Cedar Island Dreams – in print!!

cedar_island_dreams_epub_cover — Cedar Island Dreams (book cover)

Tom wrote a delightful, adventurous chapter book for kids aged about 8 to 11 years old and I did the illustrations. It is available in print now and we’re thrilled to see it in physical form!

Cedar Island Dreams tells the story of Anforth the racoon and his friends as they find themselves under attack by pirate wolves in a world of the far future where humans did something that made all kinds of animals intelligent before going away… somewhere.

Here is where you can get more info about Cedar Island Dreams including where to purchase.

Hearts

I decided to make an image that I could use for Valentine’s cards and I had so much fun creating this. It was very freeing to be so whimsical. Note the extra hearts created in the texture of the paint or in subtle colours in the background.

Here is the verse Tom wrote for the inside of the cards. How perfect is that!?

My heart drifts up, a butterfly,
upon the breeze as you pass by

Winter ditch

Maybe it comes from my days working in architecture, but I enjoy looking at things in “plan view” (straight down). And recently, the beauty of the minutia we usually ignore right at our feet is drawing me in. There is so much life and colour there, once I stop to really look. The summers here get quite warm and very dry so I’m enjoying the rain and wet …well most of the time!

Here’s Tom’s haiku to go with this painting. 🙂

living rill feeds green
ripe grasses catching sunlight
ditch runs with spring rain

Forest floor

There is beauty all around including in the details of the various plants in the under-story of the West Coast woods. For example, here is the shiny green of salal leaves and the brilliant red of the Oregon grape leaves at this time of year. I had fun painting this – such bold, natural complementary colours!

Tom’s wonderful poem puts this tiny detail into a much bigger context of space and time.

The tangled under-story dwells
above dark earth, the ground’s foundation:
listen to the tale it tells
while the wind’s damp susurration
passes by on raven’s wings.
All around us voices sing
of elder days, when on this ground
no human footprint could be found.
The under-story still remembers
life alone beneath the trees
where forest gods might bend their knees
and coax new shoots from winter’s embers.
Ready always with the flame
of spring they leap to life again.

A bowl of eggs

20200121-fancy-eggs — A bowl of eggs (8″x 8″oil on archival raised gessoed panel)

They must be raising some pretty fancy chickens locally because these were the latest eggs we bought. The colours are as shown so yes, muted tones of pink, blue, green, yellow, oh, and brown – although we’ve all seen those before! It was a challenge to go for those pastel shades. Maybe I’ll paint a bowl of white eggs sometime – a different kind of challenge.

In Tom’s poem he imagined different eggs, waiting to hatch.

An egg is perfect, smooth, as yet unborn,
bereft of all the cute complexity
of a hatchling, wobbly, still half-formed,
escaping from the shell’s convexity.
Ideas nascent, plans untried, their risks
untaken occupy our feathered nests,
waiting for the chipping of a brisk
relentless beak that will not take a rest
until the prisoner is free and clear
from out the egg and into clear bright air
where dangers lurk, and imperfection, fear,
are gathered ready, pouncing from their lair.
But in their imperfection chicks might rise
and live to soar in unforgiving skies.

One fine day

It was a very fine West coast winter day – quite mild and with sunshine! Our walk took us through the woods and out the other side towards farmland and pasture. This view is looking back towards the path to the woods. I like the feeling of this painting. It captures the cool winter sun and the mystery of the path.

Tom’s poem may mean more if you’ve read Italo Calvino’s “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller” – however, it stands quite well alone. The image of my painting led Tom down a quite different path in his poem. I like it!

If On a Winter’s Day a Traveller

You are reading “If On a Winter’s Day a Traveller”,
perhaps online, or on your phone,
during your commute. The train, the bus,
the streetcar is quite crowded,
jostling and rattling around
as you get your head into the poem.

What lies ahead? The curve of road or track
leads on to darkness, mystery, confused
deep tunnels, full of dusty lights,
or intersections where the traffic snarls
into a knot. There’s no way out
but forward, so you go,
in time.

The screen is dark, you’ve been distracted,
and now the poem is done.

Pony in a field

I was out walking with Tom recently. We had done a loop through the forest and had come out back along the road to get to the car. The sun was sloping low over the horizon and touched this adorable pony with a magical light. Naturally, I had to try to capture the scene.

Tom wrote a light-hearted poem that suits the mood and day just right. Check out more of Tom’s poems on Hello Poetry!

Sufficient Unto the Hay

Behold the ponies in the field
who neither sow, nor do they reap:
they run with unabated zeal
from dawn until they pause to sleep.
They do not worry, fuss, nor fret
that with a hand or two they’d yet
become a horse, majestic steed,
a noble beast of strength and speed
that all admire. A pony’s satisfied
with sun for warmth and grass to eat,
a stable’s shelter when the sleet
of winter falls, and one to ride
them round the ring, through woods,
to dappled meadows, fine and good.

Green Tea Doodles

take some time for tea and check out my doodles