Hitched

Hello Illustration Friday; hello again, blog. This bird has hitched a lift with his furry friend, who is off on an adventure into the unknown. We're on our own kind of adventure at the moment - about to move house after seven years of being very nicely settled, thank you. Finding new work after two months of making theatre. Everything's up in the air, and in the middle of it, L fell off a jungle gym (playing tag on it, as you do) and broke his arm once again. It's been madness, and I'm glad to be back here again, in this sedate little world of animals and birds on bikes.

Shades

Illustration Friday theme this week is 'shades.' No need for any of those here; it's raining and pouring and flooding all over the place. Hello autumn! I'm in the second week of rehearsals for a new show and although I don't have much drawing time at the moment, I still doodle endlessly on the edges of my notes, especially in meetings.

Kites

Toa

A weekend in Whiritoa (Toa for short, now that we've been there three times). Staying in our friend's old bach with its peeling lino, faded flowery carpet and squeaky old divan beds, we woke every morning to the faint sound of surf slamming onto hard sand. No email. No telly. Not a lot of anything, apart from reading, eating and lying around like lazy seals, while the kids did energetic kid things around us. We ate ripe salted tomatoes and passionfruit straight from the vine; started on the G & Ts at any old time in the afternoon. A very fine weekend of beachiness indeed.

Love Monster

Or maybe it's loveless monster - sad that he hasn't received a shiny purple balloon and cellophane-wrapped rose on Valentine's Day. Have you?

Tuesday Morning Monster

For Creature Mag's one minute monster project. This attractive creature took 65 seconds and looks a little like the way I feel this morning (except I'm not wearing polka dot shorts).

Small Summer Adventures

School's back after six weeks of flaky summer weather, small excursions around Auckland (we never managed to leave), tents built from chairs and sheets in bedrooms, new scooters and many falls, secret children's spy games with the girl next door and always, always longing for some real summer sun. In amongst all that I've tried to get my act together and plan for 2012, but it's just been so hard. I've lost my way but now a little bit of routine has returned, I'm planning on a new start. It's far too easy to drift, and I've decided that this is the Year of No Drifting, Wafting or Procrastinating. You can hassle me about that, if you like.

Weeds

Poor blog. Lonely and neglected, like my garden, overrun by a forest of summer weeds. Although I've pretended not to make any New Year's resolutions, of course I have - I can't help it. They include: weed the garden at least once before winter, and post a little bit more often, because I do enjoy it, honestly. It's that time of year when sometimes things feel a little stuck. For the past couple of years I've taken part in the Thing-a-Day project, which has been great for giving any gone-to-seed creativity a kick in the bottom. This year it's The Sketchbook Project, which closes in eight days. My theme is 'The Companion Book.' This page is about my weed-like thoughts (theme of the moment). It's a nice change to work in pen and coloured pencil (no digital tinkering), in book form. At the end of this month it will be flying on its way to New York to become part of the Brooklyn Art Library's permanent collection. How exciting is that!