Am happy to officially be off on maternity leave now that our son, Hank, has come home from hospital after being born three months early. He is strong and healthy and growing chubbier by the day (though still small, he is wearing teddy bear doll clothing in this picture!) Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers along the way, they meant so much to us. So I will be taking a big break from blogging, I’m too busy enjoying being a mum of two :)

About a week before my son Hank decided to arrive early, I had some time on my hands to doodle some of Hera’s toddler outfits she outgrew this year… had a little time today so thought I’d share the latest for my illustrated diary of Hera’s outfits. They are all pen doodles with watercolour washes done in my sketchbook… haven’t done much watercolour on plain bond paper before, and found it made for very warped paper afterwards! Wouldn’t recommend it for a lot of layering of colours, but for a quick study it’s fun.

Tom Krause, author of “The Little Boy’s Smile,” recently sent me this link to a reading of our story up on YouTube… enjoy!

I had the pleasure of receiving a copy of “The Cutest Face” by Toronto illustrator & Author, Rebecca Zak. I grew up in the Toronto area, and the best complement I can give this book is that it truly captures the “diversity & equity” of the classroom experience I experienced then, and students still enjoy now.

Rebecca’s illustrations are beautifully done, her command of realism with oil paints is really great… and she captures that “class photo” feel with little touches like the curtain in the background, the children’s poses, and variety of expressions.

The story itself is sweet, feels like a book of complements to each of the children in Rebecca’s class, appreciating them for who they are as individuals. The icing on the cake is how she pulls it together at the end, with “how cute everyone looks altogether” in their class photo.
The book itself has a lovely feel to it, is hardcover and the paper has a lovely feel to it. It is printed on paper “From Well Managed Forests” approved by the FSC. The book was designed by Dave Zak.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to share in the enjoyment of diversity with their children.

An easy craft that’s fun for kids is reusing paper bags by drawing on them and using them as gift bags. If your kids are really little, draw some fun characters on them, tape them down on a firm surface, and let them colour away. You can write a message on one side of the bag and skip buying a card altogether. Aside from being a lovely personalized giftbag, it also saves you from buying gift bags, and is also good for the environment if you reuse paper bags. It’s a great craft for toddlers, Hera loved colouring in these bags for her cousins, especially drawing pictures of them on the dinosaurs!

At a garage sale recently I spent a whopping $2 for this vintage children’s paint tin and watercolouring book. I know this illustration style is old (makes me think of drinking tomato juice at my grandma’s house), but I really like it. Love it how in the book they have the finished painting on one page, and the dimmed back one to colour in with paints on the other.

I asked my cousin, Elly, if I could share her tranquil shadow box illustrations here on my blog… I just love how her fine arts background comes out in her illustrations. Her sensitivity to lighting, coupled with a nostalgic style brings a refined beauty to her illustrations. You can get in touch with Elly and see more of her beautiful work up on her website.

Hope you all have a wonderful Halloween :) We’ll be going to the hospital to visit my son Hank, who is doing very well by the way, is two weeks old now, and over his birth weight weighing 850grams. Then doing a little trick-or-treating with Hera later in the day. She keeps saying “Thank you for Halloween!” and carrying her little jack-o-lantern around the house. We’ll be doing a little colouring as well, have a fabulous Halloween colouring page from Crystal Driedger… check it out here!

The above Halloween illustration is available royalty-free on ImageZoo.com.

Here’s another study of an outfit for my diary of Hera’s stuff, a little blue & white swimsuit done in pencil crayon on black paper. Fun working chiaroscuro (on a dark surface, illustrating from dark to light.)

Hey! Just wanted to put up a post to say I’ll be not blogging for the foreseeable future, as I’ve just had my second baby. Hank decided to arrive 14 weeks early, weighing in 1lb 11oz, so he’s still in hospital in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He’s doing very well, is a week old now, and is “ticking all the boxes” as they say here when things are going well. We just love him to bits, yesterday was one of the best days of my life as I was able to cuddle him for the first time… he opened his eyes up right away and gave me one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen. Needless to say our lives have changed quite a bit with visiting the hospital daily, but it’s a good change as we now are a family of four. Hera loves her little brother, and asks about him and enjoys holding his kicking foot in the incubator.

There are a couple post-dated blog posts trickling in I wrote before all of this, and I may have time to post the occasional thing here and there. But I likely wont have time to respond to questions as I used to do for quite a while. All the best in your creative endeavors!