Now that the children’s picture book that I wrote and illustrated with Dad titled “I Remember Fishing with Dad” is at the printers and due out on December 1st, I’m beginning to think about how to get the word out about the book.
I’ve have two book signings lined up for December: one at the Snow Goose Bookstore in Stanwood, WA on Saturday, December 5th and a second on Friday, December 11th at the Harrison Center for the Arts in Indianapolis.
Returning to the Harrison Center is going full circle because that is where, in 2004, dad and I collaborated on painting many of the illustrations. Dad and mom had come to visit us in Indy for Christmas break I think. At that time, I had just written a draft of the story and had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go with the illustrations. So I roped dad in to help me. Help me he did!
Joanna Taft and the Harrison Center team let us set up a temporary studio in Gallery #2. There Dad and I went to work.
Dad was a great sport to help me. His expertise in watercolor painting (although he paints with oil, I prefer his watercolors), his ability to draw the details of salmon fishing, like tying fishing line and cutting herring, and his eye for perspective added so much to the project.
The whole family stopped by to see our progress. Mom with her camera (that’s who I got these pictures from). Jenny and the kids. You can see how young our kids were in these pictures. I was quite a bit younger too, with much less gray and much more hair :).
But most of the time it was just dad and I, silent together, like when we fished for salmon. Together in the quiet of Gallery #2, with the only sound the splashing of brushes in water and the rustle of paper, we relived through art what we had lived on the salmon waters of Puget Sound so many years ago.
I hope that through this story and its art, many parents and their children will see how important it is to make sacred memories together.