Museum of Childhood

Some picture from the V&A Museum of Childhood near where we stayed in the East End of London. 

We spent a lovely morning admiring art created by and for children.

Remembering old toys we had when we were kids

Meeting quirky characters.

Pandas put a smile on any day!

Such lovely designs.

Candy Wrapper Loud by Alex Mason

Below is a link to a radio review of The Loud Book and The Quiet Book by CBC Radio's Alex Mason. I couldn't describe the the book's better! (although it would be very tough to be on the less favorable end)

Here is a link to an audio recording from the radio show:

http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/mainstreetns_20110901_67485_uploaded.mp3

Listen to more of his children's books reviews on the Mainstreet Nova Scotia website here:

http://www.cbc.ca/mainstreetns/sticky/2011/12/08/childrens-book-reviews/

A dream comes true

At the beginning of December I mentioned that I would love to see one of John James Audubon's books in person one day ... Well that didn't take long! By some quirk of fate, just a few days before Christmas we were able to view an original book from his Birds of America series. Talk about a Christmas present!! Weeks later I am still thinking about it. All I can say is spectacular!!! The colors, textures, shapes, character, story telling, drama, emotions - It reminds me of how important it is to take the time to do things right, every little detail matters and I hope this experience will help me to do even better work.

Researching at the Natural History Museum

I was in Europe for most of December, while in London I took several trips to the Natural History Museum to draw the animals. I have seen taxidermy in the past and they have always seemed wrong, just stuffed animals. But the ones at the Natural History Museum were different, they felt very natural and even had character and personality! The artists who did these were superb craftsman and I learned a lot from drawing at the museum. Birds are something I need to work on, they are a challenge to draw and bring to life.

The above photo is Michael sketching on our iPad. 

The poor owl below the one he was painting had a pencil in the side of it's head, very strange!