Come See Me at the Comic Expo!

Like the return of longer days and birds, culture nerds wait all year for the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo! It's Calgary's little convention that could, growing into a massive event. I'm thrilled to announce I'll be there again for the first time since 2019.

I'll be doing pet sketches in the Big Four Building, table A5105. Come by and say hi!

Cover Reveal--Arthropoda!

My adventures in publishing so far have been quite interesting! I saw the call for entries for Arthropoda by Perennial Press in summer 2021.

I was thrilled when it was accepted and it was a pleasure working with JW Stebner of Hexagon to edit the story and add the extra bit of polish.

Then came the waiting...the waiting...and wait no more! Pre-orders for this speculative fiction anthology are open right now!!.

Being a horse and bird lover, well, I just never imagined I would be writing about insects, but here we are! :-)

Parrot Palooza!

So, back in September I was fortunate enough to attend a local Parrot Palooza as a vendor. It was a wild time and I even met local celebirdies, such as Max the Moluccan.

Originally the show was supposed to be in a community hall, but they switched it to the new VCA vet hospital down the road from us. Somehow I didn't factor in that I would be in a room of screaming parrots for seven hours. It was like "SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM SIREN SCREAM I love you SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM BARK BARK hello", but once people arrived, talking balanced out the noise. All the parrots there were club member parrots--no outside birds allowed. There were so many! Cockatiels, conures of all kinds, cockatoos, one blue and gold macaw, an African grey, a few caiques, several different types of Amazons, a parrotlet, two Quakers, and a grey parrot who someone told me the name of, but that I didn't recognize. I'm so happy with how the portraits of Birdzilla and Yoshi turned out.

A Great Way to End 2022!

I'm thrilled to share my short story, "A Foot in Two Worlds", was accepted into this anthology :-) My dad came to Canada in 1960 and navigating two cultures has always been a part of my life.

Immigrant Sci-Fi | Successful Submissions & Selected Stories - We’re pleased to announce the authors included in our upcoming anthology which combines the new & contemporary, set in future, interstellar, fantastical and alternative realities.https://t.co/kOMCbRjkWc

— Flame Tree Press Team (@flametreepress) December 14, 2022

Tony! Tony! Tony!

For years now I've done pet portraits at the local comic expo, but COVID has put the kibosh on that. I was able to attend a parrot show called Parrot Palooza at the end of September though and here's one of the subjects, a French bulldog named Tony.

I found it very hard to cartoon Tony and it actually took two tries. Click through for larger.



His human also ordered a realistic portrait which was done on pastel paper with assorted pastels. I loved how this one turned out!

This Post Grad Life--Tying Up Loose Ends

I'll admit I'm not the speediest artist, but I began this trio of dog portraits in 2019! It was hard to find a good chunk of time to finish them while I was finishing up school. Naturally there was a lot of things to do and I was only able to sit down and finish the final portrait this month.

Each portrait is 4x6" and was rendered in pencil crayon, marker, and PanPastel. Click through to see the larger version on Flickr.

This Post Grad Life--I'm A Winner!

One of the things about being a new grad is that it takes a while for it all to sink in--you've crossed the finish line--but there's so much work to do. In my case, I've spent the last few months cleaning, organizing, donating and recycling where I can. It's nice to not have to step over things and vacuum the carpet. Best of all, I get to make art for myself again. If you have been following my Facebook page or my blog for some time, you know I was a regular entrant to the Calgary Stampede Western Lifestyle Arts and Crafts Show. The show is a quiet, dim respite from the excitement of the fairgrounds but also a great place to see local talent from cakes to quilts.

I wasn't sure I would be able to complete an entry before the end of the semester and the June 20th deadline. It's probably true for a lot of grads, but once the semester was done, I was done. I could not make anything and the pressure was on. Instead of worrying about what the finished item would look like, I just simply got started!

About ten years ago I was making miniature tapestries with embroidery floss and revisited the tapestry idea by snapping a piece of aida cloth into a small embroidery hoop. Strand by strand, the landscape began to take place. Click on any photo for a larger view.

Making a mountain was the hardest part. I used a wedge of cardstock to weave the sky around it.

Once the tapestry was done, it got a haircut and a layer of glue around the edges.

Then it was time to make the front. I printed my drawing, "Little Horse on the Prairie", onto a piece of cardstock, snip snip snipped and assembled! There was no way I could weave the horse in on such a small scale. I was already having trouble seeing and ended up buying clip-on magnifiers for my glasses.

My frenzied work paid off because I won third place! My friend Luba kindly shared the news. Regrettably I did not get out to the Stampede this year to see the other works.0 I'll definitely be back at the show next year with something bigger and horse-related, I'm sure :-)