Bigger Rodent Adventures!

We arrived home to more than one rodent adventure besides needing to say goodbye to Jellybean. Apparently, having no kids or lawnmowers around for a week, while we went up to see my Mom, was enough to convince a chubby, young groundhog to move in under our backyard shed. Since it is conveniently located next to my vegetable garden and flower beds, he also had a nearby buffet to enjoy! All of my lettuce had been neatly nipped away and many of my flowers nibbled off as well.

We actually learned of his presence as we pulled into our driveway to unload the van and saw something furry and brown scoot under the shed. Then, two of our neighbours each brought out their digital cameras to show us proof of our new guest! I'd been trying not to say much about being on the road in my blog because that kind of makes it obvious that you're away. We have someone to check on the house when we go away in August for the tradeshow, but this was a bit trickier since we had a rotation of friends stopping by to keep an eye on things.

Late Saturday night we borrowed a live trap from up the street and baited it with store bought lettuce and broccoli. I had to leave early for church on Sunday morning to practice anthems with the choir since it was our minister’s last service. Just as Nick was shaving, he heard a loud SNAP and looked out to see the whole cage hopping up and down on the back lawn. With a projected high of 34 (around 93 degrees), he thought it a bit cruel to leave the little guy in the cage for hours while we were at church, so he loaded the girls and the rodent into the van. Luckily we have a plastic cargo holder to protect the rear hatch part, because as soon as Nick loaded the groundhog into the scary metal van, he decided to leave his mark in as many ways as possible. They drove down to Mapleton Park, a wonderful wooded area with trails for walking, but also plenty of densely wooded areas, just a few minutes away in the now rather strongly smelling van. The family who was out walking their terrier didn’t actually make the situation better when Nick and the girls brought this poor caged critter out to be released, so they had to wait while the family got their pet loaded into the van and out of earshot. Nick didn’t even have to open the cage all the way before this furry little brown streak took off for the woods like a shot!

I didn’t get to hear the whole story until after church but I was very impressed that they all made it to the 10 am service, properly dressed and with the smelly cargo hold liner freshly washed to boot!

I certainly hope this is the end of our rodent adventures for a while!!!

Mourning A Loss...

The funny thing about pets is how such a tiny, little friend can leave such a big hole in your heart when they die! While we were up visiting my Mom in Sherbrooke, our dwarf hamster Jellybean passed away, the diabetes finally getting the best of her. She did live with us for almost a full year, living 7 months longer than Nipper, who was also female and diabetic.

We still have our male dwarf hamster, Wuffles, who is now well over a year and a half old. He’s an old creaky fellow by dwarf hamster standards, but a true gentleman who loves to be cuddled and coddled. When our friend, Tanya, called us in Sherbrooke late Thursday night to tell us that Jellybean has passed away, Bethany and Erin dissolved into tears and kept saying “We thought Wuffles would die first!”

Tonight we buried Jellybean in our backyard under the same bleeding heart bush as Nipper and remembered her life with tears and giggles. Bethany dearly wanted to dig to see if Nipper’s skeleton would be there by now but I managed to explain the concept of resting in PEACE to my budding forensic scientist/archeologist.

One of the things that pets teach us is how to open our hearts to love something, even though it may not be with us forever. The girls are coming to understand that loving small rodents with shorter life spans means saying goodbye more often than with a larger pet, but that the joy of loving them and having them in our lives is worth the pain of saying goodbye when they go. Erin is having a harder time since Jellybean was “her Bean”. I’m not sure how much longer Wuffles will be with us either. 2 years is considered long for a dwarf hamster... so we’ll just treasure the time we have left with him, and then maybe take a little break for a bit. Pets have a wonderfully magical way of appearing in your lives just when you need them the most. I’ve never thought that rushing out right away to fill the void with a new furry bundle really honoured the life of the pet you’d just said goodbye to.

Goodbye Jellybean! You taught us that not a female dwarf hamster could be hand tamed if you were patient enough and started young. You taught us how to laugh when you boxed at everything like a little fighting kangaroo and we will really, really, really miss you.

What Exactly Makes You A Troll?

Here's the same post that I put on Multiply tonight after getting an e-mail from a fan. Enjoy!

One of my fans sent me a list of Multiply Trolls that is making the rounds of the multiply users that still use this wonderful site to share illegal cross stitch patterns with each other and the world. This got me thinking about what exactly defines someone as a Troll, especially since 5 of us on that list are just designers trying to defend the copyrights of the designs that we created and are being shared illegally.

Wikipedia defines Internet Trolls the best at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll as someone who disrupts the flow of discussion on a group by posting rude, inflamatory, offensive or repetitive messages. I guess if we designers repeat the fact that scanning in a leaflet and posting it electronically is ILLEGAL, then we are being repetitive... so then I AM a troll.

But if you read further articles about troll culture, true internet trolls pride themselves on remaining anonymous. Going in as DragonDreamsJen is about as UNanonymous as I know how to be and my profile certainly never tries to hide who I am... so then I am NOT a troll.

If you read even further down to the Alternate Views section, it shows how people often get called trolls for holding a different opinion from the majority in a group, so by that definition, I AM a troll to all those who use multiply to share patterns illegally, but I like how that is defined as a "logical fallacy"!

So am I a Troll or not? I guess if I get called a troll for speaking out against something that is illegal and ethically wrong, then I will accept the label... and maybe I'll just draw a little troll cartoon to go along with my profile.. but being a mythical dragon is a LOT more fun!

Good Pirates... and Bad Ones.

Our family went to see the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie today, having watched the first one with the girls last night to see if they found it too scary. They LOVED Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and giggled their way through most of the first movie.

Today, while they loved the second one, they really hated the fact that Elizabeth wrestled with making some wrong choices. Suddenly the heroine wasn’t so perfect. She wasn’t someone they admired as much or were even sure they still liked! I hated being left knowing that I’d have to wait until NEXT summer to see the end of the story, but it wasn’t as bad as walking out of Empire Strikes Back many years ago in total shock!

As we talked about the movie later tonight, I tried to point out that Elizabeth was more real in this movie because no one is all bad or all good. We are all a unique mix of both and a whole lot more.

I am dealing with more piracy issues on line as well, and it got me to thinking about good pirates and bad, about who the heroes really are sometimes, about whether or not ignorance is actually a defense, about how some people who go against the law are glamorized and how being honorable and ethical sometimes seems to put you further behind. It certainly didn’t get Orlando Bloom as far in this movie as in the first...

Perhaps the answer lies in the pirates song... Yo! Ho! Ho! and a bottle of Rum...
it might wash away the salty popcorn taste!

17 Years And Counting...

17 years ago, I walked down the aisle to join my life with Nick’s. Some of our friends (you know who you are!) are still married, but we have watched many others go their separate ways.

Tonight we had a lovely dinner and then watched our kids put on a play for us which we filmed to keep on hand for blackmail purposes or to show at their weddings someday.

After 17 years, I am still proud to say that I am still married to my Best Friend, that life together is seldom boring or predictable but full of laughter, that he knows me better than anyone else on this planet and loves me anyway... and that his kisses still make me go weak in the knees.

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Family Time...

Nick is back from his workshop, just overflowing with ideas and hugs from the girls who are used to Mom being away but rarely Dad. This was a great opportunity for him, some fun girl time for us, but now we need to spend some time regrouping as a family!

If my blogs get a bit sporadic or far and few between over the next week or so, know that the dragon is simply soaking up a bit of summer sunshine, flaming the weeds in her garden, wiggling her claws in grass or sand and trying to squeeze in a bit of relaxation and family time between the frantic illustrating and stitching. I also need to catch up on the sleep that I missed by not sleeping well while Nick was away.

The funny thing about spending time apart is that it makes you appreciate each other more when you get back together. I feel the same way when I am away from my kids for a bit too. Maybe we all need a little break from things sometimes to keep us from taking anything for granted!

Communities of Caring...

There is something magnificent and touching about us human beings when we are able to pull together as nations, communities or even as a race if disaster, tragedy or times of trial happen. I can still remember the incredible outpouring after the Tsunami disaster a year and a half ago, the way our whole town mobilized to help stranded passengers and planes after 9/11 and other times in my life when people put their own cares aside to help others in need.

Today was no where near as serious, but I still felt taken care of on so many levels! I had to have some minor but uncomfortable day surgery done after I taught at Weight Watchers this morning, so Nick’s Mum and Jerome took the girls for the whole morning since Nick is away at his seminar. Two of my friends called and offered to take the girls to the zoo or up for a play date if I was still feeling poorly in the afternoon and needed a nap. I actually slept for a bit at my mother-in-law’s after she’d made me some tea and toast while she and the girls watched a movie.

My own daughters were terrific. It is truly amazing to suddenly realize that your own children have grown up enough to be a help to you when you aren’t feeling well.... or at least try not to be too much of a bother!

I missed a call from my brother, but was able to chat with my sister and be reminded that some communities of caring can extend beyond miles and oceans to make me feel loved no matter what!

Friendships and bonds like that take work, however. It is something we must also try to model and be examples of. I have been part of that type of community for others recently and it felt very full circle to be on the receiving end of things today.

