Calvin & Hobbes fanatic, and at the tender age of nearly 7 has gone through the 3 anthologies we had in the house. We went to the two bookstores within walking distance only to find they were sold out. All the copies at the library were checked out. They did fortunately have Fantagraphics' excellent Peanuts collection, which I checked out for him in spite of his unwavering belief that he wouldn't enjoy it as much as Calvin & Hobbes. Telling a 7 year old that the Bill Watterston has everything to owe to Charles Schulz didn't mean anything to him, but of course he absolutely loves it. He also has a fondness for sharing every second strip with me which started coming out in my drawings. I can't help it, but I'll share it.

2008-03-27T13:30:00.001-07:00

This is an oil pastel rendition of an earlier digital picture that I did for my picture book and the upcoming Book Fair (keep your fingers crossed for me, people). I wrestle a bit with the traditional vs digital thing, especially since it's full of things that I imagine being horribly repetitive to draw, like snowflakes and raindrops and cherry blossoms. And while I think that the pictures are a little more interesting digitally, or executed better, the truth is the process in oil pastel is way, way more satisfying.

2008-03-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

The Children’s Book Fair in Spain is drawing near, and so on the request of the agent I have been trying to ready my book dummy, reworking the sketches in pencil rather than in Illustrator. Its pretty intense work and every day part of me thinks “there’s no way I’m going to finish!”. I keep pushing ahead because it would be a terrible opportunity to pass up.

I’m doing a full day of drawing everyday, but yesterday I found that before I left my studio I had to take a half an hour to just draw for the sake of drawing. Every now and then I see some art done in a particular medium and style that I really like, and then it sort of gets stuck in my head so that I have to try it. It’s rarely ever successful, but it does get me to try new things (and some art supplies that I bought but barely used). Invariably it leads to something else that I’m kind of happy with. So in this way I suppose I’m making my own art school.

2008-03-16T10:16:00.001-07:00

Because I’ve been watching a lot of Six Feet Under of late (my recent pick as Most Unbelievable Work of Art) I’ve been thinking about death a lot. I have to confess to being a bit of an unnecessary worrier - worrying about fires and earthquakes and other natural disasters, thoughts about my kids and whether or not I will be strong enough to save them in the event of said disaster, how it would even be like betraying my kids if I were to die. But lately what I’ve been thinking about is how it seems crazy that of all times in history I should be here now, and how music and art and technology and literature and the great human drama will continue on after me, and I won’t get to find out one single thing that happens. Its not feeling surprised that the world could continue on without me, its just like reading the most amazing book in the world but having to take it back to the library before you get to the end.

And it IS weird that I’m here now, and so are these people who have become my friends, and this band whose music I love - there are no sensations of ever having been alive or of having had a consciousness at any other point in history. What made me conscious here and now? Its really rather bizarre when you think about it, and probably kind of weighty for a weekend morning when all your kids want to do is be taken out for breakfast.

Blah blah blah

2008-03-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve been dreaming lately of having a therapist, not because I don’t have enough people in my life to talk to, but because it seems that the only way someone should have to listen to all the minutiae of my life is by being paid for it. An hour a week where I can talk endlessly about myself. Now that we have all this health coverage I might look into it, but in the meantime I shall try and write a little more regularly, in spite of being torn about how much of it I should put online. Given that there is a link to here from my portfolio site, should I be discreet about what I write? Remove the link? Assume that potential employers would skip looking at it? Remind myself that I'm just one in a sea of a million blogs and therefore the amount of people actually reading this are very, very small?

Its a long way away from my handmade journals and fountain pen that I used to use, but journal keeping now is hampered by lack of time. I have a lot of thoughts about being a "grownup" or what I consider finally, my adult life. Mostly it has to do with concerns about being an adult. Or ways that I think I’ve changed now that I’m an adult. Or ways that I thought I would be but disappointingly am not since becoming an adult, all which weigh heavier on me than the crushes and career hopes of my 20s. Actually, I just realized that career hopes is still a big one, it just doesn’t involve being a musician anymore. I suppose some things really do remain the same, because now I’m entertaining career hopes as an illustrator, although I feel a little more powerless in how to go about making it happen.

