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    My family spent some days in Campbell River, my birth place, and our friend, Tim Dorsay, arranged for my son Peter and I to go out in a small boat with a local. Our host realized that most of the other boats were chasing the salmon at an island out across the water, too  great a distance for his little boat.
    He decided to let Peter fish for cod etc at a drop off closer to shore, saying he’d move if nothing hit after thirty seconds. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but sure enough on his first jig Peter hooked into a reasonably sized rock cod. We played catch and release for the first few fish and then Peter hooked into something big. It took him awhile to bring the leviathan up but nothing could have prepared us for what was to come.
    “That’s a shark” I said as the fish swam slowly towards the surface in big lazy circles. “It’s a dogfish”, our guide said, “Probably an old one judging by his size.”
    We managed to unhook him and returned him to the deep. I’ve seen other dogfish but never one that big.

    Someone who lives in Campbell River is Sonny Assu. Sonny was a former student at North Delta Secondary and he went on to Kwantlen College and Emily Carr College of Art and Design. He now works independently as an artist and has/had work in the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Museum of Anthropology, and various galleries around Vancouver and Montreal.   

     He was commissioned by Art Starts to produce a student interpretation with a First Nations design and he chose to work with students from North Delta. It was a great boost for my students to work with an established artist.

Sonny Assu website

        What is something “chummy” that lives in the waters of British Columbia? Why—chum salmon, of course!
        

        When I taught art in high schools I included art history and the work of other artists. One artist I found fascinating was Shaun Tan from Australia. His work is a cross between children’s books and graphic novels. There were certain images that stuck with me long after I had closed the covers.
         One of those images was his take on depression, or as he says “the darkness overcomes you”, in his book The Red Tree.
         I’m used to the idea of a dark cloud which follows the person around and only rains on them, a stereotypical representation. Shaun, on the other hand, worked with a giant grouper and although it floated above the person it has one of the saddest looks I have ever seen. It persisted in my memory because it was unique and it captured my own imagination. It gave me freedom to see depression differently as something outside of circumstances that can hover over a person despite what they do.

         Check out Shaun's books on his website.

http://www.shauntan.net/

I love fly fishing and and I fished for bull trout on the Skagit River with my friend Bruce Holbrook. We didn’t see any fish the day we went as the water was running high and fast so we ended up in a smaller stream. I was fishing below a bridge when I felt a strange sensation on my hat. It took awhile but I finally found that Bruce was the cause of the tapping. He would reach over the edge of the bridge with his long rod, tap, then disappear before I checked above.
        

When I was thinking of the bull trout I imagined a fish’s body with the head of a bull, hence the cartoon. This required some research, though, as I pictured the bull in my imagination but I wanted to make sure that the ears were horizontal rather than vertical. I often do research to confirm details such as these for the illustrations.

An artist who I encourage you to look at is Wayne (Bruce) Turner, the photographer. Wayne has focused on images that are found in industrialized cities or in nature and he collects these images for later exploration in terms of adjusting them through Photoshop and printing. He has photographed dried out plants and pushed them to create beautiful vignettes with high contrast. He has also gathered images of structures from cities and emphasized the patterns they create or he has worked with landscapes and the human form. He is also a great Jazz aficionado.
Website: Wayne Turner

“A” is for Abalone

Weirdly Wonderful was the first book of three alphabet collections for creatures connected to British Columbia, Canada. This one dealt with aquatic creatures.

        "A" was the first image and I automatically thought that someone hearing “abalone” for the first time would associate it with what they knew. For most of us this would be a “baloney sandwich”, so the abalone shell became the bread for a baloney sandwich.
        What’s a sandwich without mustard and lettuce as well?
        I used acrylic paints on illustration board for the images. After the colours were laid down I used black ink for outlining and to add definition.

The earliest images were done on Denman Island where Diane, my wife, was attending a writing workshop for the        week.
        I was recovering from knee surgery and the place we stayed, Tutu's Bed and Breakfast, was located overlooking one of the lakes on the island. I swam every day to strengthen my knee. Luckily I was far enough along that I was able to drive as well and after dropping Diane off I would head out to explore the island before working on the book and my knee.