Once again, I am gently reminded that our lives are really not about how much stuff we are able to pile up and hoard in our lifetimes, but the many ways in which we reach out to others during our life’s journey and those connections that we make in our daily adventures. Besides... more stuff, just means more dusting!! I’d much rather stitch, draw or blog!!

Bouncy Dragon... Proud Dragon!

After sharing with all of you how annoying and frustrating self-doubt can be, I can honestly tell you that being able to push past that and work on, to great results, made this dragon very proud.

The house seems far quieter than usual with Nick off at another training seminar. The girls were wonderful helpers, but I had moments of wondering how on earth single parents ever manage to stay sane!!

We had a fun Canada Day weekend and a spectacular bunch of fireworks from Mother Nature last night for over an hour as a severe thunderstorm rolled through just after midnight. I spent much of it drawing when I had moments, refining a cross stitch design and even starting a little something I am hoping to be able to show off in Charlotte. Whenever I started to get bogged down or feel like procrastinating (I can be really good at that sometimes...), I just kept on working on the drawings.

Today, it paid off. I met with Nanny Kay this afternoon and not only did she LOVE the set of illustrations that I’d completed, we went through the next set of pencil drawings/ outline sketches and they got approved too!! Once this set is done, a full 2/3 rds of the project will be drawn and then we can move onto the scanning, photography and layout! YAY!

This time the dragon didn’t skip around the house in glee... I just sat there proudly wishing I had a tail to twitch! I wonder if dragons can purr???

Do We Teach Our Kids Self-Doubt?
I should know better by now! Today we walked into Chapters for a summer book fix and when I didn’t find anything in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section that justified paying full paperback price, I wandered over to the children’s book section. I began to flip through book after book to look at the different styles of illustrations that are out there....

"WHACK" Sound of Self-Doubt Mole Being Whacked VERY Soundly! "WHACK"

It’s been hot and sticky and I’ve been trying to get my drawings done without sweating on artwork or sticking to the dining room furniture, but the photo up above shows what kind of mood I was in at almost midnight last night when Nick asked me to smile for his digital camera!

I was quiet when we came back home from Chapters... enough that the kids and Nick noticed. I’ve crawled down to the basement to blog about my thoughts while they finish watching a movie.

So when do we learn to self-doubt as kids? Is this something that the adults around us teach to us in an effort to protect us from being disappointed?

I can still remember how much confidence I used to feel about everything I drew or created. So much so that when I entered the Illustration contest for Jack and Jill magazine the summer that I was 11, there was no doubt in my mind that I’d win! From that point on, I knew that I wanted to create images for a living.

Perhaps it is the world that tries to teach us this as we compete with others. When I got to Fine Arts, the professors habitually critiqued my work to tell me what it was lacking or what was wrong with it instead of how I could make it better. I ended up in photography and printmaking because of the way in which those professors guided and encouraged rather than shredded their students... but I was made to feel very early on that my talent was far from “genius”. I was persistent and stubborn and dedicated, but not particularly gifted in my class according to most of the feedback.

Did I begin to doubt myself as an adult when I first began to look for work and found so little ways to do what I love for money?

If I try to strive for “perfection” then I will never get this book done. If I don’t see any illustrative styles out there that are exactly like mine, then maybe that means my illustrations will stand out more on the shelves. I can only be me...

But I have become so much more cautious about how I speak to my kids when I am helping them learn new skills. I want them to keep more of that impulsive wonder and belief in impossible dreams and odds. Maybe then, they can teach me how to rediscover that for myself and I can learn from them!

Girl Power and Customer Service...

I can tell that it is going to be much harder to blog until we get our summer routine in order. This weekend was a flurry of social activities as school and most commitments wrapped up for the year, but that made it harder for me to get work done. Sometimes as an artist, it is hard for others to understand that I may want to work on the weekend when everyone else is relaxing! This is partly because I truly love what I do, and partly because I really, really, really hate feeling backed into a corner! Managing to illustrate a children’s book and get ready for a needlework show this summer is going to be challenge enough, but add in a vacation to see Mum and Nick doing several conferences... and you can understand the slight panicky feeling I get sometimes.

After a HORRIBLE day on Monday when I felt as if my hands were made of cement, my girls were going to drive me insane and Nick was trying to wrap up his Vice-Principalship in Petitcodiac, today went MUCH better!! I had to work a double shift at Weight Watchers to cover for another leader’s French meeting, the one that follows mine every Tuesday, so the girls spent a morning with a baby sitter from down the street. Nick picked me up once I was done and I drove him to the Fox & Hound, a pub where most of the teachers in town congregate after they finished working at noon today. On the way home, the girls and I picked up the movie AQUAMARINE for a chick flick afternoon since I knew Nick wouldn’t be heartbroken about not seeing that one. This also gave me time to work on part of an illustration without the Barbie wars of Monday! This was a really cute girl power movie and fun to watch through Erin’s eyes. She just loved the part where the mermaid (with legs) goes to the mall and yells hello to everyone from one of the balconies. When the two human girls with her look at her in shock and horror that she has created a scene, she smiles at them and says something like “Why go through life being ignored?” A great Girl Power movie!

Last night, the girls and I also hit a frustration point playing Natsume's wonderful new game Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. We had split the file and made a second copy so that we could pursue two different love interests in this addictive little game, one of them being the boy rival, Jamie. When we approached him with the Blue Feather to propose marriage, he just kept saying “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” We began to wonder if we had misread the manual which insisted that you could marry your rival, when Erin noticed that the back of the pamphlet contained a customer service number in California that we could call, so off we went to the kitchen to call the West Coast.

I was SO IMPRESSED!! First of all, I reached a real, live human being on the very first try without getting stuck in a menu loop of pressing selections. Secondly, this warm, friendly human being took the time to listen to our concern and explain to my girls that they had taken on the toughest challenge in the game. She then gave us some hints and clues as to how to overcome this apparent obstacle and wished us luck! I, for my part, thanked her for taking the time to explain things to us and shared with her how impressed my girls and I were with this fun video game that was designed to include girls, avoid violence (except whacking a pesky mole which fits in perfectly with my recent imagery exercises) and encourage a wide range of skills from patience and friendship to literacy and logistical thinking. You have to love a game that lets you make friends, encourage romance, build a house and farm, plant crops, raise cute animals and pick up wildlife creatures that make cute squeaky noises and get little hearts the more you befriend them!!! Kudos to Natsume for having some of the best customer service I have ever experienced!!

Now if I can just learn to get work done with everyone underfoot, I’ll be just fine!!!

Tangled Threads....

Any crafter knows that sometimes, when you are working with any kind of threads that you occasionally hit a major snarl in things where something gets knotted and you just have to stop everything and pick out the knot before you can carry on.

I’M STUCK IN A PILE OF KNOTS!!! This whole week has been absolute chaos and if I had longer hair, I probably would have yanked it out by now. A thunderstorm swept through yesterday morning as the kids were getting on the bus, so I came home and got to work on some computer stuff before starting the illustration work. First of all, Erin’s Vice-Principal called to ask us about putting Erin in a 6/7 split class next year as one of 8 grade 6 students rather than in the straight grade 6 class. Then a client called in a panic with a problem to fix and before I knew it, it was almost noon. Last night, I worked on Santa’s Dragon, my big design release for Charlotte, because I am still worried that it might not be finished in time.

No problem! I still had a day and a half before my darling daughters are done school and joyfully underfoot for the summer... right? To make a long story short and spare you the sneezing, snonking and retching sounds, Erin is not in school today. Her asthma medicine must always be taken on a full stomach and you can’t take a decongestant before you take it... so she did not get on the bus this morning.

The school called in an absolute panic after I’d left my message on the Safe Arrival machine because she is going to receive an award tonight at the graduation/awards night and they wanted to know how sick she really was! With Nick doing the graduation ceremony in Petitcodiac tonight, that will mean taking a cab to the school, but it will be worth it if she’s feeling better. We’ll see in a few hours.

So what did we decide about the split grade? Her academic work is high enough that they feel she’d be a perfect candidate (that’s actually what she is receiving an award for tonight) but we’ve been down this road twice already. I had promised the school that I would think about it and talk it over with Nick before making a decision. I also had a chance to call my sister yesterday for her perspective, since she was in a combined class and actually skipped a year afterwards! Nick and I both feel that she would be much better off in the straight 6 class next year, but that if there is ever a split grade where she is one of the older students rather than the younger (as she was in grade 3 being in a 2/3 split) we would be happy. Last year in a 4/5 class, she felt too much pressure always measuring herself up to kids doing the grade 5 work. I also want to let her enjoy maturing at her own pace socially instead of trying to keep up with grade 7 students. We thanked them for the offer, but politely declined as her parents.

So, just as I FINALLY get set to draw this morning, I end up untangling another knot with the scheduling for the CSNF in the fall and another cool lecture that they’d like Doug, Teresa and I to do...

It’s now almost 11:30 am and I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much of anything this week except spin in circles... I actually feel like I am sitting inside the middle of some mobius loop, thread hair ball trying to untangle enough threads to find my way out of the maze!

At least I like playing with thread.... At least I like what I try to do for a living.... but Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!!!

Reality Check...

