Design Book

In 2020, I added the study of Design to my artistic knowledge-bank in order to
teach a class at Vancouver Island School of Art. I was given the textbook Design Basics by David A. Lauer and Stephen Pentak for my class, and read it throughout the winter. Concocting weekly Design exercises primarily using gouache, influenced my own compositions in a significant way. I began creating small drawings of a girl with her chickens in my sketchbook, and decided to write a story using the girl as the main character. I also wrote a small book explaining the Principles and Elements of Design to accompany the story.

On the night of Perseids meteor shower
Lavender has a dream. In the dream, her arms are very long. Long enough to reach the birds in the sky.
She catches a big soft bird and holds it in her arms,
Lavender wakes up and looks outside the window to see birds flying through the sky.
then the bird flies away.
She takes a morning walk along a new path, and finds a sign she’s not seen before.
Lavender sits happily, nesting with all of the hens.
Lavender makes yummy food with the eggs from her hens.
She buys four hens and carries them home safely.
When she bangs a spoon on a pot of kitchen scraps, the hens follow her back to their coop.
Lavender has another dream. In this dream, she’s swimming with whales. She can swim very fast and feels very strong.
In her dream, the whale tells her to have hope.
Lavender follows signs and listens to her dreams. She plants a medicinal garden, and the bees and butterflies love it. And her hens love it.

2021, 22.25″ x 22.25″, gouache on Stonehenge paper.
Book edited by Kyeren Regehr.

Many of these paintings on paper are available for purchase and viewing at
Madrona Gallery in Victoria, BC.