Santa Claus parade, quilting squares, Hairy Potter

Today's Blatherings consists of pics I took over the weekend and today. Click on any photo to see a bigger version and comments.

Thanks to Margaret Middleton, who made me this wonderful quilt square to hang from my office tree:



After being hung on the tree:


The package also contained the quilt square kit I ordered. My plan is to turn this into a square I can contribute to the GAFilk quilt. I have zero experience in quilting, so this should be interesting:



Thanks to my friend Walter for this cute Hairy Potter t-shirt:


Walter also gave us a fire extinguisher as a housewarming present (THANK YOU, Walter!). He told us he hopes we never have to use it. :-)

And a few pics from the Santa Claus parade yesterday (you can see a full set here)...

Clowns have always creeped me out a bit:


Especially upside-down clowns. And what's with the bunny on the turtle?!?:


Sometimes the corporate sponsor signs/floats seemed a bit odd:


...or inappropriate, like this one for Lipton (to non-North Americans: Lipton is a company that makes chicken soup products). These chickens seem awfully cheery considering that they're ALL DOOMED:


Not sure what these wolves were doing in the parade, though my friend Andy helpfully suggested that they were the wolves that ate Rudolph:


Christmas skunks?!? I really don't get it. Can ANY animal be part of the Santa Claus parade, even if they have nothing to do with the holiday season?


After the parade and some hot chocolate, we browsed the Christmas display windows in the Bay/Simpson building (a tradition for many Torontonians since childhood). This year, there were about half a dozen Narnia themed window displays. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo below; I couldn't figure out a way to get rid of the reflections in the glass, and also couldn't get close enough to the window because of the crowd of children :-) :

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National Cartoonists Society xmas party

Well, I ended up NOT seeing the new Harry Potter movie last night after all. Reason: I was having too much fun at the National Cartoonists Society Christmas party. :-)

I finally got to meet Patricia Storms in person:



As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of her Booklust blog. In person, Patricia is just as wonderful as she is in her blog: friendly, witty, articulate. Hey, and she's going to be on CBC Radio's Cross Country Check-Up on Sunday, talking to Rex Murphy about some of her favourite books.

I was a bit nervous, walking into the party room at the Pauper's Pub, not knowing anyone. I had a brief impulse to flee...but it was too late to chicken out and besides, I could see a bowl of chocolate on the bar.

I needn't have worried. Not surprisingly, cartoonists are a warm and welcoming bunch. Their partners and spouses, too! I'll be highlighting some of the members of the NCS Canadian chapter in upcoming Blatherings. One couple I especially enjoyed meeting, for example, was cartoonist Brian Fray and his wife Chris, a stained glass artist. I also enjoyed meeting their son John, an actor currently touring with a production of Cinderella; he plays both Prince Charming and an Evil Stepsister. All three have their black belts in karate (!).



All party attendees were encouraged to draw something; markers and a stack of paper were provided in a corner of the room. Very cool to see the cartoons accumulate on the wall above the bar (see left side of photo above). HOLY COW, some of these insta-cartoons blew me away; the level of talent in that room was pretty intimidating for a newbie cartoonist like myself. Inspiring, too.

And I wasn't the only writer at the party! I enjoyed chatting with Sarah Lazarovic, who is another freelance writer also interested in illustration and cartooning.

Other highlights of the party for me included:

- The slideshow presentation of Christmas greetings from other members of the National Cartoonists Society around the world, put together by cartoonist Sandra Bell-Lundy (who is now chair of the Canadian chapter of the NCS). Do check out Sandra's Between Friends site, especially the cartoon from yesterday (Friday) with its Lord of the Rings reference. :-D "Between Friends" now appears internationally in over 100 newspapers such as the Detroit News, the Chicago Sun, the Toronto Star, the Milwaukee Journal and the Seattle Times. Coffee, Tea and Reality is available in bookstores now.

- The raffle, because I won something! The Hi and Lois Sunday Best collection, signed by Brian & Greg Walker as well as Chance Browne. Hi and Lois was created in 1954 by Mort Walker (whose autograph I already have) and Dik Browne, and passed to the next generation in the 1980s; Brian and Greg, sons of Mort Walker, and Chance is Dik Browne's son.

- Christmas gift exchange. This was voluntary: if you wanted to participate, you had to bring something comic-related. Names were put into a hat and when your name was drawn, you picked whatever gift you wanted; all gifts were wrapped and without tags. I contributed a large-size Moleskin sketchbook, and was delighted when Bob Kain ended up with it. I got a wonderful Get Fuzzy: Groovitude collection by Darby Conley, contributed by Sandra Bell-Lundy.



