It’s been super cold and windy today. I have my desk set up in front of the window that faces the street. Today was garbage day… and I’ve been watching everyones blue recycle bins blowing down the street like tumbleweed all day. I have a feeling a large percentage of recycled material never made it onto the truck today… I had to run outside a couple of times to pick up stuff that dumped.

I just got in from walking the dog. The wind made it pretty difficult… but we managed to make it home okay without blowing away.

My son has invited a bunch of friends over for a LAN party tonight. They just finished up their exams and this is the way they are celebrating. They’ve set up all their computers in the livingroom. They’ve shut the big baby (my golden retriever) in his kennel, because he was being too exuberant. Now he’s making this pathetic whining noise… sounds like a beached whale. Between that and all the shooting… I have a feeling it’s gonna be a l-o-n-g n-i-g-h-t…..

Well, thanks to Michael for all his coding and tweaking… my blog looks even better than I had hoped today. Thank you, thank you, thank YOU! I’m happy to finally have something that has a similar look and feel to my main website.

And now that I’m finally happy with my online presence… time to start sending out emails to art directors…

I think I told you about this parcel that arrived on Monday. It looked like it’d been through a war… when it was only coming from one of my clients in Newfoundland. I was kinda amazed by the state of it… I’ve never had something from the post that had to be “bagged” with a notice on it. With the big hole in the side I wondered if some of it had fallen out, but I don’t think so. Surprisingly, everything looked intact.

I’ve had the wonderful experience of watching my Amaryllis plant flower this week. These plants are such giants, and kinda remind me of the plant from “Little Shop of Horrors” when they’re still in the bud stage. Then they produce these big gorgeous flowers, kinda similar to lilies.

I’ve been taking pictures of it as it opened up over the week. Appreciating its beauty. I just took some of the pictures off the camera to show. I had to include the one with my dog’s nose in the picture.  It’s just like him to be in the middle of things….

Yesterday, I took it up to my studio and drew/painted a watercolour of it.

Some of my work (from the summer) has finally hit the shelves. In Ontario, you can find it at “A Buck or Two” which is a dollar store here in Canada. The product says “Millbrook Studio” on the back, has 12 Valentines and 1 teacher card. If you choose the pack with the “School Bus” card for the teacher… that is my design. Other designs of mine in that set include: a dinosaur on roller skates holding a heart, a yellow dog and a goldfish looking up into a sky of heart shaped clouds, a raccoon chasing winged hearts with a heart-shaped butterfly net, and a hippo in a bathtub filled with heart shaped bubbles.  I also did a couple designs in the other set… the one of the rabbit pushing a wheelbarrow full of hearts, a cat cooking a heart-shaped pizza . I had alot of fun illustrating these. I really do enjoy working on Juvenile designs.

Uploaded the changes to my site today, so that you can see some new art.  If you have any suggestions to improve, I welcome it… just send me an e-mail.  I’m still working at designing this blog to match/compliment the site so please hold off critiquing it’s design until then.

I missed writing last night because I was teaching my first “Children’s Picture Book Illustration” class at the local Art Centre.  I’m really excited about teaching again.  I think it’s been about 3 yrs since I last taught.  I have a feeling that it’s gonna be a lot of fun.  I love sharing what I’ve learned with other people, especially when they’re as excited to learn as I am to share.  I was kinda shocked, but happy to have two men in my class.  In my previous classes, there were only women.  This group seems to want to learn more about the “illustration” side of things, which is exciting.  They want to explore the techniques of art making which should be alot of fun.

Also yesterday, I picked up a parcel at the post office.  I took pictures that I’ll post of it.  I’ve never seen a parcel in that bad of shape… it looked like it’d been through a war zone… but it was only coming from Newfoundland.  Though it looked in pretty bad shape, the contents weren’t damaged.  It was Valentine product of mine which has been printed, and is currently selling at “A Buck or Two” stores in my area.  I went there to take pictures of some of my designs a couple of weeks ago.  I will post those shots as well, soon.  It’s kinda nice to get to see my work in “print”.  Alot of the places that I work for don’t bother to send me samples, and I always forget to ask where I can find their product.

Last night, I went to a local art event for the City of Cambridge. It was supposed to be a “brainstorming” session for art and culture in the community, a way for City Council to find out the needs of its artists, writers, musicians and performers. They had a suggestion box to submit ideas as well as a pad of paper to write down suggestions with the intention for others to add comments and expand upon. I’m not sure how successful it was in that respect, but I had a lovely time and met a few interesting people. It was a good time for all… there was free food, free spirits and a jazz quartet. They even had nice door prizes… lucky me… I won 2 bottles of wine!
One of my thoughts was that they needed a better way of promoting events. They really need something online where you can check out what’s happening in the community. I often miss events because they aren’t promoted well enough. I just happened to read about this one in the newspaper while having my dinner. I hadn’t planned on going & this was the first that I’d even heard of it. One thing that I thought about when I left, was that it would be nice if there was an event once a month or once every so often just for people to meet other artists, musicians, performers in the community and network. That’s kinda why I was there in the first place.

I was a real goof last night and stayed up waaaaaaaaaaay late 2:30 am (I think) working on my website.  I have a feeling that I’ll be uploading the changing sometime this week.  Though it was probably a crazy thing for me to do… I feel good about getting the tedious part of it done & out of the way.  Just minor tweaking left on it.  Now that I have an updated portfolio online… my next project will be promoting it.  Gonna design a new postcard mailer.

Hey… look here.  I’ve got a “sexy job” according to a recent survey.  On the “Top 10 Sexiest Jobs”… “Artist” was  listed as #7.
http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/careerbytes/CBArticle.aspx?articleID=773

Who knew?  Well… guess, I’d better get back to my sexy job…

On Monday, my publisher send me this link:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol14/no10/ajourney.html

It’s my very first book review and thankfully it’s a good one!  Our book has been “recommended”  

This summer, I illustrated a picture book for Pemmican Publications. “A Journey Through the Circle of Life”, was published in the fall and is my first published book. It’s been a very exciting experience for me. This weekend I popped by the publisher’s website and noticed that it is finally listed in their online catalog. This is good news as I’ve had a few inquiries from people wanting to get their hands on a copy. So, here is the link … just in case you’re interested :
http://pemmican.mb.ca/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=111&category_id=6&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1