This blog is all about what life is really like as an artist... at least this artist. One of the things that I love about my job is that it can combine with raising a family and working from home, but sometimes the reality of that is trickier than others.

The last week of school would be such an example, especially when Nick is wrapping up one job and trying to start another all at the same time. Tonight was Safe Grad for the kids in Petitcodiac, so he left the house early this morning about 7:30 and only just got in the door a few minutes ago.

The past two days have been a flurry of trying to wrap up lots of little tasks that need to be done, but it has kept me away from both drawing and stitching, so I am feeling a little frustrated. How simple it would be to just focus on one thing at a time.... motherhood, art, business, marriage, housework, fitness... but reality means juggling little bits of everything at once and hoping that nothing drops.

I can’t wait to get the kids on the bus tomorrow morning, walk my 6 km loop in the park and then get right to drawing!!!

Fathers - Roots And Wings

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!! Today is always a time for me to be reflective... because it was on Father’s Day, the year I turned 12, that I learned my parents would be getting a divorce. At the time, I couldn’t imagine what that would be like and when my father moved to Hawaii almost 6 months later, it felt like the ends of the universe. Then, when we visited the following summer, I learned that it is possible to love long distance and to feel that bond between parent and child no matter how many miles lie in between.


My Dad gave me the ability to dream impossible dreams, to seek out adventures and new experiences, to love traveling to new places, to devour books and wonder about life in galaxies far, far away. He taught us how to sing in harmony, laugh until we cried, adapt to new places, play video games really well and how to be proud of being so tall. Despite the miles that lie between us even now, he’s in my thoughts and heart more than he realizes sometimes.


As a young woman, I met a man and fell in love more deeply than I ever thought possible. As we thought of a life together, one of the most important qualities that I was looking for was not only someone who would be a real partner, but also someone who would be a good father if we had kids. In Nick, I found someone who not only takes an active role in raising our daughters with me, but also someone who has shared laughter and made memories with them that I know they will look back on and treasure for many years.

Nick has given Erin and Bethany roots with his stability and wings with his ability to help them tackle any challenge while learning to rely on their own skills as well as our love and support.




I also met Nick's father, Ken, who had a large hand in shaping the kind of man Nick became. Like me, Nick parents also divorced and found other people to fall in love with. In the end, I think it only gave us more family to love.



Nick and I love our own fathers very much, yet into our lives also came two other very special men. John and Jerome taught us different things from our own fathers without replacing them. They have shared their wisdom, skills, music and other talents wth us and with our girls.


Erin and Bethany don’t see anything odd about having 4 special men to call on Father’s Day, they just think they are lucky to have BobDoc, Grampy Ken, Grrr and Papa as their grandfathers.



Finally, I am also lucky enough to have my Grampy still alive at 94! From him I learned the beauty (and the agony) of a well crafted limerick, an appreciation for fine art and good wine, a love of two languages, how to sit up straight, which forks to use at a fancy restaurant, how to sink a putt, how to capture moments in a sketch and how to argue my point of view in a lively debate.

To all the special men in my life, I thank you for the many ways in which you have enriched my journey, added to my adventures, nourished my spirit and given me either roots or wings. Happy Father’s Day!

A Simple Smell Can Take You Back In Time...

It happened so quickly, so casually and so unexpectedly that it caught me completely by surprise. I was walking up the street, rushing to an appointment, when I brushed past a pale green bush covered with white blossoms. My grandmother always called them mock orange bushes and I have no idea what the botanical name for them even is. One moment, I was an impatient adult headed off to yet another task that filled my day... and then suddenly, I was 12 again. The feel of the warm sunshine on my neck was the same, but if I closed my eyes, I could feel the handlebars of my shiny green bike beneath my hands as I crossed the bridge over the railway tracks to get to my swimming lessons, the arena or my grandmothers house. I lived again, for a moment trigged by the sweet perfume of those white blossoms, the anticipation of a summer stretching before me in freedom... that giddy sense of play that my kids now await with almost breathless anticipation, far more wonderful in the imagining than the reality will be a few weeks from now when I hear the lament “I’m bored! There’s nothing to do!”

I hurried off to my meeting, but on the way back to where I’d parked the van, I stood and sniffed the bush again. If I closed my eyes, I could still wrap my hands around those handlebars and regain that sense of anticipation of the summer about to arrive. I also had the overwhelming urge to dig into my pocket to see if I had enough allowance for a can of RC cola and a Jos Louis but luckily for my adult constitution, all of my change had been swallowed by the parking meter!

The Importance Of Family...

This afternoon at the bus stop, one of the mothers, who had just come from Holland with her family this time last year, announced that they were moving back. They’d recently been home for a 3 week visit and will now move back there in about 2 weeks, frantically packing and selling things to return to where all of their family is close at hand.

“Family is so much more important that anything!” she declared.

I understood. Today was my nephew Owen’s first birthday and he is half a world away in Switzerland where my brother and sister-in-law live. I have seen plenty of pictures and watched him grow up that way, but I have only held him for one brief family wedding weekend last August. I HATE being a long-distance aunt! Every time we tried to call this morning, the circuits were busy. By the time the girls got home from school and we got through the chaos of homework, it was already past his bedtime.

I had a wonderful phone call with my sister today as well, who is almost as far away in London. Being able to talk in person is just so much better than e-mail, even though I love little chatty messages back and forth. The time change between Moncton and London is a bit easier in some ways that when she and Yoshi were in Tokyo, but there are still times when I want to chat with her and it is already to late across the ocean.

I am lucky enough to have wonderful friendships with both my siblings. Though there were times when we fought or had our differences as children and teens, they have both grown up into people I admire, respect and am proud to call friends as well as family. Perhaps if we did all live in the same area, we would take each other for granted... but sometimes I seriously wish that they would invent a Star Trek transporter so that I could whisk my molecules over to see them and hug them in person more often.

It is funny that each of us wandered so far away from Quebec and each found people and places that we fell in love with. I have now spent more years in New Brunswick that I did in Quebec before leaving to head East to Mount Allison University almost 20 years ago. I love to visit Montreal or Toronto now and then, but I simply cannot imagine living anywhere else but here. This is the city in which I have put down roots, made friends, created a home and a family....

And yet, I understand that tug of family that my friend feels. That longing to be nearer to the people that you love. To ache for those moments when you could just drop over, get together for lunch or be there for important milestones. My grandmother once shared with me how envious she was of our ability to e-mail each other when she and her favourite sister had often waited MONTHS for letters to make their way back and forth from Montreal to New Zealand. Who knows what kind of technology or travel innovations my two girls may have at their disposal to keep in touch if they end up on opposite sides of this planet someday. Near or far, I hope that they appreciate that special bond that binds them together as family and that they come to care for, love and admire each other as much as I do mine!

Working With A Sick Bunny Underfoot...

Bethany is home sick today. She had a headache last night and a touch of the sniffles, but no fever. This morning, she seemed no worse but stubbornly refused to get up out of bed because her headache was still there. So Erin headed off to school alone for the second day of the Grade 5 provincial math assessment and I got ready to work with a sick Bethy-bunny underfoot.

Since about 10 o’clock this morning, she has perked up amazingly. Rather than make me angry, it has just reaffirmed why I struggled to work from home in the first place. The fact that I have a job that I can do at home, even if it is interrupted more often or done at a slower pace, is worth the smaller paycheque, the crazy hours and the unpredictable nature of freelance work. Despite Bethany being home, I was still able to do a layout for a client and send them an ad proof, put together my information sheet for the “Artists In Schools” program which I will now qualify for as a published illustrator next fall, answer a few e-mails, stuff 2 loads of laundry through the washer and dryer since rains threatens yet again, pay a few bills and blog before heading up to work on a few more pieces for the book.

Speaking of which, I got permission from the author to show of the cover teaser of the book. I still have to add the paint to the brush and shading to the paint splotch now that she’s decided what colour the cover will be. We spent about 2 hours yesterday trying almost every variation possible on the computer. That’s where technology is really amazing. To be able, once the illustration pieces were scanned in and placed, to just change background, type and splotch colours with a click of the mouse was truly magical. I think back to illustrators who had to redraw entire layouts just to show different colour options as little as 20 years ago! Then again, watching Kay struggle to decide which colours she wanted for her second book, I realized that sometimes, too much choice can be as hard as too little!

Today was just an affirmation of the choices I’ve made... now if only it could be sunny for more than a few hours!!!

Giddy With Glee...

Terrified... Thrilled...Panicked...and Giddy. I’ve run the full gamut of emotions today before, during and after my meeting with the author. After a full weekend of drawing whenever a moment presented itself to get the cover pieces done and one other large illustration finished, I ran into computer problems LATE last night when the Freehand EPS files wouldn’t export with a preview. That meant coming up with some other solutions for the book title at least to rough it out enough for the author to get a sense of what could be. Many schools plan their enrichment for the early fall in the next few weeks as they wrap up THIS school year, so she wants to get a new letter out with a teaser of the book cover included, even though the final version may be slightly different. No pressure!

