happy new year

My camera's USB cord was on the floor and I stepped on it and it's now smushed and will no longer fit into the back of my laptop. So I can't upload all my new photos...which is a drag.

This little illustration is a sketch I did for a group of card designs that I will be submitting to greatarrow (wedding or valentines). A company that almost entirely prints/silkscreens the designs of freelance designer/illustrators and you get paid a percentage of the sales of your designs. Submitting to this company has been on my list of things to accomplish for, probably 4 or 5 years and next month I will submit my first grouping. They have several seasonal deadlines throughout the year and this next deadline October 1 includes cards for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Autumn, Halloween & The New Year. I'm hoping to submit at least 12 ideas and I think I'll skip Thanksgiving (it's a much bigger deal in the US) and just doesn't inspire me as much as the other 4 categories do.

Today is Labour Day, the long weekend in September. A big turning point day and the early morning show on CBC radio this morning is about the new year and considering September, really, to be the new year to many people. I've always been in that camp myself, as a child & teen I always loved school and most often was really excited about a new school year, new teachers, new subjects, new shoes & clothes, and new school supplies - a fresh start a new beginning, a clean slate. I know that's why I feel that way still about early September. I love a new beginning. Even though I've always looked forward to this time of year there's also a bittersweet, melancholic feeling that arrives every year along with the shorter days, and I mean a physical feeling, felt in your core - in your cells, that seems to be triggered by the smell of the air in September or by the chill in the morning air or by the crunch under foot of that first fallen leaf. A big wave of that emotion swept over me the other day and it felt like a little bit of every early September, that I'd ever experienced, over my entire life all rolled up into one wave of thought & feeling & emotion rolled over me - in seconds. Gone again as quickly as it came leaving you with that shudder of melancholy & memory. Never specific or detailed...just an essence of a feeling of sadness. Saying goodbye to summer and all that summer means.