The best part of owning and operating Pen Jar Productions, my online store, is creating the product and meeting my customers. Here is my interview with Fernanda van der Laan, proud owner of my Jane Jacobs enamel pin. This summer my Jane Jacobs pin (circled in blue) entered a special collection of over 300 pins, […]
Meeting my customers
Originally published in August 2019 in Blog, Custom Portraits, Enamel Pins, Jane Jacobs Enamel Pin, Pen Jar Productions, Profile,, Toronto Illustrators
Hi Tomato
Originally published in July 2019 in Blog, Comic, Doodling, Graphic Facilitator, Graphic Recorder, Graphic Visualizer, Illustration, Toronto Illustrators
Hand Drawings
Originally published in April 2019 in Blog, Toronto Illustrators
The push and pull of being vs doing. To me, hands are the ultimate doers, storytellers, get-shit-done human power tools. Not so for the copywriters at Elle magazine in 1967. Boy is it fun and weird leafing through back issues. Women’s magazines are the supreme handbooks on how to be, not do. There are times […]
When your students draw you
Originally published in April 2019 in Blog, Toronto Illustrators
Virginia Woolf and Alice Munro in conversation
Originally published in March 2019 in Blog, Illustration, Toronto Illustrators
7 things my customers taught me in 2018
Originally published in December 2018 in Blog, Gift Ideas, Illustration, Pen Jar Productions, Toronto Illustrators
Last summer, the initial delight I felt in seeing my sketchbook drawings on a digital pillow template inspired a new design business in 2018 called Pen Jar Productions. Now my quirky line drawings are on totes, tees, scarves, and, coming next month, enamel pins! (In these politically-charged times, more of us are wearing our values […]
Studio Tour of Pen Jar Productions
Originally published in November 2018 in Blog, Gift Ideas, Graphic Recorder, Graphic Visualizer, Illustration, Toronto Illustrators
Click on image to play my video greeting, or click here. An email I sent my contact list on November 1st: Top of the morning to my friends, family and work colleagues: For those of you who haven’t heard from me since high school, here’s what’s new: I cut my hair, became an art historian, unbecame […]
Creative Entrepreneurs: a mutual support society
Originally published in June 2018 in Blog
The nice thing about being a creative entrepreneur, other than the creative freedom, the distance from office politics, and the casual wardrobe (I also like to randomly drop and do sit-ups, which I wouldn’t do in an office setting) is the sense of camaraderie with fellow freelancers. We hire each other, and pay with cash […]
Milton Glaser
Originally published in June 2018 in Blog, Doodling, Illustration, Toronto Illustrators, Visual Storytelling
