January 6, 2011
Toddler
A toddler. Old-school background.
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my blog 2011January 21, 2011 TheoTheo, my son, this morning when we were playing in the living room. It’s not a perfect likeness, but Theo recognized himself in it! Pencil and marker in my tiny moleskin sketchbook.
January 28, 2011 HermioneHaving put that drawing of Theo up Hermione wanted one too. Only fair. I thought the drawing turned out great although it looks like a cross between her and her friend Juliet. Oh well.
January 31, 2011 Barb the BarbarianA quick barbarian sketch. I’ve been experimenting with screen tone patterns for an upcoming book. They’re kind of fun! Manga Studio Debut and Adobe Photoshop on an ink drawing.
February 7, 2011 Pirate portraitDrew a pirate to get warmed up today. Corel Painter, Manga Studio Debut and Adobe Photoshop. I thought I’d include this close-up because I like the screen-tone up close.
February 10, 2011 New InterviewYahong Chi, a 14 year old book reviewer and writer, asked me for an interview recently. Some excellent and thought provoking questions. Go give it a read! February 25, 2011 Rabbit Self PortraitSelf Portrait as a Rabbit Signing a Copy of Me Hungry at a Library Convention How’s that for a title?
May 4, 2011 Book RecommendationsSome of you know that I have a toddler. I’m enjoying rereading all those great books that I read with my daughter when she was much younger. And this time I’m finding that there are fewer books I dislike than last time. Perhaps because we just haven’t bothered keeping the “bad” ones around. I thought I’d share some of my recent favourites with you. First up there is the delightful Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein. It’s an “old” book, published in, I believe, 1986. But it’s BEAUTIFUL. The text is simple and sweet without being sacerine. And the art looks as fresh today as it must have when first published. Lovely colours and the drawings are deceptively simple. I would love to achieve the same with my own work. Moomin by Tove Jannson. These books aren’t actually Jannson originals but I love the Moomin’s enough to overlook this. I suspect Jannson would have approved. The drawings are beautiful and the colouring all done with bright, flat tones. Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allen Allberg. This is an old one as well, but, like Little Gorilla, timeless. I enjoyed this book with my daughter as well. It’s a rare one in the sense that I find more and more to enjoy about it with each subsequent reading. The art is brilliant and each scene is rendered so fully that I’m only now beginning to see just how fully rendered the backgrounds are. Brilliant. Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett This one is newer, it wasn’t around when my daughter was a baby. My son loves it. There isn’t much to say really. Simple, sweet, clever, delightful, funny. It’s remarkable in that there are essentially only four words in the book. It doesn’t even tell much of a story and yet somehow it’s very satisfying to read over and over again. Beautifully designed and the quality of Gravett’s drawings are beyond words. This next is not a toddler friendly book, but I’m going to include it here because I’m enjoying it so much. Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip. These are old comics but Drawn and Quarterly have collected them. I’m not often a fan of old newspaper strips, but these stories are delightful. The Moomin’s are “nice” characters to visit over and over again — strangely real in their reactions to the world around them.They are quirky. Very quirky. Tove Jansson’s art and writing are equally wonderful in these strips. June 2, 2011 Spirits!The same rabbit again. I’m quite taken with him. This time he has encountered some spirits. Tread carefully!
June 8, 2011 Hmm... think I'll take one of these.The story continues as our rabbit hero absconds with an oogie boogie thing in his hood.
July 6, 2011 Another RabbitI debated whether this drawing was necessary at all but decided that I need it for clarity — mostly to make the previous one more clear. I know what the next couple of drawings will look like though!
August 24, 2011 I'm a prize!As many of you know, the Toronto Public Library is being threatened with closures by the current mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. The Toronto Public Library is one of the biggest and best-used library systems in North America — used by everyone from new immigrants to the well-established, the wealthy to the poor. In light of these threatened closures the library is offering the following contest in which library supporters can win lunch with a famous Toronto author. Much to my surprise, and delight, they have included me among these authors. Other authors revealed so far include Michael Ondaatje, Susan Swan, Sylvia Fraser, Joy Fielding, Judy Fong-Bates and Robert Robertberg. If you are a Toronto Public Library supporter and would like to win lunch with me, or one of the other (arguably much more famous) writers, check out this link. August 26, 2011 nice blog post about meI recently spent some time in Jacksonville, FL where I spoke at a conference for early childhood workers and librarians. I met a LOT of wonderful people, signed a LOT of books and talked until I hardly had any voice left. I love travelling and sharing my experience with books. It can be inspiring for me as well as them (hopefully). One of the librarians I met did a nice little write-up about my visit. Thanks Jaime! September 7, 2011 OPRAH!!!!!So I was talking with my friend Becky in the playground yesterday and she told me that Boo Hoo Bird made Oprah Winfrey’s book club. Then she emailed me a link. How awesome is this??!?!?!??? Thank you Oprah. September 15, 2011 Toronto Star on Library ContestSaw this in the Toronto Star yesterday. It makes me very happy to see my name printed along with Ms. Atwood and Mr. Ondaatje. Neat! And today the winners of the library contest were announced. They can be seen here. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. I look forward to lunching with some of you! October 7, 2011 Library Contest VideosIn case you have ever wondered what I look like. Or sounded like for that matter. Here is your chance! Some videos have been uploaded featuring the authors from the public library contest. Head on over and take a look! October 19, 2011 Running scared!It’s been a long time but here is a new (finally) drawing of Rabbit and his ongoing adventure. Here I have more or less re-purposed the second drawing in the series. It fits better here. I’ll have to redraw the beginning at some point.
November 14, 2011 Contest LunchI haven’t posted anything here in a little while. Sorry folks! I enjoyed lunch on Saturday with the winners of the Toronto Public Library’s “Save Our Libraries” contest. We had lunch at the Queen Mother Cafe (on Queen Street in Toronto). I love the Queen Mother, the food is good and the ambience is always lively. Despite lunch running a bit later than we’d anticipated we still managed the second part of our afternoon without too big a hiccup. Us authors had been asked to choose a Toronto destination that was significant to us and give our winners a tour. I chose the Osbourne Collection at the Lillian H Smith library. Largely because it’s something that I’ve always wanted to see for myself. The tour was great. We had a librarian show us some of the prize items from the collection including: books from the 1600’s, books owned by Princess Victoria, books signed by JK Rowling. It was cool. The winners, all kids around the age of ten, loved seeing the historical items and talking with the librarian about rare and unique children’s books. So in an hour we got to see the history of English language children’s books! It was inspiring. And to top it off it was nice to see my own books represented in the collection. We finished with a little tour and sneak-peek at some of my own upcoming projects and talked about how illustrations and stories get put together. And, since this whole contest was about drawing attention to our libraries, it was doubly nice to see a different side of the library — namely the importance of archiving historical works and seeing how it puts todays books into perspective. So, go and visit your library today and think about where all these amazing books come from. |
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