Recently one of my workmates was unloading some things her children had outgrown, and I picked up the book The Biggest Best Snowman by illustrator Will Hillenbrand. I was pretty intrigued by his style and the textures he was getting, and (like most picture books) there was a bit of info regarding the media he was using – the one I was most curious about was his paper, which was vellum.

Always eager to hand over more dollars to my local art store, I went to buy some but was rather discouraged to find that the heaviest they carried was something like 29lb and that that was as heavy as it got. How did he use watercolour and acrylic on it? My own experiments were horrible, wrinkled messes.

Luckily for me, googling the illustrator turned up his website and a whole section on his process! Isn’t the internet fabulous for sorting out your problems for you? It turns out the trick is he’s dry mounting the vellum. Not having a dry mount press, I’ve resorted to vellum spray glue, but after playing around with the mixed media bit I’m back to oil pastels. The spray glue stinks and is probably not the most environmental solution – I’m either just going to tape the vellum to bristol to keep it flat, try dry mounting with an iron (apparently some mixed results with this) or try out some Letratac adhesive sheets.

In the meantime, here’s a picture I made for my new book, done with oil pastel on vellum:

page one from my new picturebook, wip

I have to say I love it – I finally feel like after 2 years of experimenting I’ve found my materials – no small thing, I assure you! It works beautifully with oil pastel, its so easy manipulate the pastel with a paper stump.

I’m still trying to get used to the fact that I have a girly girl for a daughter – she’s obsessed with princesses, barbie, pink and makeup, the result of her one day in daycare with 3 or 4 other little girls. I can tolerate the first 3 (okay, I kind of like pink myself) but I’m not sure what to think about the makeup. I caved in this morning and bought her some nail polish (the formaldehyde and toluene free kind but still full of a long list of chemicals) because I was getting tired of her coloring the ends of her fingers with my gel pens (which does not wash off, let me tell you). I did find a special, chemical free kid formula called piggy paint that I’m going to get her next week when I’m in the area.

Still, I have some misgivings about the whole thing because I don’t approve of it, and yet, I really don’t want to turn every small thing into something too serious, and end up being a drag. I always want to encourage my kids’ interests (whether I agree with them or not) so that they will grow up thinking the world is full off interesting and fun things. God knows I’ve indulged my son’s mania for lego so much that I’m constantly stepping on it and sucking it up in the vaccuum cleaner (he very quickly learned what the phrase “bane of my existence” means) . On the other hand, I worry she will end up like my friend’s niece, embarassed to be seen with her hairy, non-makeup wearing mom. I’m kind of betting on indulging her now so that she won’t be interested in it when she’s a little older.

At any rate, my caving in this morning meant that I had to apply the nail polish, which I found to be a pretty bizarre thing, not having done it much in my own life. At least it was like painting a very tiny area with pink sparkly paint.

Speaking of painting, I absolutely love Susan Bennerstrom’s work, especially her stairways. There’s something so haunting about them, like they’re hinting at all the mysteries and complexities and multiple paths a life could take. And they’re done in oil pastel!

Black Stairs by Susan Bennerstrom

I’ve been working from home for the last few days, which has meant toting all my art supplies from my studio to my house. Fortunately I’m pretty portable these days. I have less space working on the dinner table, and it doesn’t take long before I’m spread out everywhere, especially now that I have 3 different brands of oil pastels I like to use.

I just bought a box of Erengi Art Aspirers having read a few reviews comparing them to my much beloved neopastels.They were on sale and in spite of having to get them shipped from the States were still a pretty good deal. An example of overconsumption though – I did not need to buy more, but now I have a lovely new range of colours to play with!

I’m working on the color images now for the picturebook for Rubicon, and this is the tough part for me. I’ve read a bunch of books on colour and it still pretty much boils down to instinct. They’ll either feel right, or they won’t. Its funny that I’ve been having troubles with skin tones – why is it in nature we never look at someone and say, your complexion completely clashes with the landscape! Wouldn’t that be funny. But my kids were far too orangey in the beginning, and making them a little darker brown sure helped.

Here’s a version I played around with a bit on the computer. Not the final piece, though!

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