The legend of Ratbeard is told to any pirat who takes to the sewers. He was, despite being near-sighted, the king of plunderers—and the story goes he wove hemp ropes into his hair, which were doused in saltpeter and set on fire, to slowly burn and surround his head with smoke, thusly freaking out his enemies. He met his demise when he turned his ship into a septic system and the methane met his molten braids. A grand exit, to be sure.

I have to say, to all of you who have written to say you have been involved in the design of a magazine, I officially doff my hat to you. What a process this has been! It has gone swimmingly well, and the team is tighter than ever, which I can imagine is not always the case. Granted, we are all in a bit of a daze, but hey—we just gave birth! The beast is uploading to the printer as we speak, and soon enough we will start the entire process again. I’m looking forward to it, but I need a hell of a nap first…

As mentioned yesterday, the header for “What the Boys are Drinking”. Fear not, we’re only tongue-in-cheek sexists, as I was one of the boys, and some of the boys were ladies for an evening. We are equal opportunity drunkards at Edible Vancouver…

So, the magazine I have been designing, Edible Vancouver, is very nearly ready to go off to the printer. We’re into the nitty-gritty details now: have all double spaces been found, are the fractions correct, are the temperatures in all recipes consistent, etc. One section is a review of local wine and beer, for which I am illustrating the header. I love working with silhouettes, so this has been a lot of fun. It’s not exactly how it will look in the magazine, but it’s a first stab at it. Boys are up next.

By the way, the girls were drinking Lotusland organic wines from Abbotsford, in case you’re wondering…

Sailor, bathing, business, space and birthday…

(click for larger version)

It has been awhile since I tackled the collective noun series, and so ladies and gentlemen (or should I say ladies and germs), may I present to you the elite of the single-celled organisms, the most civilized of all primitive life forms: a culture of bacteria.

My aunt and uncle own a Craftsman house that is the hub of my rather large family. It’s where we spend Christmas, and the back yard is the site of countless summer meals. The house itself is beautiful, with the original built-in cabinets in the dining room and gorgeous stained-glass windows—but the piéce de resistance is something that was found when the old carpeting that was in the house when they bought it a dozen years ago was pulled up. In the centre of the dining room there is a diamond inlaid into the hardwood, which is all well and good, but in the living room there is a five-point star. The star is a little crooked, and a little off-centre, and it’s not aligned with any of the angles of the house. There’s something so strange about it; when they first discovered it we all sat around staring at it, mesmerized. We tried to figure out what it was pointing toward, or what had happened in that spot that needed to be marked for posterity, or that had damaged the floor so badly this added element was required. We postulated that if you stood in the middle of the star and spun around three times you would be dissolved into molecules. We laughed about it for awhile and moved on to other conversation, and I remember my sister, some time later, saying “it keeps pulling my eyes back to it—I can’t look away.”

There is a rug over it now, just in case.

So, last night was the first time since I began this project that my internet connection was down, and I even wandered onto the street to see if I could pick up someone else’s wireless to borrow for a moment, but no dice. As expected, I started the morning off with a few worried emails asking “are you okay??” This blog is as good as an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” alarm button…

The primitive ancestor of the modern-day pirat pillaged cave and cove, but wouldn’t take to the sea for thousands of years. In these days before being known for leaving a sinking ship, pirats were known for being the first out of a smoking cave.

The Illustration Friday theme this week is “primitive”.

I was working on another watercolour this weekend (it will appear later in the week), but yesterday I saw a crow pick up a cigarette butt at the park and the image has stayed with me. Don’t crows strike you as smokers? It’s something about the way they pace with their hands behind their backs, looking perturbed. They should be smoking and muttering, if you ask me.

Also, I wanted to mention that since the latest WordPress update, I have been losing comments now and again. It’s frustrating as I’m doing what I have always done to restore them, but they sometimes disappear. So, if you have commented and it has vanished into the ether, my apologies—it wasn’t personal, and I hope I haven’t sent you off muttering with your hands behind your backs…

Well, it has been some time since the cat brought me any booty, but this evening she trotted up the stairs with a rat in her mouth and a twinkle in her eye. I hope we’re not heading for another wave of thrice-daily rat wrangling. Unfortunately this fellow was a little too far gone for my catch-and-release program, so instead he is in the bottom drawer of the freezer, awaiting garbage day. Poor wee fellow. I bet he never expected he would be a ratsicle by day’s end…