With moose on the driveway, porcupine in the yard and deer near the house, author Agnes Bellegris needed only look as far as her own backyard to find inspiration for her latest children’s book.
“It’s a very personal element,” Bellegris said last weekend at a book signing at Just Imajan Art Gallery & Studio of many of the creatures featured in Animal Encounters. “Everything came together really organically … It was a labour of love.”
Bellegris’ third children’s book features a variety of short ditties about different beasts and birds both large and small, from horses to roosters and nearly everything in between.
This time around, Bellegris decided to act as her own illustrator of the piece and set about to paint all of the 15 pictures on the pages herself.
It took her nearly two years to complete the project, and the artist said it was a steep learning curve to blend together her love of writing and her emerging skills as a painter.
“Writers will tell you that you write and you rewrite … when your writing goes wrong, it’s so much easier to scratch it and start again,” she said with a smile. “But when you’re painting and you mess it up, you cry.”
Animal Encounters was originally published in January and is available in both hard and soft cover.
Copies of Bellegris’ book can be ordered at www.archwaypublishing.com
