We often go camping on the Murray River in Berri, SA at Bookie Cliffs… the water’s as brown and murky as can be, but being the only fresh water to swim in around here, not to mention the beautiful red and yellow cliff face, it’s a welcome change of scenery. Last weekend when we made the trip again, I brought along my watercolours and managed to squeeze in an hour long study of the cliffs. I don’t get many chances to study landscapes on site, was fun making the most of Hera’s naptime! After that, Hera was very keen to “paint” with mommy on the beach, and that I paint “e mama bear e baby bear” holding “hands.” I even had a bit of fun sketching her while she enthusiastically flipped through my Australian bird guide…. until she noticed that what I was doing was more interesting than what she was doing and insisted that I draw her “hand,” which I was all to happy to oblige.

There’s something really satisfying about finishing up a sketchbook, cover to cover. I use mine for to-do lists, scribbling, and as a general hub for all the bits and pieces of 2D inspiration I collect. I’m five pages short of the end, and am scribbling away in anticipation of cracking open my new ecojot sketchbook! But first, thought I’d share a little of my madness from this well loved spiral sketchbook… be warned, I’m an obsessive list maker, like to rip pictures out of magazines, collect stamps, and write very small. And, um, gasp, I don’t do a lot of sketching in my sketchbook unless it’s for a project! (And clicking on them will bring up a larger image.)

Am about halfway through digitally colouring my pencil illustrations for Spotty & Eddie’s latest adventure by Lisa M. Chalifoux… wanted to share a couple before and afters of my illustrations (clicking on them will bring up a larger image). The colouring has been going very quickly thanks to my new Wacom tablet… I bought my first one this summer and taught myself how to use it, so this is the first big project I’ve used it on. And I LOVE it. Also, here is a snapshot of how the layout is turning out in the InDesign file… I find it helps dropping in the colour illustrations into the layout as I go so that I can make sure the colours balance nicely.

I’m delighted to be working with Lisa Chalifoux on the sequel to Spotty & Eddie Learn to Compromise… in this adventure, Spotty & Eddie travel with their owner to visit Percé Rock in Quebec. Having never visited Percé myself and now living in Australia, I am relying heavily on photographic reference for the surrounding areas. While inspired by Bill Guffy’s use of Googlemap’s Streetview, unfortunately I can’t use it to get a feel for the town as Google has yet to “do” Canada yet. Sigh. Anyway, here are a few snapshots of the rough sketches generated from these thumbnails and ideas. By the end of this week I will have finished the revisions Lisa has requested on the rough sketches. The final illustrations are to be done in plain old graphite pencil with digital colour applied afterwards in Photoshop… stay tuned!

I have the pleasure of working for a second time with Diane Cantrell, author of Mom’s Choice Award winning picture book, Good-bye Baby Max. The title of our latest picture book is yet to be set, but I can tell you the story is about three pups who don’t quite grasp the concept of the Tooth Fairy and try in earnest to find their owner’s first lost tooth. I’ve just finished up the sketches… here are a handful to have a sneak peek at! The finals will be in watercolour & pencil on Arches paper. I transferred the sketches with an Artograph a couple nights ago, so once I’ve taped the paper down to masonite boards I will start painting, yippee!

I really enjoyed reminiscing while drawing this illustration… it’s from a photo Ben took of me in India being guided by an old widow through the Abhaneri wells in Rajasthan. Illustration is done with a graphite pencil, white pencil, and light blue pencil on a piece of warm coloured scrap paper, which really makes the blue of her sari pop out.

I’m taking a little break from my pen & digital colour drawings of Hera’s stuff and doing some sketches from photos we took on our trip to India last year. This sketch is of a bunch of different memories of our time in Udaipur.

I managed to sqeeze in 20 minutes of sketching from the couch yesterday for SketchCrawl 18, while holding my 6-week old daughter. Sketching babies is one of those things you have to do really loosely… they just wriggle around too much to get too focused on the details, so quick gestural drawings are all I really had time to do. Was fun though, will be keeping my sketchbook closeby to do more scribbles of her cuteness.

Be sure to check out some of the fabulous sketches up on the SketchCrawl forum, such as the one above by Marc Taro.

We also had a nice time for Earth Hour last night… hung around with family and chatted in candlelight for my birthday. Was kind of fun not having the lights on, with the occasional cheeky comment from brother-in-laws about the fridge light being on whenever someone went for a snack!

This Saturday, March 29th, aside from celebrating my 28th birthday, I’ll be satisfying my creative and green sides by participating in SketchCrawl 18, followed by playing a game of Settlers of Catan by candlelight during Earth Hour from 8pm-9pm.

Earth Hour is an event set up by the WWF, where they’ve encouraged thousands of people worldwide to turn off their lights for one hour to increase awareness of the need for action to act against global warming. Just switch your lights off between 8pm-9pm your time… and if you’re really enthusiastic, switch all electrical appliances off, too. Then take a moonlit walk outside and watch the stars with friends, or just take a catnap for an hour. For more details check out the Earth Hour website. (They’ve got a cool web-banner in which your name floats by once you’ve signed up, ta-hee!)

SketchCrawl 18 is basically the artist version of a pub crawl… meet up with a bunch of friends / artists, and sketch like crazy all day! Combine it with some good food (or even with a pub crawl!) and unique locations to visit, then visit the Sketch Crawl forum to share your sketches! Our sketches will be up on my blog as well as on the SketchCrawl forum under Adelaide.

I actually had time last night to just doodle a little fan art in front of the tv (being nine months pregnant has its perks!) Thought I’d share with the world that I just love Michael Cera… fell in love with him when he played awkward teenager George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development (best… show… ever…) and have enjoyed following his acting career since. From the web series Clark & Michael to the lovable flick Juno, the Canadian actor brings an adorable man-child sincerity to his characters.