506-852-9017 • P.O. Box 29079 Moncton, NB, Canada E1G 4R3 • dragondr@nbnet.nb.ca

All artwork, information and illustrations on this site are © Jennifer Aikman-Smith 2012.

Images may not be copied or used without written permission..

     Illustrators need to keep a sketchbook (or 2 or 5 or 27) to record things in.  The worst thing is to be trapped without a pen and paper when you want to capture a moment. Of course my purse weighs a ton, but I always have at least one smaller sketchbook with me and anywhere from 4 to 12 pens and pencils lurking in the depths of my shoulder bag.

       Rather than post a single page at a time each month, since I seem to be scribbling more, I have started to store the best of them on flickr, so click on the big title below to have a peek!

     When I visit schools and talk to children about being an illustrator, I ask them how often they scrumple up a drawing because it doesn’t live up to what they imagined.  So many hands go up in the air.  We seem so obsessed with making things PERFECT that we sometimes don’t even try to serve our gifts.  Working in pen for the past year in my sketchbooks has been VERY hard, but it has also improved the way I look at things. It is less about making things perfect and more about capturing a moment or idea now... and that is what a sketchbook should be all about!