PLAIN
is this week's Illustration Friday theme. An excellent theme that can be interpreted a variety of ways. I am posting a plain black & white line drawing! I did a number of these hoping to get some work doing spots for children's textbooks. I showed them to two very experienced illustrators I know: both said, "Excellent work! You're good to go!" But go where? It turns out textbooks are a very difficult market to break into. It seems you have to have an agent, and I don't...yet. Oh well! I had a lot of fun doing them, they were a great exercise in artistic restraint and line control, and I guess it's a case of virtue being its own reward, even though virtue would really have preferred to be rewarded with a few paying jobs! ;->

I'm posting this particular spot because my twins are turning fourteen tomorrow! Like every other birthday mother everywhere my thoughts are all "That was fast!" and "I can't believe it!" And "I have got to get that cake baked!"

STITCH
is this week's theme at Illustration Friday. I thought this painting might suit the topic. When my boys were tinies I enjoyed knitting for them, although apart from a couple of infant caps, I never knit clothing: I knit toys instead! I did not have the attention span necessary for a sweater, but I could manage to knit a lamb or a kitten or a striped ball. Not sure I want to enquire too deeply into what that says about my character. But anyway, knitting and early motherhood always seem to go together in my mind. This is a painting of my friend Emilie and her youngest son.

Knitting, 18 x 14 inches, oil on canvas