this is elijah.

it’s hard to see, but his finger is turning into a caterpillar.  and of course, he’s eating it.

i bought a new drawing desk recently.  it’s set up in the living room facing the front yard.

i usually stay up and draw after elijah goes to bed.  i do some housework first before i get down to it.  i usually draw from 10 to 2 am-ish.

night is very quiet.  i try not to look out the window because i might see a ghost or a someone standing right at the window.  i can’t make an eye contact with them.

i used to draw non-stop without sleep otherwise i would lose interest in the drawing.  but i can’t do that anymore now that i have a baby.  elijah wakes up at 6 am most days, sometimes 5 am.  he’s instantly superawake and ready to go wild.  so i need to be ready for fun in the morning.

after one year of training, i am now capable of drawing one area per day, finishing step by step over several days without losing interest in my own work.

i sometimes go to the basement to draw.  i turn on a ‘curb your enthusiasm’ dvd and draw on the low coffee table, sitting on the floor.  i find myself laughing so hard even though i’ve already watched all the episodes a million times. i love larry david.  ‘can’t go on, must go on…’

until this point, i was doing my best to follow the patterns of real butterflies.  eventually i got bored, so i made up my own butterfly patterns as i finished the drawing.

here it is: “new wings”.

i did this drawing for the new “unbound: gender in asia” issue of the kyoto journal. i originally submitted this along with “all i can see” for possible cover images. i guess they didn’t want so many nipples on the cover: “all i can see” didn’t get used at all, and this drawing is on the table of contents page. it’s strange, because i think “all i can see” is a way better drawing than this one. that’s okay, it showed up in the interview about me in the sheaf.

the actual cover of the kyoto journal issue shows a collection of women’s shoes. it was published back in november, but i couldn’t find it in any bookstores in saskatoon (it’s distributed all over the world). i had to wait to receive my copy from japan.

as a supplement to the issue, some of my drawings are being shown on the kyoto journal online. i chose the two drawings that i did on purpose for this submission, plus some other drawings that ended up having something to do with gender. or at least, they’re nipple-related.

i thought about the theme of gender when i was drawing “forbidden fruits” and “all i can see”. i don’t usually think about anything when i’m drawing, except drawing (and curb your enthusiasm, which i watch a lot while i’m drawing). i don’t really know what this drawing “means”, but that’s what i drew.

the kyoto journal is written in english, so you can read it too. look for it in your local bookstore. if you find it in saskatoon, let me know!