The ‘Starting Out’ Years is available now!

 My book on Instagram

The reason this picture has blue bars on the sides is that pictures on Instagram have to be square.  If you look at the page with all my Instagram posts, you may notice I didn’t figure that out right away.

The ‘Starting Out’ Years is the book I thought I was finished writing in December 2019.  But because most of the action in Chapter 5 takes place in 2020, a year which went off the rails, I had to rewrite that chapter several times.  I didn’t really finish the book until December 2020.

It's available at Amazon.ca and can also be purchased directly from the Friesen catalogue  (at a much lower price that doesn’t include shipping).

 

Another Instagram Adventure

Cobalt Lake
Watercolour
©2012 Charlene Brown

Here’s another one of my Instagram posts.  The theme this time was ‘Favourite tool’ which for me is a masking liquid applicator.  The painting shows the effect you get by using the applicator to draw the picture with masking fluid, painting over it, then removing the masking when the paint has dried. 

This lake in the Bugaboos is not cobalt blue, BTW.  It should be called Cerulean Lake.

I Read Canadian

Bookstore poster

 

I’ve been working with the BC team on a Canada-wide promotion of Canadian children’s and teen (young adult or YA) books.  The campaign started a few days ago with writers and illustrators uploading videos to bookstore websites’ Facebook and Instagram feeds, and continues with posters such as this on in-store displays of Canadian children’s and  YA books.

Have you seen these videos or posters?  Hope so.

 

Instagram adventures

Harbour Ferry Ballet
Watercolour and ink
©2010 Charlene Brown

I should start by admitting that I’ve only recently got Instagram on my phone.  Actually I only recently got a phone smart enough to know what to do with Instagram. 

And it turned out that I was not smart enough to know what to do with it.  

Fortunately, one of my granddaughters (not the one who explained Zoom to me a few months ago) didn’t seem to mind walking me through my first attempt.  Several times.  To get some practice in quite quickly, I signed up for a challenge that asked us to post 21 paintings in 21 days, each within a specific theme. This picture was my post for the theme ‘Lesson learned’ and what I learned with this picture was that if you’re painting en plein air and there are a lot of people around, very soon one or more of them will ask, “How much do you get for those?” and the only safe answer is that it’s not for sale. I explained this safe answer in my book, Plein air Painting: the drama.

   

Background for one of the scenes in plot point 2 of my graphic novel

Secret Location
Computer-altered watercolour and crayon
©2020 Charlene Brown

According to Nicholas Wilton The three best things about the artist’s journey are: 

1.      It is available to anyone.
2.      You get to make absolutely anything you want.  A graphic novel, for example.
3.      Sharing the process of figuring it out, grows you.

Speaking of figuring things out, it’s occurred to me that I should spend some time figuring this graphic novel out (and making sure it will in fact come together), before I share any more of the process. 

So I’m going to write about one of my other 2021 projects—Instagram pictures—for the next few blog posts.

Possible place for a pinch point?

Canmore Collegiate High School
Computer-altered watercolour and crayon
©2020 Charlene Brown

This building actually exists, unlike the high school I painted a couple of weeks ago.  And it too might make an appearance as a background in a fictional mountain town (apparently big enough to have two high schools) in my new graphic novel.

Pinch points are small complications or twists in the plot that serve to remind the protagonist of just what she’s up against.

I've made this sound more complicated than it really is, so here's a list of the ‘points’ that occur in a screenplay (or graphic novel derived from a screenplay).               

• Inciting incident:         setting the scene    
• Plot point 1:                 everything changes
• Pinch point 1:              reminder, complications                   
• Midpoint:                    moment of truth, reveals true nature of the conflict
• Pinch point 2               reminder, or even a twist in the plot
• Plot point 2:                 everything comes together
• Climax:                        problem solved

BTW, this is my 800th blog post.  But who's counting...

 

 

Betting on the Future

 

Starting Out in 2020

Watercolour and crayon

©2020 Charlene Brown

In a recent blog post Seth Godin made some predictions about how the infamous year 2020 will be thought of ten years from now.

“Whatever happens over the next ten years, if history is any guide at all, the year we just finished will be mostly a faded memory.

“What will matter more than what just happened is what we decide to do with where we are, daily, persistently, generously, for the next 3,650 days.

“Here’s to possibility, to justice, and to betting on the future.”

My book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years, which is finally being published, does just that.  One of my beta readers, said this last March after reading the first draft.  She liked the optimistic outlook of Fiona, the main character in Chapter 5, as she worked her way through the year 2020—and that was before we realized that 2020 was going to fall apart!

 

A time-altered memory

Banff High School
Computer-altered watercolour and crayon
©2020 Charlene Brown

The internet must contain two or three photos of every important building (and several unimportant ones) ever built in Banff. All of them except the original Banff High School, it turns out. 

This painting had to be done from memory and is as accurate as I could make it. I should probably mention that one part of the painting where I wasn’t even trying to be accurate is the flag—as you may know, the red maple leaf flag became our official flag in 1965, five years after that high school was torn down.

And if you think that’s a stretch… I only remember one occasion in all the years I was growing up in Banff that there was a flag of any sort on that pole — in February 1952 the Union Jack was flown at half-staff when the King died.

I may use a version of this painting as a background for one of the (fictional) scenes in the graphic novel I’ve started adapting from a screenplay I wrote several years ago. It may be the location of the first pinch point—more about the various ‘points’ in a screenplay (or graphic novel) in a couple of weeks.