I'm Back...

"Maurice" cut out from Stonehenge paper

... and apparently cutting out letters backwards.  This is not even an illustration, but it is the one creative thing that I have on my desk at the moment.

Yes, it has been a long stretch since the last post from August.  I have been busy, but in a good way.  The exciting news that I haven't shared a whole lot on-line is that Groundwood Books will be publishing, The Outlaw, the first picture book that I wrote and illustrated .  Over the past months, I have been working with Sheila Barry and her team at Groundwood.  It's been great!  The book is scheduled for release in Fall 2018.

The Outlaw began way back in 2013, as a drawing.  At my first SCBWI conference in Western Washington, Mac Barnett had given an inspirational talk involving Venn diagrams and Sophie Blackall had asked illustrators to draw shadows.  I had also finished reading Patrick DeWitt's, Sisters Brothers, and watched the Coen Brother's, True Grit.  So you can see the percolating influences that resulted in the drawing below:

Train

pen, watercolour, newsprint transfer

I worked on the story to go with the image shortly afterward, and had the manuscript critiqued with Ken Kilback's writing group.  Then, I rented a studio for the summer to work on the images.  By the end of 2015, the dummy was ready for submission.  It seems a long time ago.  Yet not really.