I’d spent most of the weekend trying not to second guess myself. I kept wondering if my tighter, detailed style would be too much of a jump for her when it came to the detail in the people. My sister, Laurie, was a wonderful sounding board, as always, when we chatted on Friday. She pointed out that if the author totally hated the look, I could try a softer style if I wanted to keep the project and still have great drawings for a portfolio. Even Nick commented at one point during the weekend how cool it was to watch a drawing come to life from my hands “even if it’s just your style!” I knew he meant that as a compliment, especially since he cooked supper AND did the dishes on Sunday because I was in “the drawing zone”!

This morning, I went for a walk with my walking buddy, right after we got the kids on the bus to wear off some of my nervous energy and did 45 minutes rather than the hour... which was a good thing, because just as I got my glass of water before I jumped in the shower, the author showed up 15 minutes early!! Maybe she just thought the rumpled, slightly sweaty look was artsy, because she was very polite about my casual look.

I took a deep breath, led her to the dining room table and sat her down to show her the drawing of the grandmother and kids who appear in a photo on the cover. Her very first words were “Oh! I hate the brown chair!” I think I felt my stomach sink to my ankles at that point, but started thinking through options from using gouache to redrawing the whole thing, because she went on to tell me how MUCH she loved the characters. (That got the stomach back up where it belonged and the heart beating normally again.) When I pulled out the other illustration of the little girl at her easel painting while the big dog looks on, she just fell in love with the details and the bright colours.

Once we went down on the computer and began to play with the cover layout and layers of art supplies that lie on top of the “photo” for the cover, she began to understand why the chair has the dark, velvety brown colour, so she may get used to it after all. It is much easier to work with a client who has very definite tastes that one who has no idea what she likes, wants or needs... but this is probably why I was doubting myself a bit too much. I kept wondering if she’d decide that she didn’t like how the people looked, especially the Nanny/ grandmother.

Once she left with printouts of possible colours for the cover, the dummies to help her decide between 20 and 24 pages and .jpg versions being e-mailed to her, I did a little victory dance of sheer relief and giddy glee around the main floor of the house before heading up to get that MUCH needed shower!!

Normal Rockwell Moments...

Last fall at Dragon*Con, Teresa and I sat in on quite a few lectures by fantasy artists about how they approach their profession. Much of what we heard was really helpful, but the one story that stuck with me was about American Illustrator Norman Rockwell. This incredible illustrator was rarely given the credit he was due for his incredible talent during his lifetime by other artists and the art community. One story that one of the artist’s at Dragon*Con shared was how each time Norman Rockwell sat down to start a new piece of artwork, he would be charged with excitement of how THIS piece was going to be his masterpiece. Then, as the work progressed, he would invariably reach a point where he was sure that he had ruined the work completely and that it was beyond redemption. He would work through the frustration and finally by the end of the work, he would decide that, considering how badly he’d felt about the piece at one point, it had turned out OK... but the NEXT one was going to be his best work ever!!

Wednesday, I got 4 pages of the pencil drawings traced onto the drawing paper and then began working on the one that will be part of the book’s cover. By late Wednesday night, I was still only about halfway through and my hands were very sore. I’d realized that I had accidentally traced all 4 illustrations onto the ROUGH side of the drawing paper rather than the smooth side I prefer! Not only did this eat up the colour pencils much faster and leave more flaky bits, if meant more layers to build up a smoother surface look. No wonder I had almost 8 hours invested in a drawing that looked only half done!

Nick talked me into giving up for the night and getting some rest. Yesterday morning, I dropped the girls at school with the cakes for the Family Fun Night Cake Walk and then drove home to start fresh. I retraced the cover illustration onto the smooth side of the paper and began the mix of coloured pencil and marker brush that I’ve used for a client in the past. This gives a wonderful look, is much more vibrant and, best of all, is much faster. Once all the colour is in place, I then add the black ink outlines where I need/want them. Kind of the opposite way that Teresa works! :)

I was thrilled with how everything was going until I picked out the very lightest skin tone marker and worked over the shading and detail I’d put there first in coloured pencil. Suddenly, my people looked like they were made out of fake, pale pink plastic!! “I’ve RUINED it!!” I thought in despair and almost had a good cry right there until I remembered how soggy tears can make paper. I also remembered the story about Norman Rockwell and decided that if a master illustrator could feel like that and work through it, then maybe I could save this picture. So after a tiny break to restore my breathing to normal and pace about the living room a few times, I jumped right back in.

Guess what? Once all the other details such as hair colour etc. and the inking were done, the faces looked pale by comparison again. Now the half finished pure colour pencil version looks wimpy and anemic! I was also able to get that drawing completed in a day... so we shall see what the author thinks on Monday. It may take her a bit of getting used to all the colour and detail after the soft watercolours in her last book, but she DID say that she wanted a change!!!

So here’s to perseverance and not giving up. I did rip up the other 3 illustrations that were on the wrong side of the paper and retrace those this morning, so I’m ready to dive into the next one. If the author has no objections, I might post some sneak peeks on the blog so that you can see what I mean!

Soggy, Groggy With Sunshine Before More Rain!

Well, about 10 minutes after I finished posting the last blog entry, the next band of heavy rain swept through Moncton and tipped the balance. Suddenly, I couldn’t keep ahead of the water rising with the bucket and had to switch back to the shop vac. Then, I discovered that I’m not as strong as Nick when it comes to dumping a filled shop vac into the toilet, so I started splashing water all over the basement bathroom floor!

When I went up for more dry towels around 1:30 am, Nick heard me and came down to help stay ahead of the game. Just when it seemed that we would lose the battle and have the water flood into the office, we figured out that it wasn’t the pump that had been giving us trouble, but the end of the hose not letting the water out. Out into the dark and stormy night I stomped in my rain gear with a gleaming serrated kitchen knife to lop off the offending head of the hose. I then dragged the slippery, slithery mass of hose and pump to the doorway where Nick took over and got it down into the office while I stripped off gum boots, rain pants and now totally soaked windbreaker. We got the pump set up in the window well and ran the hose out into the pipe where our washer drains.

That did the trick. We ran the pump until the window well was dry, timed how long it took to fill, ran the pump on and off until around 3 am then stumbled off to bed with a time set to wake us up in 45 minutes to check the situation again. Luckily the rain eased off and it was fine for the rest of the night.

We both survived Monday on very little sleep, though I did break down and have 2 cans of Pepsi during the day to wire me up. I can’t do coffee at all, so Pepsi is a cold form of sugary caffeine. I used to drink about 2 litres a day, but that was a long time and over 40 pounds ago.

Today, the sunshine is brilliant and the lawn no longer squishes or squelches as badly as it did yesterday. Moncton ended up receiving 104 mm or 4 inches of rain during the weekend, flooding many parts of the city. We got off very lucky considering the possibilities. Tonight and tomorrow should bring a further 10 mm or rain, but that’s small potatoes compared to receiving a month’s worth of rain in 2 days!!!

Pain In The Neck And Rent Me An ARK!!

This has been a horrid, horrid day. I went up to Halifax for our annual Weight Watchers meeting yesterday leaving Moncton at 7:30 am and getting home about 12 hours later. It was a fun, inspiring but very tiring day. I went to bed around 11 pm and must have slept far too soundly at one point because I woke up suddenly at 6 am barely able to move my neck and almost unable to swallow on that side!! I had this happen one many years ago at my mother’s place, but then it was strep throat and a gland was pressing on things. This time I had no sore throat (other than swallowing), no fever, no explanation!

I tried a hot bath, a warm cloth, a Magic Bag, Ibuprofen, a muscle relaxant... and was only mildly better by the time I had to leave for church. Nick and I were supposed to serve communion today and I had two complicated anthems that we’d been practicing for choir. We got to church and discovered that the couple in charge of getting the altar, the bread and grape juice ready had been sick all week and nothing was done... there weren’t even the supplies at the church!! Our minister decided to reschedule that part of the service for another time. I practiced the anthems with the rest of the choir and had a bit more mobility (plus lots of sympathy) by this time, so I decided to stay and sing. On the way home, I did visit the medical clinic in our area and he was just as baffled as I was. The only thing that he could recommend was treating the pain and using some of the deep cold rub which I asked Nick to apply as soon as we got home. Other than making me feel and smell like a menthol cough drop for a few hours, it did seem to help.

Somewhere this afternoon as I hunched over my colour pencil drawing to show the author tomorrow, it suddenly went from being a dull ache to being gone. We had a wonderful turkey soup/stew for supper which had been simmering all afternoon as the rain continued to pour outside. Our backyard had quite a few deep puddles, but the terra forming we’d done over the last 2 years to keep stuff away from the house seemed to be working... at least it was until 9 pm tonight!!

For the past 3 hours, Nick has been bailing out the window well that leads into my office, while I was outside trying to create an alternate path through one garden to lead out to the front yard and digging a little trench to lead the water elsewhere. We’d tried to hook up our little outdoor pump but nothing would come out of the hose!! I finally took a sharp, serrated knife and lopped the metal pressure end off the hose... and VOILA!! Water was able to come pouring out and down our driveway. With the pump working outside, the window well isn’t filling as fast. It just that with somewhere between 50 and 80 millimeters (2 to 3 inches) of rain today alone and us being one of the low spots on Highmeadow, there just isn’t anywhere for all the water to go and it is falling too fast to soak into the ground that has been saturated by 2 days of heavy rain!

