With most of my art I endeavour to be serious, yet I love to play. When creating a story I juggle feelings and ideas until I get multiple matches, which can result in rapid-fire “Aha!” or “Eureka!” moments. If there are illustrations to be created for the story I simultaneously play with my brushes and paints to use a variety of styles and techniques to better express the story’s mood. Often these feel like big experiments. It can take years before they are complete and offered to the public. As much fun as I have fun doing all this, the goal is always to entertain and better connect the work and reader.
I am primarily known as a children’s picture book author and visual artist. I also write young adult fiction, adult fiction which includes novels, collections of short stories and poetry. A collection of 25 years worth of silly comics is now available; Hardball and Riley: The Ultimate Collection. I’ve got two books of my artwork coming next year (2026), Comic Gazer (illustrations and comics) and Faces and Figures, a collection of my portraits and figure drawings.
Back in 2007 I won the Governor General’s Award and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award for my third published book, The Boy from the Sun. After living in Toronto, Victoria, Vancouver and Montreal I returned to my childhood city of Thunder Bay and started a little self-publishing empire, selling thousands of books and giving away over a thousand books to children. I regularly give away free books to children during readings and workshops. During the pandemic I gave away free books from my balcony. Covid also cost me all streams of revenue and I had to close my studio/gallery space, Rogue Planet Gallery.
With the ability and freedom to play with ideas I do my best to create highly original works to delight and surprise both children and adults. Lots of reading, travel and research feed my imagination allowing me to better express several humanist themes. A 2012 Chalmer’s Fellowship Award sent me to Ghana to do research for a children’s graphic poetry book. I wrote dozens of articles for the online magazine Northern Ontario Travel to promote the city. I had a weekly column called Art on the Edge in the Chronicle Journal Newspaper. I wrote reviews of art shows with a focus to promote young talent and indigenous artists in the region.
I’ve also worked in a small capacity in film, television and animation, directing, creating storyboards, and acting. I’ve been a lead actor in a couple low budget productions, did background “acting” in a couple medium budget films, and acted in over 30 short films to help out my brother’s film students at Confederation College. I enjoyed working for a few months as an art director in the Play Industry in Vancouver, heading a team of artists to create large indoor sculptures and climbing installations for children, working with Emmy award winning artists. I have shown my artwork in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, B.C., and Thunder Bay. Off and on, I’m a member of the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), visiting Los Angeles to take part in the 2017 conference where I made a few connections.
The citizens of Thunder Bay continue to be amazingly supportive. Special thanks goes to the Ontario Arts Council who has been instrumental in supporting the creation of a number of my books and visual art projects over the years.
You can see my work and other activity on my YouTube channel: Duncan Weller
