BUSY BUSY BUSY

This is a caricature I drew today (a present for a woman moving back to Saskatchewan).

But on another note, a riddle for you...
How do you make 3 children jump for joy?

ANSWER: Buy them a trampoline.

Yes, we did and I have to say its a lot of fun! (Not too sure what my legs will feel like tomorrow.)

"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment." ~Rumi

If I knew then what I know now I would have lived my life exactly how I have so far. At least I hope so.

Life is such an amazing adventure!

A Caricature Party/ Mother's Day Weekend...
A wonderfully crazy, busy drawing gig for the Sherwood Park Figure Skating Club on Friday night and then a relatively quieter party for Serena's 10th birthday on Saturday. The group shot from Serena's party....

On Mother's day I got to sleep in, recieved breakfast in bed from Piper — a latte and a cinnamon bun from the Sugar Bowl (which she was thrilled to share with me), was given fridge magnets from Ry, chocolates from Mark and a picture that Kieran drew of me in playschool. His teacher wrote the things he told her about me on the picture... "When I'm in playschool my mom works. I like her work. When I'm in bed she works. She is very good."
Apparently he was quite disappointed that his drawing didn't look "exactly" like me but I think it captures me completely!

A Creative Journey

Today I spent the morning in my son Ryllan's grade 4 class— starting an altered book project with them. We were so impressed with how well the kids were able to sand the board book pages and paint them with gesso that his teacher and I quickly decided that perhaps we could do more than one altered book at a time. So of course, I then came home and began playing with ideas and soon the "board altered book project" became a "wall hanging project" like the one here. (I used a favorite quote from Rumi as the theme and experimented with how to use the board book pages differently than in a rebound book.) So now we will alter a hard cover children's book for our "book" project.

This really made me aware of the process of creativity and how sometimes (or perhaps always) we need to allow ourselves to be open to what might happen and trust that where we end up will probably be a good place. (Sometimes not, but then you find out what doesn't work). Its just like going on a journey and not taking a map with you. My brother and I used to do that sometimes- head off somewhere without a map and laugh "Hey, thats what road signs are for!" Watching for the signs can sometimes be challenging, especially in the creative process but it does keep you in touch with the moment. Often when you have a set of instructions or a map, the focus is on arriving at the end, getting it "finished" or getting "there" — not the creative journey itself.

I really have to applaud my son's teacher for being such a fantastic supporter in this as she allows me the freedom to not really know where we are actually headed with our projects, she says she justs trusts me. That's such a great feeling.

Spiderman 3 is opening today and in case you didn't see 1 and 2 here they are...



..."saving the world" in our living room on a very rainy afternoon.

Speaking of movies, the very talented cartoonist Gerry Rasmussen and I spent our Wednesday evening drawing caricatures of movie goers at the "launch" of the newly named Scotiabank Theatre (formerly known as Silvercity). Now, I guess the theatre will have armed guards and close at 3pm.



Other things keeping me busy this week (besides my superheroes);
a wonderful Mother's day gift for a lovely French Grandmother of 11...


A birthday gift caricature for a well respected boss (with a rather messy desk)...