Nick has finally gone to bed. I’m blogging and keeping and eye on the window well, bailing twice during the writing of this blog, but it seems to be filling more slowly each time. The heavy rain is supposed to tapper off around 2 am, but I don’t think I will stay up THAT long! I will bail once more before bed and just hope for the best. We have already moved stuff off the floor or out of the office...

So how on earth would you not go crazy with 40 days and nights of this??? After Hippos on Friday and Arks today, I sure seem to have animals on the brain!

Eating The Hippo...One Bite At A Time!!

OK... so putting a digital camera in the hands of a visual, creative person can sometimes be a goofy and strange thing... but I hope it makes you smile. The expression usually involves an elephant rather than a hippo, but I don’t have lots of stuffed elephants kicking around the house!

My Nanny loved hippos. She had a whole collection of them kicking around the house because family and friends would find hippo figurines, toys, puzzles, magnets etc. in their travels and bring them home to her as gifts. The few times that she actually saw real hippos during her lifetime (once even in the wild), she was rather disappointed that they weren’t as charming as the ones in the Disney movie FANTASIA!!


I found this little hippo two years ago and she usually sits in her little hippo hutch area just above my mouse. I haven’t stopped missing my grandmother since she passed away almost 6 years ago, but having a hippo handy makes me remember her with a smile instead of tears.

So why do I love that expression? Basically, it reminds me that any task, no matter how huge, can be accomplished one step at a time. That expression often calms me down during a bad panic attack of “I’ll never get it all done! There just aren’t enough hours in each day!! How will I handle this???”

Flipping the calendar over to June and getting the website updated reminded me that in just over 10 weeks, I will be heading to Charlotte with my family for a trade show.... so of course, I also looked at time frames for getting each illustration done for the book project and had just a teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy panic attack. It’s really annoying when they hit between 4 and 5 am!!

This morning, even though every single interruption possible has made steady drawing time almost impossible, (attempted delivery of a parcel that wasn’t mine and I was not about to sign for... Erin calling from school to say that she’d split the seam of the capri pants she was wearing but Nick has the van in Petitcodiac, an automated phone call to inform me that I’d won an award of travel points if I would just call this certain number to redeem them..yeah.. right... a washer going off balance as I try to get laundry out of the way before it pours rain all weekend...) I’m still really satisfied with what I got sketched yesterday and looking forward to what will still get finished this afternoon. We are looking after a neighbour’s daughter after school for a few hours until her Dad gets off work, so Erin with have someone to play with once she recovers from the trauma of having people see her underwear. I have already loaded a few new CD-ROM adventures on the purple iMac we inherited from my sister, after my step father upgraded to a Mac mini, so Bethany will be able to have an hour of playing Jump Start or ISpy and learning while she plays.

“Date night” has been put off until Saturday night because Nick has yet another retirement even to attend for staff who are leaving Petitcodiac, so I will happily stay up and draw!! You just have to tackle problems on bite at a time and then move on to the next one. CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!

The Business of Creativity...

That sounds like one of those oxymorons... like Jumbo Shrimp. Creative types would usually just love more time to spend lost in the actual creating that in all the other mess that goes with trying to do this for a living.

Since I actually had the van today, my day was all about the other stuff.

I got a sample of the author’s first book to the printing company I deal with for my leaflets so that they could identify what weight cover stock and inner paper had been used the last time. I also left them with all the information that they need to quote on printing this book once the files are done to compare that to the company in Ontario.

I unpacked a box that arrived home safely after a trunk show. I dropped off some of the models from Nashville that were in that box at our local shop along with an order, then promptly turned around and spent that on stuff I need for new designs being released in Charlotte in August.

I sorted through e-mail and tried to save at least 150+ messages to the proper categories on Zip disk, paid some bills and filed away the last few pieces of business mail to come in.

I picked up two pads of drawing paper that I will need for this book project on sale at a local craft store.

I phoned Debbie at the CSNF because an e-mail that got buried last Friday asked about some class proposals that had been misplaced, but they found them.

I called another client who is late paying an invoice to see if anything had been mailed yet and got an answering machine to leave yet another message on.

I called Canada Post to check on a box that is still missing in transit.

I finally heard back from the local paper about billing for a set of stories I wrote on a RUSH basis right before the April show in Toronto. Since the stories ran in the main body of the paper instead of a separate section with advertising, the rate is half what it normally is for the same amount of words and caliber of writing. Since the work is already done, I suppose any money is better than no money, but I had the pleasure of letting them know that I would be quite busy with this children’s book over the summer.

All of this when I would rather just be at a table drawing while good tunes played in the background.

The reality of choosing to earn your income from a creative source means that you have to learn to do both. Very few of us ever grow to the point where we can have the manager, the accountant, the personal assistant and all of those other resources at our beck and call. I’m not even sure if I’d want to. I just want my desk to stop disappearing under new paperwork every time I get it cleared off. I want to keep striving for that balance between doing the creative work and finding the time to look after all the other stuff that so needs to be done.

Tomorrow is all about updating the website and then drawing because I got this other stuff out of the way today... and I can’t wait!!!

I Get To Draw A Children’s Book!!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Thank you SO much for all the warm wishes, karma, prayers and positive energy. I met with the author this morning and not only did she like the drawings, she would like me to do the layout and prepress work for the book too! This means that I don’t have to worry that someone else will radically alter what I draw to match her vision! Yay!

Sleep was SO hard last night. Nick had to keep talking me down and then I woke up at 4 am wide awake after dreams of taking kids with him on a field trip and having to count them over and over again to cross check things on a clipboard. I don’t even want to know any deep hidden meaning in that one! I know that it was just nervous energy. My walking buddy and I did our fastest loop of the 6 km ever this morning and she said keeping up with me was a workout and a half since her inseam is considerably shorter than mine!! I cleaned up, worked on one more drawing and then got everything ready to show the author when she arrived before lunch.

There was one hilarious moment at the beginning of the meeting when I began to walk her through the full size pencil dummy of the book. This is actual size of the final book, but just rough sketches so that you can get an idea of placement, layout and even composition before you measure and create the artwork at anywhere from 150 to 200 percent of the final size. When artwork gets scanned in and reduced, it helps everything tighten up nicely. When you draw actual size, mistakes can really show up... but it’s even worse if you draw things tiny and then enlarge them! The author got this half puzzled, half worried look and asked me if these were the final drawings before I did the colour work! I guess my burst of incredulous laughter was reassuring... but what really made her happy was when I explained the process and then pulled out 4 of the large pencil drawings for the size that I will actually create them!! She loved the detail and the expression on the main child’s face. We still need to define the little brother character to match her vision.

The layout may also change if we do a full 24 pages (6 inner pages of 4 panels each) instead of the 20 pages (5 inner sheets) that she did last time to keep costs reasonable, but that is half of the fun. I am going to concentrate on the cover artwork and the 4 panels that I know will stay the same regardless of which page number they end up on and have those drawings ready for Friday. I also plan to show her the two different mediums we could go with because her desire to use bright colours in this might be easier to achieve with a coloured pencil, marker and ink combo that watercolour and coloured pencil. Far less stretching watercolour paper onto board too!

Wheee! Yippeee! Yahoo!!! Between these illustrations, layout and getting designs ready for Charlotte in August, I am sure that my summer will be very full and satisfying. What feels the most wonderful is knowing that I finally have the chance to chase a dream and that I will hold a book that I illustrated in my hands this fall. How cool is that?

I’m glad I switched the title of the blog a while ago. This will now be an exploration of illustration, needlework and photography as all my projects progress. Welcome to the next adventure in a creative life.

Laughter, Anticipation, Perspiration and A Little Bit of Terror!

After almost 2 weeks of rain, today dawned sunny and glorious. Our minister at church has no children of her own and will be moving on to a new church out on the West Coast this summer, so our family and another offered to be her excuse to come see the movie OVER THE HEDGE with us after church this morning and refused to let her pay for her own ticket. What a FABULOUS movie!! I laughed for most of the movie except during the really poignant scenes and cannot wait to see it again or own it once it comes to DVD. I caught only a glimpse of half of the things that the animators tucked in there as inside jokes. The artist in me always likes to see a movie like that a second time so that I can look at details like how they did the texture of the fur or what quirky things they hid in the background that I missed the first time. It felt good to laugh that hard and the squirrel character had almost all the best lines. How do I know?? Both kids have been doing running squirrel monologues almost all afternoon!

Tomorrow morning, just before lunch, I have another meeting with the author whose children’s book I hope to illustrate this summer. She seemed thrilled with my style and samples when we met just over 2 weeks ago, but I want to be SURE that she will like how my style brings her story to life. I had one really hard disappointment last summer when I did a whole bunch of work for someone in exchange for royalties on a project that never materialized... so perhaps I am just being overly cautious. Perhaps it’s also because I have come so close three other times and then had things fall through or had art directors choose one of the other illustrators in the final pencils stage.

