We had a bit of snow again this week, but nothing like the storms last month -- which is when Howard and I made the little video of Tilly in the snow above. If only we could all live life as joyously as a half-grown puppy.

This sketch is similar to yesterday's, and drawn around the same time. It's called "Precious Books." The medium is conte crayon and pencil on vellum.

Below, of the same vintage, is my rough sketch for a drawing called "Girl, Pig, and Rose." I don't have a copy of the final drawing (which was a gift for Linda Moorcock, a great fan of pigs), just my quick initial sketchbook scribble, but it gives you the general idea.

Speaking of pigs, I've been meaning to share my favorite photo from our big snow storm last month. Taken by Alex Latham (of the Chagford Filmmaking Group), and posted here with his permission, it's a picture of my step-daughter, Victoria, with one of Alex's two Kune Kune pigs (either Sherman or Blossom, I can't remember which). Like the magical pigs of Celtic myth, they live in a nearby woodland owned by Alex, his brother, and his mother, the"fairy harpist" Elizabeth-Jane Baldry.

 

An old one, from the days when I was still a city dweller. I can't remember if I drew this in New York or Boston...or possibly even on the train between. I got to know the New-York-to-Boston run very well in the years when my time was divided between the two cities. I carried editing pens and drawing pencils in my backpack, and always a manuscript (or two or three), and got quite a lot of work done in the five hour journey up and down the Atlantic coast. My friend Tom Canty would often meet me at the Boston station, and by hefting my pack onto his shoulders (such a gent) he'd know how busy a week I had ahead based entirely on its weight, which indicated how many manuscripts I was working on at that moment. (They were the early novels and tales of folks like Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Midori Snyder, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Pamela Dean, Patricia Wrede, Robin McKinley, Sheri Tepper, Megan Lindholm/a.k.a. Robin Hobb, Steve Brust, etc., etc. -- all of whom, like Tom and me, were a whole lot younger than we are today.)

Heavens, digging through these old sketchbooks is bringing back so many memories.