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North Van illustrator draws dragon to life for children's book

She was working at her easel when a dragon emerged. Artist Monika Blichar was at her Upper Lonsdale studio when she first glimpsed him. He wasn’t an angry, covetous, smoke-snorting dragon.
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She was working at her easel when a dragon emerged.

Artist Monika Blichar was at her Upper Lonsdale studio when she first glimpsed him. He wasn’t an angry, covetous, smoke-snorting dragon. The scaly fellow forming on Blichar’s canvas was named Murray. And Murray suffered from the most embarrassing disorder that can afflict a dragon: he couldn’t breathe fire.

The character was born in the mind of Blichar’s high school friend Cristina Petersen. The two were on an art retreat when Petersen started discussing a story she wanted to write.

It would be the story of a misfit going to astronomical lengths to fit in, Petersen decided.

“He has no fire, sadly. So he decides to go to the sun and get some fire,” Petersen explains in a video released to raise funds for the book.

But while Murray succeeds in his quest for fire, he soon discovers the cost to his newly-molten breath: the sun is colder and the Earth is a darker, gloomier place.

The story was written to offer young readers a tale of acceptance, courage, and respect for the Earth, Petersen says. 

It would be a simple, a mutual friend told them. Petersen would write the story and Blichar would illustrate.

Blichar liked the idea and she liked the story. But what would Murray look like?

“I didn’t really have it in my head when she told me the story,” she says, speaking from her Upper Lonsdale studio. “It was just something that happened while I was painting.”

She learned that Murray had big green eyes, a shock of Einstein-white hair and two fangs hanging over his lower lip like a child’s overbite.

Blichar completed 17 paintings for the book. But while the artistic process was smooth, publication had its challenges.

Petersen and Blichar opted to crowdfund the children’s book, eventually selling enough advance-copies to finance publication.

The book is available online through Indigo and Amazon and the duo are working on getting Murray into brick and mortar bookstores.

The book’s release marks a milestone for Blichar, who’d been training for a career in the arts since her cramming note paper with doodles during her school days in Red Deer, Alta.

“My parents never encouraged me to do art,” Blichar recalls. “They just kind of let me figure out what I wanted to do.”

Originally from Poland, Blichar’s parents each embarked on careers as entrepreneurs after immigrating to Canada with their one-year-old daughter.

Blichar’s mother was a real estate agent and her father ran a commercial cleaning company. Neither was artistically inclined but both parents offered invaluable training for an artist who would eventually need to pitch projects, establish clientele and promote her work.

“I had to translate a lot when I was younger, so I think hanging out in my dad’s office helped me start my own business,” Blichar says. “That was my playtime. I would go downstairs and hang out in his office and pretend I was the boss.”

After graduating university with a teaching certificate, Blichar says she spent about 10 years working in public and private schools.

“I tried to do the sensible thing,” she says with a laugh.

Her work was consistent but there was a daily lack of joy, she explains. “I wasn’t getting up and going like, ‘Yes! This is my life.’”

During that decade as a teacher, Blichar had been drawing, painting and designing clothes, meeting customers, co-ordinating the Art World Expo and selling her wares at pop-up markets. In 2018, she left her serious career.

“I finally was like, OK, I’m just going to do art.”

Influenced by pop art and surrealism, Blichar currently offers paintings and greeting cards with subjects ranging from Paris to comic books to a rotary telephone. She also offers a host of leggings adorned with black cats, playing cards, eyes, lips and faces. Her boutique gallery is also stocked with local coffee and hot sauce, she says.

“It just kind of morphed,” she says. “I created a job for myself.”

She didn’t expect to make a living with her paintbrush, she says with a laugh, but she’s glad she can.

“I don’t think that I would do it as an adult,” she says. “It’s more like: ‘Get a serious job,’ right?’