One cure for nerves in my case is always to get out and much about in the garden. There is nothing so horrid, mundane and yet so satisfying as yanking weeds from your flower beds. I even discovered that something which came up in the place of one of the perennials I had planted last year was actually just a common meadow weed. Yank! I turned all the rich soil in the raised bed where I plant vegetables every year and then Erin helped me put in our peas, beans, radishes, lettuce, carrots, pumpkins and yellow squash. In two weeks the risk of frost will be pretty much over, so I think I am safe. I’d love to have a much larger garden, but I haven’t figured out where I’d put it when the girls still enjoy racing around and playing tag on the grass. Two hours of yanking weeds out and planting things in was very satisfying!

So, now that the girls are in bed, the Memorial Cup is over here in Moncton (the Wildcats lost 6 to 2) and their lunches will be packed right after this blog, it is time to settle down with my pencils and go over what I’d like to show the author tomorrow morning. The little bit of terror and self-doubt that always seem to lurk at the edges is being kept at bay by a new visualization technique I shared with Teresa the other day. After talking with a friend about how critical she feels when she hears the CD her group recorded and listening to my sister share how writers in one class she’d signed up for kept telling everyone how they hated their own stuff, I have decided that this type of self-doubt must be almost universal to the creative mind. So I will not let this get in the way of chasing a long-cherished dream. Every time I feel an inkling of self-doubt begin to rear its ugly head, I am going to visualize a huge cartoon hammer like one uses in that “Whack-A-Mole” game and I am going to mentally WHACK the self-doubt back underground. I really am such a visual person! I may even add in a squeaky sound effect for added measure. WHACK! WHACK!

Drawing Up A Storm!

No picture today. I’m busy doing more pencil work on the sketches before I meet with the author on Monday. There is supposed to be a dog character in the book, but have yet to get any reference photos, so for now I am just doodling in a big, dopey kind of spaniel/setter/lab thing. I sure hope her dog isn’t a tiny Yorkie!

The more time I spend drawing, the better “in synch” my hands feel with what my head and heart are seeing. This can get a bit rusty when you’ve been turning most things into squares for so long. What helps this time, like with the Dragon*Con portfolio pieces, is that I am working on stitching designs and drawings back and forth, so neither skill will get rusty. I’m still incredibly hard on myself and yet proud of what my hands are producing at the same time. Isn’t that the weirdest thing about being creative?

This quote I stumbled on today by accident while putting a book away sums it up very nicely:

‘Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With what form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image.

-Byron

That really is the high of a creative lifestyle... that from your imagination can come ideas, designs, stories, kingdoms, adventures... the possibilities are endless!

Persistence...
Possibilities...
and Pepperoni!

I got for a walk in the woods this morning on the trails near the house with a friend. The weather has been terrible all week and we were just so glad to get out and walk instead of using a treadmill or doing workout DVDs!

There is this one stump that we pass on our walk where there are always squirrels or chickadees like this little one. They are wonderful reminders not to take problems to seriously and to just get on with the actual living of life.

Today was a great day... though my head feels a bit like it will explode. I worked on the book dummy a bit more making some changes to layouts and then started on one of the more complex full size sketches. When you draw for a project like this, you actually create the pictures twice as large as they will appear in the final book. This way, you not only have the room to put in more detail, when the image is reduced, everything looks crisper and cleaner. If you have to enlarge something, ever mistake is magnified, but if you reduce it, things that seem to jump out at you in the full size version are often harder to see and details are much tighter.

It is so satisfying to plunge back into the hours of drawing, even if I still guard against being too critical with myself. Fun to have the iPod playing my favourite tunes, though I hate the ear buds. I’m trying to save up for a dock so that we can just pop the iPod into something that acts as a stereo for it, but mundane things like computer cartridges and groceries keep getting in the way!

Today was also about possibilities... and that was what made my head feel like it would burst. I spent almost an hour on the phone with my ISP guy this morning learning about PHP, CMS and all the possibilities for websites that are out there now or coming down the line that will evolve how we set things up on the web. I’ve been toying around with making further changes to my site, removing some of the heavy content that I wrote in SimpleText and eventually evolving it to keep pace with how my freelance illustration and other projects are merging with my identity as a cross stitch designer. The possibilities out there are rather mind boggling! Aren’t vertical learning curves FUN?

One thing that I keep noticing though, is how definite I am in my visual tastes. iWeb has been driving me NUTS with the lack of ability to change the templates around or even just alter colours. I like the look of one version, but orange has to be one of the colours that I dislike the most of the whole colour spectrum. It’s probably because I look so horrid when I wear that colour and only learned to like pumpkin pie as an adult!

Finally, today was also about Pepperoni. I just love alliterations and couldn’t resist throwing that one in since it was a late night stumbling block. No, I did not get into an eating frenzy... rather the opposite. After finally getting the girls to bed, the laundry away, the dishes done from when we threw everything in the sink to race out to Bethany’s Sparks meeting and her “fly-up” to Brownies, I had to make lunches as well. If this week has taught me nothing else, it has made me realize just how lucky I am to have married a partner!

I went to make Bethany a pepperoni roll up and all we had is whole wheat tortillas. If she can get used to spaghetti being brown, maybe she won’t notice that her tortilla has changed colour? My youngest is very definite in her tastes. There must be NO mustard, margarine or mayonnaise in her wrap, just pepperoni, all beef salami and a bit of grated cheese. Not sliced... but grated. I stood there laying out the little circles on a larger circle and had a crazy moment of wanting to make a face with cheese hair or neat pattern. Does the creative image loving part of my brain ever truly go to sleep? I also marveled at the fact that I used to adore that meat and now find it difficult to even handle. Perhaps it is because I am getting picky about what is in my food. Meats like this are just too suspect. What gets chopped up and stuffed back into that shape?

At least, tired as I am tonight, I could still think about making pictures with whatever was at hand... even if it was pepperoni!

Creativity Over Pain...
This morning was horrid. I hate going to the dentist at the best of times. I’ve never frozen well and luckily my dentist here has a new technique that drills a tiny hole into the jaw and then puts the freezing in there where all the nerves are... but working on replacing a back temporary filling to put in something permanent did not go as well as the last time. Unlike the pain of labour, I had nothing productive to show for the suffering.

What I did discover, to my surprise, is that it is possible to think and be creative even in he midst of pain and tears. Thinking about a layout that I was wrestling with for this children’s book actually helped get me through the worst of the drilling. The author had a certain idea for the layout over a center page spread, but as I sketched it out, the perspective for the scene ends up being a bit too long and boring. I came back home after the dentist with my mouth still very frozen and throbbing to dive into thumbnails of other possibilities that took me almost through lunchtime. That was actually a good thing. Anyone who has ever tried to eat while the last traces of freezing is still wearing off knows just how messy things can get. Luckily there were no hidden cameras to catch this dragon drooling!

No wonder athletes are told to visualize a course or game in their minds. No wonder cancer patients try to work on positive images or imagine the battle going on in their cells being victorious. Our ability to imagine is one of the things that truly sets us apart from the other inhabitants of this planet. Our urge to make marks, tell stories, sing, dance and celebrate all that is creative makes us unique. It can lift us out of horrid times, give us hope that things can change and can soothe us in the midst of turmoil.

This is today’s lesson, learned unexpectedly. That amid the shifting pieces of pain in my kaleidoscope today, I could still find patterns of beauty, imagine other images and endure that moment until I could come home and feel healed just by picking up my pencil to draw a scene.

Windows Opening...
Doors Closing...
Doors Revolving and Learning
At Last to Embrace Change!

I think there must be a deep pit somewhere that eats time! The month of May has just flown by with computer glitches and lots of change in my life. I was trying to set up a separate blogging component to my website... but that just proved to be too problematic with the program I was trying to use. I have a handle on a new possibility, but for now, after many abortive attempts and weird glitches, it is time to just do another entry on Blogger.

You will notice a big change soon... after many years of wanting this to be a forum where I could just "vent" without worrying about the feedback, the comments feature on Dragon Musings has now been turned on. Many of you have asked me to consider this feature for a while now and with all the change that is going to happen in my life in the next 6 months, I think that it is about time. I tried to get it to work on this post, but I don't think it is working, so it's time to ask Blogger for help.

So what has happened since the last entry?

First of all, Toronto was an absolute BLAST!! It reminded me of just how important it is to be creative and to keep learning new things. One of the reasons that I was trying to get the blog moved to my site was so that I could add more pictures. I really want to show off the little basket that I made because I had SUCH fun learning a new skill like that!

I can't wait for the fall show either because I am teaming up with two people I love to work with, Teresa Wentzler and Doug Kreinik, to offer stitchers a special project that will hopefully have their fingers itching to stitch!! You'll get more details later, but for now, know that we are having a blast planning this. Teresa and I always have fun rooming together as well... though it has sometimes digressed into a giggle fit.

So what doors are closing? I haven't given up on cross stitch. In fact, I am still working on the releases for the show in Charlotte this August which we plan to do as a family. I am also branching out into something needlework related, but that lets me explore colour and texture in a whole new way as well as play with sparkly things. Dragons really love things that sparkle!!

