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An  illustration for Illustration Friday’s word prompt, “Stretch”. These guys are playing some sort snowman’s version of Badminton, me thinks.

Here's a fairy selection of dainty treats for Shrove Tuesday. I have been busy teaching art classes this winter as well as working on new fairy images for an art show that is coming up in June, just in time for International Fairy Day. More about that closer to the date!

I have posted some of my art lesson material over at my other blog, All Around the Palette. Please do drop by and see the other side of the canvas, as it were.

It has been a mild winter for once, with just enough snow on the weekend for this charming scene on the nearby creek.

"Snowmen fall from heaven... unassembled." anon

All the snow this winter has turned the snowmen into zombies!

The remaining snowmen are running for their lives!

The prompt this week for Illustration Friday is “Layer.” Whenever I watch waves, I think of them as having layers of colors. The colors of the waves crash into the colors of the water, blending the layers into one, until the next wave rolls in.

I wish I were at the beach right now! At least the sun is shining today

Craftsylish Magazine


I just heard that a Christmas design I submitted to Spoonflower got a mention in Craftstylish magazine :)

Here is the design that was selected:


Getting some of my fabric designs printed is one of the things on my very long list that I would like to get done before Christmas. I have been putting it off because I want to make sure I actually use the fabric and not just keep it stashed in a cupboard. But then again, if I don't have the fabric, I can't use it..... I think it's time to make an order.

Happy New Year!

We just got back from a wonderful time with my family in Scotland. The time there always goes way too fast. There were a lot of visits and catching up with friends but we also found some time to stay around the house and be mellow. I also had to work a bit when we were there but it was sweetened by having my neices popping in every now and then to peek over my shoulder to see what I was up to :)

Now we are back in Montreal, unpacked and ready to face 2008. In our Illustration for Kids forum, we have been talking about our goals for the year. Last year, my goal was to get regular illustration work and it worked out very well. This year I am lucky enough to have a lot of work to keep me busy from now until the end of June, so I think the few goals that I have left are:

* Find some time to create just for the fun of it
* Get back into sewing - I miss making little creatures
* I would love to illustrate another picture book
* Learn Corel Painter - I bought it last year, then got too busy to try out the tutorials!

Just before we left for Scotland, I managed to squeeze in a Christmas crafts afternoon with my son. We were inspired by a great tutorial by Sarah over at: The Small Object
Here's my little guy:

And my son Ewan's:


I wish you all a very happy and creative year!

The Real Adventures of Tintin

by Richard Back
photographs by Russel Munson
Macmillan 1970

Is this a book for children?

I received this book as a gift when I was a boy, I believe as a birthday present, possibly from a family friend who was also a librarian. I might have been twelve, the memory is hazy, but I didn't remember reading it.

So I read it.

Jonathan is a seagull unlike the others in that he would prefer to perfect and test the limits of flying over scrounging for food and fighting among the flock. His unique spirit and singular focus upsets the elders in the flock and as he reaches the physical limits of his speed diving experiments he is cast out of the flock.

Free of his societal constraints he flies off alone, only to be joined by two ethereal gulls who guide him to another place, a place where he will be understood and embraced.

"So this is heaven," Jonathan thinks, having found the home of gulls who have freed themselves of weight of the physical world. He meets another gull named Sullivan who becomes his flight instructor and guide, showing him the levels of perfection he had previously only dreamed of. Quickly Jonathan learns and surpasses his instructor to the point where he is introduced to the new flock's elder, a gull named Chiang. Chiang may be the eldest but he has so perfected his abilities that he can actually transport himself through time and space without flight, the ultimate in enlightenment. He takes on Jonathan as his pupil and in short order Jonathan has become a master in his own right.

Because he is still young and idealistic Jonathan decides that mastering flight isn't enough, that he hears a higher calling. Despite the confusion of his new flock he decides to return to the old world, to his old flock, and to show them the way and the light. The elders of his old flock are not impressed and insist that those who even speak with Jonathan will themselves be outcast. But Johnathan's message and abilities are too powerful and soon he has taken on disciples and begun to teach him what he knows. They even go so far as to call him the Son of the Great Gull. Once his followers have all the knowledge he could impart Jonathan turns the teaching over to them, to spread the word and continue to seek out a life without limits.

Wow. What a mess. Who gives this kind of a book to a boy, and what are they expecting from him when they give it?

I'm glad I never read it then, or abandoned it, or whatever I did to block it from my mind. The story is a mess of theologies, a veritable smorgasbord of free-wheeling 70's pop-psych and religious cherry-picking. Jonathan's aesthetic of flight-for-flight's-sake reads a bit like a zen novice attempting to reach nirvana the hard way. Shut out of society, he takes the mythological night journey to the shaman flock where he is given rudimentary training in preparation for (or as prerequisite to) meeting his master. The master finds Jonathan an eager student and puts him through his paces toward total enlightenment. But like Jesus learning at the feet of the Eastern ascetics he realizes that his people need to be guided from their darkness more than his own needs and returns to become their rabbi. In time he has gathered his disciples (including a lone female gull) and, his lessons finished, leaves them to explore the possibilities of an enlightened existence.

There's just enough ideas strewn throughout to suggest that Bach might have been trying to appease all crowds. Depending on the reader's personal philosophies one could find some sort of comfort in the message. The outsider as the ultimate insider, the spiritual found in the purity of action, the student becoming the master... all that was missing was a true Death and Resurrection Show to make the shaman's circle complete.

This was another one of those 25 cent library sale finds that also qualifies as a part of rebuilding my childhood library, which becomes my justification for dropping a quarter. I am forever in love with libraries for any number of reasons, but rebuilding my own childhood library from their detritus has been one of the best.

I'm glad I finally read this, and I am probably the right age for it now. Back when I was twelve I probably wrote it off as a stupid book about a seagull. I know it was a hugely popular book when it came out and that every household had an obligatory copy (ours sat next to some of my mom's collections of Rod McKuen poetry) I only wonder what it was about me that caused someone to think I would have enjoyed it.

the new incorporation.