The last two nights I’ve been lying in bed worrying about my “career” (as it seems to be my most occupying concern) - mostly that, after you have found the person you want to spend your life with, and you have two wonderful children (still young enough to need you and love you unconditionally), what else is there? Work. At least I think that’s all there is, so it has to be meaningful, and I have to want to do it, and feel good about doing it, which certainly rules out the web and graphic design I’ve been doing. But I’m starting to think maybe success is eluding me. Sure, there have been some successes - I’ve done two (1 1/4) picture books and I’ve just signed on with an agent. I really don’t want to look for a design job while I wait for the next illustration job (although responsibilities dicate that I should), so I suppose all my middle of the night crises can be pinpointed back to that. At least with music there were always gigs - with illustration I feel like there is an awful lot of waiting around - if only I had the cash to send out postcards every 2 months and buy up all the portfolio space online.

Carrot Garden

2008-03-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to update my portfolio, and here's the first result. I'd have done more if I hadn't had such a terrible flu the last few days.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T23:28:00.001-08:00

I'm full of turkey, I've put away all the kids' toys, made a pile of boxes and paper to be recycled, and finally have turned my attention to this sorely neglected blog. In the back of my mind are the many posts that I started but never got around to actually writing, about my new marilyn lee handbag or luxurious transforming blanket/pillow or the beautiful tomatoes in my garden (and egad! its december already) or the hockey and how bad we're doing this season, but I guess I have to stick to the things that I'm currently obsessed about.

I've become quite a fan of Rutu Modan lately (and her excellent Exit Wounds), her amazing artwork has inspired me to comics again. Since every day as a parent brings a new story I'm leaning to a comic about motherhood. Its amazing the effort involved, and like many of my other projects I'm much further along in my head than I am in real life. I worry a bit though, about writing about things that happen to me, because then in fact I'm writing a comic about me, and I feel pretty confident that I'll be the only one who's truly interested. So I'm thinking up some other storylines to pad it out a bit.

I've been attending some life drawing classes lately with a friend, and we sit unschooled among the professionals and talk about how much we still have to learn. I rarely ever look at things when I draw and I'm realizing how bad I am at translating what I see to paper. Maybe if I drew them with big heads and tiny eyes I might like them better. The good thing though, is I absolutely love it.

And, good news! I'm working on my second picture book for Yeowon Media in Korea. I'm a happy happy camper. I think its an exciting life when a part of you is thinking, I really want to go to work right now. And I did a bit, but you can't really spend all of Christmas day with your family, with your nose in a sketchbook.

2007-10-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-09-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a little picture I made which will be in a silent auction to raise money for my local family centre. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, but I do sincerely wish I had a better scanner. I should just invest in one, shouldn't I?

I'm now in the painting phase of the picturebook I'm working on and I'm pretty happy with how its turning out so far, but having just sent one in to show progress I'm all nervous again. I suppose because it's my first picturebook I'm overly concerned with making a good impression. Less than halfway through and I'm already wondering when and if I'll get another job. Getting that email from the first publisher was so exciting that I want to duplicate that feeling!

I am starting to think that I really have to put my own book together, because that will be the best way to draw whatever I feel like drawing, which at the moment seems to be foxes and rabbits. The nice thing about doing this auction picture is it inspired a little story, which is now the third story I've written. I've done little dribs and drabs here towards illustrating them but nothing finished yet - but this new one seems promising!

2007-09-13T00:23:00.001-07:00

Oh my god, I love Etsy. The nice thing about selling stuff on it is you can build up some paypal credits with which to purchase other etsy items. Here's what I love today:

Spicelab Bar
It pains me that the only blank wall space in my kitchen is a window. The only place I would have for this is in my living room, but its almost so stylish it would look good there anyway.

Felted Wool Bowl
From fellow Canadian myjennywren. I need at least 3 of these.