What has kept me busy, excited and enraptured for the past 2 weeks is the chance to illustrate a children's book over the summer!! I am just over the moon as I prepare sketches for a local author's second book which she would like to publish before Thanksgiving!! After almost 30 years of wanting to "grow up and draw the pictures for books", I am finally getting the chance to show off what I am capable of. Thrilled just doesn't begin to describe the feeling! Of course I will still wrestle with my demons every time I get a sketch finished and wonder if it couldn't be a little better or a little bit more "perfect", but I have finally learned to just embrace the possibilities of each day and each moment that is offered.

The fact that I found out about the illustration job 3 days before I received the letter about not passing this year's jury for the Dragon*Con art show made that news a little more bearable. I do have an incredibly "cutsey" style. Works from that portfolio will be appearing on my site in the next few days as I wrestle to get the updates done for June. Nick is away at a conference in Halifax until Friday, so I am now getting a taste of what he goes through as a single parent when I jaunt off to trade shows!

After the first initial feeling of "so what didn't you like about my stuff?", all I really felt about not getting into Dragon*Con was a sense of relief at not being pulled in 3 directions at once this summer. Trying to get over 22 illustrations done for the children's book will be challenging enough while still getting Santa's Dragon and any other new releases ready for the show. As wonderful a city as Atlanta was, there are other cons and other ways to get my artwork out there that don't involve spending over a thousand dollars in travel, hotel and bay rental.

Doors closing,... windows opening... doors revolving. When it comes right down to it, it is all about learning to embrace CHANGE.

The journey of these past 2 years has taught me that change does not have to be something that is feared or dreaded.

Think of a kaleidoscope. Thousands of shifting pieces of glass or plastic that tumble around in a tube to form something beautiful thanks to the mirrors that help create the patterns. Nothing stays the same forever, no pattern gets carved in stone. Everything shifts and changes and turns into something beautiful again. Not the same as it was, but beautiful none the less.

I am trying to now live each day looking for the new and beautiful pattern emerging from the chaos. I am trying to embrace change as something inspiring and creative, instead of scary. I'll keep you posted on how I make out! Maybe you'll join me on the journey.

Inspired...but Tired!

What a WONDERFUL weekend!! I went up to Toronto not knowing what to expect, not knowing if I could stay positive... and came away having inspired others, being inspired, learning new crafts, trying new techniques, fondly fabric, hoarding beads, taking notes, laughing at how common the urge to touch things is among crafters... and getting totally reinspired that CREATIVITY helps make the world a better place!

But... having not slept well in a firm hotel bed with lumpy pillows away from my family... and getting in VERY late last night (or is that early this morning?) I am off to bed shortly behind my oldest daughter. I will log about the show tomorrow afternoon once I get through my meeting.

It is good to be home!!!

All Packed and Ready To Fly...

For the first time in a long time, I am going to head to bed at a reasonable time before leaving for a show! I’m all packed, I’ve checked over my notes, props, slides, stitching etc. and don’t think I’ve forgotten anything... so I wanted to celebrate with a quick blog entry before I leave.

I was surprised that Erin was more clingy tonight than Bethany. They find it hard to go to bed knowing that I will be gone by the time they wake up. Bethany tried to insist that she would wake up at 5 am with me to say goodbye. Erin just clung to me and insisted that she didn’t want me to leave. Teaching her to let go is also helping me because I know that I am the one who will have to learn to let go on so many levels during her teen years as she begins to assert her own identity and independence. I can see it starting already... and I just shake my head wondering where the time went.

A savvy stitcher passed a link on to me today knowing that I’d be interested in getting in touch with these ladies and taking the message to a broader level. This is an example of a terrific site that is both educational and informative without pulling any punches. Bravo to a well designed, well written and well thought out site Stop Piracy . Cross Stitch is certainly not the only craft to face this type of piracy in a digital age!

I’m off to Toronto for a wild and wooly weekend of crafts, lectures, information, inspiration and cross stitch! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The Healing Power of Being Creative...

While getting ready for a show always sends me into a bit of worry that I will leave something behind, forget to pack something important etc., it is also a fun time of anticipation. I really like meeting stitchers first hand, seeing all of the creative potential that a festival like CSNF in Toronto offers and trying to remind people about WHY it is so important to stay in touch with our creativity. Sometimes, the act of being creative teaches me SO much.

One of the lectures that I am giving this time is about “Legacy Crafting”. It is a look at ways to use crafts to work through grief, honour someone’s memory, create a tribute to someone who touched your life and may have moved away... because to create is to make broken things into something new.

So, as I sat down last night to create a sample for class, I was taken by surprise when the project demanded to go in a different direction that I had planned. I’d wanted this to be a way to work through my anger and despair about the industry... about the fact that what I created was so easy to steal... about how it would be ok to leave this behind and move on to something else...

Imagine my surprise when the project became an explosion of word, image, and my favourite colour. It became an affirmation of all that I believe about being creative... about expecting miracles... about following your heart... about adventures into the unknown. I completely lost track of time while I was creating this sample in that magical sense that caused the Greeks to create the second word for time - KAIROS. Unlike CHRONOS, time which can be measured, KAIROS is that time which transcends measurement... where it ceases to have meaning. Like when you spend time in the company of someone you love, when you disappear into a good book, when you get so lost in creativity that suddenly time has flown by. Anyone who has ever glanced up from a stitching project to see how late it truly is when they just intended to “stitch one more little section” can understand that vortex.

That kind of creativity is NOT draining. It restores, it recharges and it exhilarates. There is that moment when you step back and look at what you have worked on, imperfections and all, and marvel at the fact that your hands brought it to life.

When we create, we touch that deeper sense of wonder, that deeper sense of creativity... and it should not take us by surprise. Though this has been given many names by many cultures, one of the most universal and abiding among all of them is Creator.

Grandparent Spoilage!

My Mum and John arrived yesterday after a slippery drive from Bangor, Maine where they’d spent the night after leaving Sherbrooke on Tuesday morning. I thought that my girls might squeeze them in two with their hugs as Maggie, their cairn terrier scampered merrily amid all the feel wagging her little tail off!

Since Mum and John were over visiting my sister and brother in Europe for the girls’ birthdays, they brought presents along to have “belated birthday celebrations”, but its working out to a present a day! Thank goodness that doesn’t also mean cake and ice cream every day too!!!

I wrapped up a huge graphics project tonight and sent the bill off in the mail too. I got most of my stuff ready for the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival next weekend in Toronto and Dani’s incredible stitching arrived by Xpress Post this afternoon. Her needle really is quick and precise!! Now I will get to show off the Overdyed Dragon for one of the classes that I’m teaching this fall.

I also revamped my resume and created a new .pdf file that acts as a brag sheet and reminder of all the services I can offer; illustration, graphic design, copywriting, editing, voice over work, translation, photography, logo design, etc. It doesn’t help to scrounge more work in other areas as my bottom line in cross stitch changes.

What really has to change are people’s attitudes... and one of the only ways that can happen is with education and enforcement. I’ve spent the past week looking into a few things that should prove to be very interesting and hopefully very proactive when it comes to dealing with pattern scanners. As an industry, we have to face the fact that technology will alter the way we do business forever, even in this most tactile of crafts. How we adapt to that and the ways in which we work to alter what is and is not acceptable, either by law or by society, will be the legacy that this generation of designers leaves for those who come after us.

For now, it is just fun to have Mum and John here in the house, even though they have to head

The Pain Of Growing-Up...

Thursday was a rough day for Erin. After the high of receiving her Grade 5 essay award for the entire province of New Brunswick on Monday night, the week went downhill from there. She’s getting into those mood swings as she heads towards puberty and the thought of eventually having 3 females in the house to tiptoe around during certain times of the month already has Nick thinking of switching to plastic cutlery or putting up a bed in the baby barn!

She came home in tears after school and wouldn’t really share much of what had happened until late at night after I got her tucked into bed. It turned out that she’d been teased for several things; playing football with the boys, starting this campaign to clean up the school property, singing so well in class during the National anthem and finally for still believing in the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa.

Sigh! Any parent who has already had this conversation with a believing heart, knows how difficult the next little while was. Many of my friends found the discovery that such things didn’t exist a minor event in their lives. I can remember feeling sad for each holiday that first year... as if some of the magic had gone out of my world.

Then, as I grew older, I realized the importance of keeping that sense of wonder alive in my heart. Who is to say that there might not still be some corner of the world, undiscovered by our rampaging civilization yet, where unicorns can still graze? Who is to say Nessie or Sasquatch might not be out there? The quote on the bio page of my website contains one of my favourite quotes of all times from author Madeleine L’Engle:

‘The artist, if he is not to forget how to listen, must retain the vision which includes angels and dragons and unicorns, and all the lovely creatures which our world would put in a box marked Children Only !’

So there were tears and sobs, questions and sighs, cuddles and insights into some of the realities of growing up. There were also reassurances about what it is to be a believing soul, of how we become part of that Spirit of Giving that the first Saint Nicholas embodied, and how I don’t ever plan to stop believing in some things completely.

There were also promises and admonitions not to thrown these facts out in her younger sister’s face during some fight, so that Bethany may have the time to believe until she is ready to ask me the same questions.

Will the magic of Easter be any less tomorrow morning? Not at all! I will finally have one child free from this ridiculous new notion that the Easter Bunny brings toys just like Santa. I will know that for me, this is the most important day of joy and wonder in the whole year that has nothing to do with chocolate (though that is tasty!), and I will also find a way to look across the room as my oldest daughter and catch her eye. The smile I send her will be one that welcomes her on yet another of the milestones in the adventure of growing up.

