I just finished these 2 portraits for Romina in Toronto, who is a good good friend of my dear sweet friend Mo. Romina found out about my work in a round-about way and was surprised to find out I was friends with her best friend.

When I sent these pictures to Romina, she told me she teared up a little.  I feel so lucky when I get to do one of these portraits, and even more so when I know it’s going to such an appreciative home.

The show is up and it looks great!

If you have a chance stop by and take a look (the gallery is open daily 12-5), it’s such a great group of artists. The official opening is Saturday at 7:00, hope to see you all there!!

This week’s Small Fancy: Casting choices for the movie of my life.

I didn’t think it was going to happen, but we got a space! There was a cancellation at the gallery@the Guild and we are booked!

It ‘s such short notice, but we still managed to get 13 pairs of artists for the show. I’m so excited and honored to help put this show together.

The amazing poster was made for us by Tyler Landry, I love it!

Small Fancy is a little late this week, but here it is. Now that I’ve thought about it more, I should have maybe drawn me waiting for the bus after work, in the dark, in Vanier, at 15. That was the worst part of this job.

I have so many of these, they might go on for a while… or maybe it is too depressing re-living all the jobs from hell. We’ll see…

I feel like I’m finally on the other side of crazy. The sleepless nights, the planning, the worrying, the moving, the cleaning…  are over. We are in our new home, and loving it.

It’s really everything I’ve ever wanted in a home, and I’m loving it more each day.  We have big plans for this house, but won’t start anything until our other house sells. For now we are just enjoying being here, which is pretty great.

The past few days have been chaotic and emotional. We packed up our lives at the house that welcomed us to this island, and have moved on.

I wasn’t expecting to feel this way, this move was my idea! I just can’t help but feel sad to leave the only home Sosi remembers, the one where Ila has lived her whole life. There are so many memories there.

Our last night in the house I was busy packing and I glanced out into the yard and saw this. My girls planting the chestnuts they had stuffed in their pockets that day from the new house, in the backyard of the old house. I don’t know what it was, my sheer exhaustion or the golden light falling on their backs but this just broke my heart.

Farewell  fifty-five Fitzroy, you have been so good to us. I hope whoever’s house you are next, they will love you as much as we do.

I just finished up these 2 custom pieces. The top one is for a little guy ‘s family I’ve done portraits of before. You can see the one I did of  his parents here.

The fabric piece is for a couple who recently moved to Chicago. I have them in front of Cloud Gate  (also know as “The Bean”) … it was hard to get a good photo of this one. I layered up different fabrics for the Bean and it’s so pretty in the sunlight. I also removed a heart before I sent it off, 4 is bad luck for the Chinese. Oops!

I’ve been holding back on the blogging lately because the only thing I’ve had on my mind is trying to sell our house. I was worried that talking about that here might jinx things, so I ‘ve been keeping mum.

The thing is the house still hasn’t sold, and I don’t think my talking about it or lack of talking really has anything to do with it. It just is what it is.

We move into our new little house next week. That’s her up there. I’ve been holding back my excitement because I ‘ve  been so stressed out. It’s  incredibly difficult to maintain the high level of stress I’ve had for the past 7 weeks. I’ve realized there’s nothing I can do about any of this (hard realization for a control freak), so I’m deciding to let it go. No more stress. Ahhh, that feels better.

Look at that  sweet little house. It’s nestled on a quiet street, close to Sosi’s school, around the corner from my sister-in-law’s house and down the street from Ila’s baby-sitter’s. It’s still walking distance to my studio, downtown and the water. It’s a tiny house and I love that. I’m looking forward to making it our own. I’m also looking forward to the huge backyard with trees and my future garden… and maybe chickens? We’ll see about that one.

This house will sell… and if it doesn’t, maybe we ‘re meant to keep it. In the back of mind I’ve always wanted to hold on to this house, rent the 2 apartments out and maybe move back when the girls are grown. I love this house something fierce… maybe the universe is trying to show me again that I can handle more than I think I can.

Between illustration jobs and custom portraits I find it fun every once in a while to just play around and do something just for fun’s sake. Here are a couple of fabric pieces I just finished up.