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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.