For the Fun of It - a story from a small island

a shocking reveal

Another hot summer weekend!

First- I had an announcement in Publisher's Weekly, for my newest picture book illustration gig!

It's called "Get Ready to Blast off" and it was written by the amazing Frieda Wishinsky!

I've just finished up the sketching process and am excited to paint. It is the most meditative part of the process for me, when the thinking is done and I can let the chaos of painting take over. This is the first book that I've been working on while I've had this Substack, so I'll share some of my painting process hopefully!

I feel grateful that painting has remained a constant in my life for so long. Despite working in animation, and drawing, I have been painting for as long as I've liked art. For such an analytical person, painting seems to be the thing that unlocks spontenaity for me in a way that pencils still never can.

Anyway! This week, I wanted to share a story that my mom told me. She's out visiting LA this week.

My mom spends most of her time on Pender Island!

Canada changed its mail system a few years back, because so much of Canada is quite rural. Now, instead of having door to door delivery everywhere many communities have community mail boxes that serve many homes.

They've become little communities, too. My mom goes on a lot of walks to check the mail. Of course, it's a beautiful walk, with tall trees lining each side. And my mom is very chatty and as she walks, she meets this other lady, and they get to talking, just two ladies walking down the road through the woods on a tiny island with two thousand-ish people total.

Now, I should mention that my parents have also recently settled into an apartment in Vancouver. They're still city folks, through and through, and my dad (retired though he is), still bikes up to UBC to teach and meet with students. The building they moved into is a historic one, from a builder who named each of his buildings after one of his five daughters.

So back to my mom, and this rural road, and my mom is telling this lady about who they just moved into this building, "The Veronica".

and the woman stops, and turns to my mom, and says "I am the Veronica."

Anyway she was one of the daughters. The world is so small! I just love the phrase- I am the Veronica. Sometimes I've been using it for other places, like saying "I am the CVS", and it still makes me giggle.

I love landscape paintings but struggle to find a way to incorporate the landscape painting vibe into my regular paintings.

I have been poking around plein air and landscape illustrators, but if anyone has any artist or class recommendations for landscape work, please let me know!! I am starting to get fired up about it.

Have I ever shared my favorite pencil here? I bought a box of tombow mono 2B and 4b years back and I'm still working my way through them.

They're the perfect standby- soft without being too smudgy, and they always sharpen up so 2ell. I like mechanical pencils but there's a line and tone variation you can get from a good ol 2B that feels like sculpting on paper. And Tombow monos are the perfect balance between price and quality.

ok love u bye