Meanwhile, two games into our season and we're 1 - 0 - 1, which is a far sight better than how we were doing last year. Last night's game had the novelty of our actually having a full roster, and it made such a difference from the 7 or 8 players we finished off the summer season with. The best part was winning against a team we had yet to beat.

The strange thing is that we haven't lost a game (ok, its only been 2) since I decided I had better do something about my bad attitude regarding losing. Its like the universe conspires sometimes to make sure you get your head in the right place. I'm not one of those people that think you should be continuously, stupidly, positive at all times, but there are definitely times when there's a reason. Its stupid to be miserable because you're losing when deep down you love the game so much.

And here's my finished art for the show which opens tonight, and I'm not attending because I'm in charge of a house full of young'uns.

Domestigeek

2007-09-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

Fig 1 - the author proudly displays her new vileda mop

I'm oddly into my home these days, which may be the first time in my history that I am without the impending birth of a baby (in fact I think rumours are starting to float around that I must be pregnant). It has to do with getting rid of excess junk - suddenly you become aware of how much room you actually have when you remove all those overflowing buckets of Lego , at least 18 pounds worth.

Just to show you what a geek I am I actually researched a new mop - I wanted a swiffer, but preferably a reusable one and one not made by procter & gamble. I liked this one but a few people complained of it breaking after 3 -6 uses. How environmentally friendly is a discarded mop? I ended up with a nice vileda, which I discovered at my local home hardware. But who exactly are the Freudenberg Group?

2007-09-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be in a group show coming up in just over a week, Low Brow on the High Seas. It's the 4th annual showing of pirate themed artwork, and I'm not sure why I can never quite get it right, because I love the subject of pirates. I seem to end up with underwater girls or girls drowning or the like, and this year I ended up with a space pirate. I guess what it boils down to is I draw whatever I feel like drawing, and since she's wearing a funny hat I'll say she's from outer space (albeit a very light blue outer space) and since the show is about pirates she'll be a space pirate. Pretty sad, no?

There's a tight deadline on the picture book I'm working on and I haven't heard back yet about the sketches - I'm quite keen to get going. Part of me is completely paranoid that my email didn't go through and they are quietly fuming on their end about how I missed the deadline. Or there are so many things terribly wrong with my drawings they don't even know where to begin. But in reality they're probably just extremely busy people.

Illustration Friday - Alphabet

2007-09-03T11:11:00.001-07:00

I was trying out some new pastel paper with this picture, and I don't think its for me.

What a wonderful day

2007-08-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and received an invitation via email to participate in a group show with a number of artists that I greatly admire. I was so excited about it that I started shrieking (albeit quitely so I wouldn't disturb the woman with the gigantic ears who lives below me), and my children, particularly my 6 year old, could not understand why I was so happy to make art when, according to him, I'm doing that all the time. Unfortunately the show will be happening in another country so I don't think I'll make the opening.

The first round of sketches for the illustration job I'm currently working on are complete, and I have to admit I'm a little nervous! What if they hate them?

Hello world, again.

2007-08-29T22:23:00.001-07:00

Life is infinitely better when you get to do what you want for your work. After a day of graphic design, there are a million adult concerns that need to be addressed and if I'm lucky I get to draw sometime after the kids go to bed and the tiredness sets in. But for the past week and the next few to come I get to draw all day, and not having the urge to do late night graphic design, I find myself with a bit of free time. Its been ages.

I'm trying to start exercising again. It seems that for the past little while I've had a lot of bad feelings and I'm hoping this will help cure it. Of course, a lot of bad feeling came from not feeling like I had enough time to draw. And I want to exercise because one of the other things I love doing is playing ice hockey, but I've never returned to the fitness level I had before my second baby came along. Nothing can ruin your love of playing ice hockey like being too damn tired to get the puck. So I need to get in shape to play hockey, and honestly, that's about the only thing that will motivate me to exercise.

It seems that everything is getting better and its mostly due to the picture book I get to do. My first picture book, and here's hoping its' the first of many more to come. And maybe I might even find the time to illustrate a blog entry or two.