In six weeks my mother &  I will be on a plane to England.

Once a week I write a letter to her (a real letter, on paper,  in an envelope, in the post) and draw something related to our holiday. It is a way of building the excitement and also being aware of how the weeks are flying by,

Last holiday, three years ago, I drew on the envelopes that I mailed each week in a ten  week countdown . This year I have only managed one original drawing on an envelope.

This year, life  is a lot busier, so I am using the drawings from one of my other projects, which neatly fits into the holiday. My exhibition for Melbourne Rare Book Week title “You Can’t Draw in Books?” involves me drawing in old (about to be discarded) books, illustrating the words on one of the open pages. One of the books is an old A-Z London Street directory . I am drawing images of iconic images of London or something that reflects the place on the page.

I then cut and paste my final saved and drawn image into an envelope to mail to my mother. That means that this year she is not getting ‘an original’ on the envelope – but still gets a surprise each week !

I have completed (or started) five drawings on pages so far and identified another few pages with potential, including Regents Park (draw a squirrel) , Kew Gardens (a flower) , Battersea (Power station), Greenwich ( something to do with time OR the Cutty Sark ), Hampton Court (the palace) ….