Earlier this spring I made seven section illustrations for the upcoming novel Whispering Alaska by Brendan Isaac Jones, coming out August 2021, from Penguin Random House. Brendan recently moved back to Sitka with his charming family, and he owns a house just around the corner. It’s a young adult novel, about twins who move to a town in Alaska, where the town owns a forest that they have to decide to keep, or cut down for lumber. Can’t say more, don’t want any spoilers!
It was a neat excuse to get into the old growth forest near here, to photograph, draw and then create these decorations using scratchboard, a new medium for me. By chance, when I first got the job I went camping on a lake above town, in old growth trees.
I used Essdee which was surprisingly hard to get. A lot of places only ship UPS or FedEx and they don’t offer “ground” service to SE Alaska. So you have to really hunt to find the place that can ship through the post office! But Essdee is worth it. I don’t know much about it but I found that you have to keep sharpening the edge of the cutter, I used fine grades of sandpaper, so by the time I was done it was whittled away quite a bit. Anyway!
I hope you get a sense of our forest, and this place. Go to theoutercoast.com for my wood engravings and calendar.
Sitka Art Blog 
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