Learning To Appreciate What You Have...

After all the challenges of these past few weeks, I can honestly say that it has taught me to be grateful for what I do have. Every day there are tangible examples of why I should practice gratitude as an attribute.

Learning that friends of ours are going their separate ways after trying for almost a year to hold things together for the sake of their children. It has made me tell Nick how much I appreciate him and all the ways in which we manage to make our marriage work.

Knowing that as all these wonderful new opportunities and challenges come Nick’s way, as he prepares to assume the Principalship of Magnetic Hill this summer, it is ok to feel a teeny bit jealous of your own husband when everything in his career seems to be gaining the recognition he deserves and new opportunities for growth when I still feel like I am fumbling for what to do next.

Understanding how many lives a single person can touch as I get set to bid farewell to a colleague from my radio days. Local newsman Dave Lockhart passed away suddenly this week at just 60 years old. Remembering him and how he touched my life as well as listening to the many tributes that poured in was a reminder of what legacy we will leave once we are gone.

Believing that there must be dark times in order to understand the times of joy and be grateful for them.

In the past few weeks I have received e-mail telling me that I am a spy, harassing innocent people who are just trying to share with others, that I am greedy, selfish, foolish for wanting to try to make a living from designing, that I am actually as wealthy as Martha Stewart, that I should get “a real job” that is hard like they have, that I am charging way to much for something that is just made of paper, that they are not hurting anyone by sharing patterns, that I probably break all kinds of laws myself by speeding or cheating on my taxes..... I almost dread seeing those e-mails more than the ones that promise to enlarge things or hot stock tips!

When it comes right down to it, I know that Integrity cannot be bought. If I spend my life trying to create images that make people smile or look for wonder in life, whether it is in watercolour or with thread... If I try my best to stay true to all that I believe and all that I am... then that is the ultimate work of art that I share with the world.

I stumbled on a quote tonight that I’d written down in a journal over 22 years ago.

“What you ARE is God’s gift to you. What you BECOME is your gift to God.”

It Was A Daniel Powter Kind of Day...

Surely by now, especially if you watch American Idol, you know the song BAD DAY by Daniel Powter? If you haven’t heard it, spend the 99 cents and download it on iTunes because it is the perfect song to play if you have a day like I had today. It’s playing in the background over and over as I type this. Actually, any of these little oddities would have been annoying on their own. All together, they were a bit overwhelming!!

I had a Weight Watcher’s meeting to lead this morning and arrived to discover that our centre had no flip chart paper to write on. Engaging people in discussion is so much easier when you can write down their responses!! I checked with my Regional Manager and she asked me to pick up any paper I could get at Walmart. Luckily, I knew my topic well and I had the van today, so off I went. Neither Zellers nor Walmart sell flip chart paper, but I did manage to buy a big “Dino Doodle Pad” of newsprint paper and get back in time for my meeting.

After this I went over to Shopper’s Drug Mart and bought 2 dozen eggs which were on sale 2/$3.00. A great deal when you consider it isn’t Easter for our girls unless they get to dye some hard boiled eggs. I went to the bank to deposit the Hoffman cheque from February’s sales to discover the dollar was at an all-time high, so the exchange rate was 1.12!!! Not much profit on exchange there anymore.... and that’s what used to let me absorb the higher shipping costs from Canada. I came home around noon and set a dozen to hard boil on the stove when the phone rang and a panicked graphics client proceeded to tell me about an ad they’d been unable to put together by themselves and e-mailed the pieces to me for a rush job! I went down to fire up the computers and make sense of what they were saying, downloaded the e-mails, opened the file that they insisted would “be really easy” and stared in horror at what they had thrown together! This is the problem. I just can’t copy and paste their monstrosity into an ad without needing to fix it (especially the bad english grammar) if it’s going to be a file I send on to a printer somewhere. Of course in all of this chaos, the eggs got totally forgotten until they boiled dry and started to burst, making fairly loud popping sounds that had me racing up from the basement office just before the air could get thick with smoke!

Looking at my watch, I discovered that I had about 10 minutes to scarf something down for lunch before I needed to pick Bethany up at the bus stop. Thank goodness for cereal and milk! Once I picked Bethany up, I went back to Shoppers to buy another 2 dozen eggs to re-boil while I was up in the dining room/ kitchen area helping Bethany with homework. The cashier was the same one who’d served me just hours before and wondered why on Earth I needed more eggs... so of course I had to explain that my house now smelt like burnt eggshell... which set them off so much that they forgot to give me the $17.00 change from the $20.00 I’d given them. Of course, I didn’t discover this until I got home and put the eggs away then went looking for my change! I had to pull out the phone book, call the store and ask them to check if their cash was over by $17.00. They called back about 1/2 hour later to say that yes, indeed it was and that the money would be waiting for me in an envelope near cash #2.

I helped Bethany get her work done then the phone rang and Wichelt wanted to know what new fabrics I might need for any summer releases. I told them about “Santa’s Dragon” that I was working on and we discussed some possible colours, but then I also had to let them know what was going on with the recent round of copyright infringement. They were horrified when I told them that I was thinking of taking a break from designing after my 100th design... but I had to be honest with them about how I feel trying to be creative knowing that I make something that is easy to steal!

After Erin and Bethany’s homework was done, I went down to check e-mail to see if the contact names I needed for an advertorial article that I am writing for the local paper had arrived yet, I found a second and third e-mail from the same client promising the printer that I would adjust a file of cover artwork for them as well... but it is a file that I didn’t create for them!!! Nearing my breaking point, I e-mailed my client back to point out that I would have to recreate the whole file from scratch since that wasn’t a job they’d assigned to me... therefore it wasn’t possible in the 12 hour overnight turnaround they were giving me. It’s hard to tell a well paying client that you can’t do something, but I’m also not responsible for someone else being behind schedule!

Since Nick was down at his school for the Internal Review Process that each school in the District is facing, I drove Erin to Guides with Bethany in tow. We went by the self-store to drop off some leaflets and pick up others. I stood there in the setting sun and stared at a 10 x 10 self-store full of printed leaflets and cardboard shipping containers that I had to have made for dealing with TLC that I now pay almost $150.00 a month to maintain and started to cry. If I had had a match at that point, I would have been roasting marshmallows over a lovely fire!

But now, as I sum up some of this days lunatic events, when the moon isn’t even full for another 2 days, I have to laugh at it all. I still have my health, my family and my sense of humour, even if my passion and my future seem questionable sometimes. What artist ever truly feels secure?? How many dreamers and doodlers even try to make a living from what they do??

Yes, I had a Bad Day. Yes, it felt as if “ the magic is lost, as if my blue skies have turned to grey and my passion has gone away” but this is only 24 hours. My life may feel off-line today, but a day only lasts 24 hours and this particular one shall never come again in my lifetime. The house now smells of scented candles, everyone is asleep except the hamsters and I... and after 20 times through, I can finally put Daniel Powter to rest along with this blog entry.

One Publisher’s Facts Say It All...

One of the publishers in the cross stitch industry who knows that I started a blog on Multiply.com to try to educate pattern sharers as to how much their actions were hurting the industry they claim to love and promote sent me these scary facts and powerfully written message. They did ask that they not be named, but I thought this information too important not to appear on my Dragon Musings Blog too.



In 2000, we published 52 cross stitch books. These ranged in size from leaflets to 48 pages. By 2002, we were down to 31 cross stitch books. In 2003 as scanning and posting charts began to get really bad, we started devoting our publishing dollars to knit, crochet and quilt because the copyright violations seem to be less prevalent among those consumers. We published 26 cross stitch books that year. In 2004, we published 25 cross stitch books. Last year we published only 11 cross stitch books. Through the first 5 months of 2006, we will publish only 3. I don’t know how much more proof you need to show what copying has done to the cross stitch business.

There are other implications beyond the atrophying of our cross stitch book output. Very few of our profits are reinvested in cross stitch, as they have been for 30+ years. What little dollars we do spend on cross stitch are spent on kits which, of course, are far more expensive for the consumer to purchase. We have a higher profit margin on kits than we do on books, a lower initial investment, and when the kit chart is scanned and posted online, it’s only one design, not 103 that we’re losing the sales on.

The few cross stitch books we have published in the last couple of years have been published at a higher retail. We expect to lose a certain percentage of our sales to copying. Therefore, we have to raise our retails to make up for the lost margins. This is identical to what retailers have to do to make up for shoplifting.

And sadly, we haven’t been able to publish any of our big 48 page books, which are such a tremendous value to the consumer, in nearly three years. We simply can’t afford such a huge investment that we know we’ll never be able to recoup because of copying.

The irony here is that these women, who so clearly love cross stitch, are single handedly destroying the pastime they love and, in the process, ensuring that designs cost more and more to buy. Their mentality reminds me of litterbugs who so blithely toss a coke can out the window and say to themselves “It’s just me and it’s just one coke can. It won’t make any difference.” Oh how wrong they are!

What can I add? Those kind of numbers speak for themselves!