Looking for something special to do next Friday?

CWILL BC is celebrating their 20th year, and is putting on a gala event to not only honour this impressive anniversary, but to raise money for BC Children’s Hospital at the same time.

The Walking Read event is open to all (who are of legal drinking age), and will be an evening full of food, fun, and live music.

DETAILS

Tickets are $60 (+ applicable taxes), and include:

• food
• drink (including the alcoholic kind)
• live entertainment  by Gale Force Blues Band, Nancy Newman Jazz Trio, and Xray Ted
• parking
• a silent auction
• PLUS all attendees will walk away at the end of the evening with a swag bag worth, I’m told, $40.

Friday, June 14, 2013
7 pm – 11 pm
Open Road Lexus
5631 Parkwood Way
Richmond, BC


note: tickets are NOT sold at the door

DRESS THE PART

The event is also costume gala (although if you’re shy, you could come as yourself!) – Attendees are encouraged to dress as their favourite literary character from a children’s book (could be YA too, if the Velveteen Rabbit just isn’t you….Nancy Drew, a Hardy Boy?)

If you come in costume, you’re eligible for a prize:

• Best Costume from a Children’s Book
• Best Costume from a Canadian Children’s Book
• Best Costume from a CWILL B.C. member’s Book (tip: find a list that includes a lot of CWILL BC member’s books here, or take a look through the bios of CWILL BC authors & illustrators)

SILENT and ONLINE AUCTION

Generous sponsors have donated a huge variety of very wonderful items for the silent auction – including bikes, designer clothing, JRR Tolkien collector’s editions books, hotel stays, scotch, original artwork, laptops etc, etc. (The whole list is here).

bonus: If you can’t make it out for the event, but are still interested in supporting the cause, CWILL BC has posted a small number of auction items on a limited-time online auction (ends at noon on June 13th): bike, books, bed & breakfasts packages, original kids’ book art etc…. (Highest bid between the online auction, and the silent auction at the event wins.)

FINAL NOTES

There are no paid staff or event planners. All net proceeds will go to the BC Children’s Hospital foundation.

So flickr has made some major changes… I’ve been too busy to have a proper look yet, but I really do like some of the updates, such as the gallery layout (pictured above). I’m really not fussy over the slideshow with the annoying pan and zoom stuff – it certainly no longer works for the purpose I was using it for, but haven’t had enough time to look into if that can be manual adjusted or not. (EDIT: ah hah! ! found the way around that horrible powerpoint-like slideshow!) More importantly, their changes have broken all my slideshow links, which means I now have to go back through about 100 posts and update everything. sigh. 

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This post is part of a series documenting my process of illustrating the picture book Dream Boats (author Dan Bar-el, pub. Simply Read Books). The entire series of posts is archived here.

View a gallery of all the work-in-progress images including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art at a much larger size, here.

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Book launch – save the date!

We are launching Dream Boats on June 13, 2013 at 7:00 pm at Christianne’s Lyceum of Literature and Art, 3696 West 8th Avenue, Vancouver.

Both author Dan Bar-el and I will be in attendance.

The event is open to all, so drop by to celebrate with us, hear about the book, say hello, or ask us about the story or illustrations – we’d love to see you!

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This post is part of a series documenting my process of illustrating the picture book Dream Boats (author Dan Bar-el, pub. Simply Read Books). The entire series of posts is archived here.

View a gallery of all the work-in-progress images including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art at a much larger size, here.

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Book launch – save the…date, check back soon for details!

There are plans in the works for a launch of Dream Boats. I can’t tell you when and where it’ll be, yet, but I know there will be one soon somewhere in Vancouver. If you’re interested in attending, please check back here in the coming weeks, or subscribe to the blog through the links at the bottom of the blog, to find out details as soon as they’re posted.
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This post is part of a series documenting my process of illustrating the picture book Dream Boats (author Dan Bar-el, pub. Simply Read Books). The entire series of posts is archived here.

View a gallery of all the work-in-progress images including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art at a much larger size, here.

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Enough with the details, here are a couple of finished full page spreads! Yes – the style is different between the two illustrations – all will be revealed when the book comes out in May!
(note: The titles of the art have nothing whatsoever to do with the book text)

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Lilies and Koi | mixed media + digital | 24″x12″

See slightly bigger.

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Starfishing | mixed media + digital | 24″x12″

See a slightly bigger.

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This post is part of a series documenting my process of illustrating the picture book Dream Boats (author Dan Bar-el, pub. Simply Read Books). The entire series of posts are archived here.

View a slideshow of all the work in progress images including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art at a much larger size, here.

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I’m going to go to this next Sunday: http://alamw13.ala.org (The American Library Association Midwinter in Seattle WA) and I’ll be stopping by the Simply Read Books booth (#2708) from 12:30 – 2:30pm on Sunday, Jan 27.

If you’re going to be there too, come by and ask me about this:

Fellow Vancouver children’s book illustrator Christina Leist has a brand new website up to showcase her charming illustrations, and she’s just started a new personal project to go along with it called The Daily Character. A glowing carotene colour-boosted hare is the very first introduction. I’m looking forward to following her project.

Where have I been for the past 3 odd weeks or so? Well, I got my illustrations done enough so that I was able to package them all up in a pdf and send them off to my publisher for a look-over, and in the meantime, take off to Kaua’i for two weeks to recoup, rest my eyes and sit on the beach in the sun hike in the mud, and snorkel and go photo-walking in the rain. I watched lightning storms, saw flooded roads, and waves stained red with dirt from swollen rivers. And then I came home to rainy Vancouver where it’s been mostly sunny (between the little snow flurries and hail storms).

Living in Vancouver, one has to make the best of the rain, or one would never leave the house. So despite the wild weather in Kauai’i, I spent as much time outside as possible – rain or shine (the difference being the almost-constant pleasant temperature of 23°). There were plenty of creatures to seek out and keep me occupied: daily sightings of humpback whales, spinner dolphins, loads of green sea turtles, impressive albatross, and little colour-changing anoles. One of the many highlights was going snorkelling and seeing some of my recent illustration subjects in the wild: threadfin butterflyfish. Super neat!

Illustration detail | jellies and threadfin butterflyfish

Anole | photographed in the National Tropical Botanical Gardens, Kaua’i

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This post is part of a series documenting my process of illustrating a picture book. The entire series is archived here.

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