- Talking with Deborah and Derrick Peyton. Deborah Peyton (see photo of Deborah and me to the right) is a New Brunswick cartoonist who does custom cartoons and illustrations and is also the creator of "Day to Day", a cartoon that appeared in newspapers throughout Eastern Canada and Florida. She has two 'Day to Day' collections distributed by Thomas Allen and Son Ltd. of Toronto, as well as a line of merchandise.

- Brief conversation with two people at the party who almost had me convinced they were just crashing the event for fun...until they confessed that they work for Torstar syndication services. :-D :-D

- Meeting illustrator Andrea Wayne von Königslöw and author/illustrator Linda Hendry, both of whom know my sister. I had several people come up to me at the party, in fact, saying, "By the way, are you related to Ruth Ohi?"

Some people may think blogs a waste of time, but I've found mine to have more than repaid any effort I've put into it. Not only have I found Blatherings (and Inkygirl!) a much-needed creative outlet, but I've made so many new friends and work contacts, gotten both writing and drawing assignments, and been introduced to new and wonderful experiences solely because of my blogs.

Thanks SO MUCH, Patricia, for inviting me to this party!

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A letter from the Squirrel Liberation Front

So today I received the following e-mail:

From: Squirrel Liberation Front Subject: A Squirrel Liberation Front Position Paper We have read the squirrelous accusations you have uttered at: http://www.electricpenguin.com/blatherings/archives/003467.html Our outrage knows no limit. We demand that you lower the shields on the bird feeder, and that you add more succulent bulbs to your garden, or this will be taken to the next level. You do not want this taken to the next level. Please see attachment. We are watching you. Very carefully. This is SLF Position Paper number 315-A/7. Cacahuetes para libertad! Attachment:

Since the mailvault.com e-mail address they used appears to be invalid, I'm posting my letter here instead:

-------------

Dear SLF,

Your feeble attempts to intimidate me are so like the laughable attempts of the local squirrels trying to infiltrate my Squirrelbuster (tm) feeder (see Figure 1a below).

As for your demands to sacrifice more helpless baby bulbs to the Furry Fiends, you have only galvanized my resolve to find a way to frustrate next year's would-be crocus-crunchers.

So watch away...watch and weep for your little bush-league hirsute pals.

Unterdrücken Sie die Eichhörnchen der Welt!

Yours cordially,

Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Figure 1a.

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Patricia Storms, booklust, skimper triumph

So I've been invited to the annual Christmas party held by the National Cartoonist Society (Canadian Chapter) next week.

I'm a bit nervous since I won't know a single soul at the party, but I couldn't turn down the opportunity. A CARTOONIST party. How cool is that? Plus it gives me the chance to finally meet Patricia Storms in person. We "met" through our respective blogs; I've been very much enjoying BookLust: A bibliophile's musings on books, cartoons, art and stuff. I *love* the cartoons she frequently adds to her entries.

Congrats to Patricia on the publication of A Sticky Mess from Scholastic Canada, her second educational book. Do check out her portfolio site for samples of her cartoons, comic strips, illustrations, children's books, greeting cards, e-book covers and other client work. I especially love her Art Imitating Lit comic strip, which she has been posting in her BookLust blog.

Had a great time with Jodi last night, as usual. We talked lots about technonerdgirl stuff, especially the whole search engine optimization thing (Jodi's work specialty), which is still somewhat confusing to me. Speaking of SEO...

Skimper experiment update: Well, it looks like I've managed to knock Skippy the Bush Kangaroo off his perch after all, at least for now. According to a Google search I did this morning, my Skimper Blathering has moved up to the #2 spot.

I -think- I've achieved this by linking to it my from main page (see the left-hand navigation bar) as well as linking to it from follow-up entries. That still doesn't explain, however, why some of my archived topic pages on what I consider generic topics (like "German CDs" and "useful foreign phrases") still turn up near the top of Google searches, and others don't.

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Illustration Friday: Broken

The doodle above is for Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "Broken."

I created it in Corel Painter 8 and used the Croquil Pen and Fine Round Gouache brushes. First I did the drawing in black with the Croquil, created another layer in Painter, chose "Multiply" in the new Layer so that I don't wipe out the drawing when I colour, then added colour using Gouache.

I've never used gouache paint in real life so I have no idea how closely the virtual Gouache brush mimics the real thing, but I do know that I would never be able to play around with all these different types of media so easily if it wasn't for Corel Painter...the expense of the materials, the smell (in my basement enclosed office) and the mess would keep me from experimenting.

Here's one from the archives, that I did for Illustration Friday at the beginning of the year when the topic was "Sorrow":

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