We are excited to tell you about a new collaboration we did with our friend and artist Emma Fitzgerald to celebrate the launch of her new book, Hand Drawn Vancouver, a collection of sketches and stories of the city’s neighbourhoods, buildings, and people. The cover art on both the book and the chocolate bar was created by Emma and depicts a view of Vancouver’s False Creek.

This limited release bar is a white chocolate made with Peruvian cacao butter and a ceremonial grade Japanese matcha from Yame, Fukuoka, curated by our friend Jude from Cultivatea. It is a first harvest matcha, the leaves of which are hand picked and grown at high altitudes, where the air is moist and foggy and the trees grow slowly, yielding a matcha with exceptional depth and complexity.

You can find the bar as well as a few different book + bar bundles in our online shop available for purchase. The bundles are for pre-order as we are just awaiting arrival of the books (should be here any day now).

About the Book

Visitors and locals alike will love this book of whimsical sketches of Vancouver, British Columbia, accompanied by thoughtful observations and snippets of overheard conversations.

Take a tour of Vancouver’s sights and sidewalks with Emma FitzGerald’s hand-drawn impressions of her hometown, a city filled with stories–funny, surprising, and sometimes dark–amidst the cherry blossoms, beaches, and forests. Included are more than 100 sketches completed on location that, together, capture the essence of Vancouver. From Stanley Park’s seawall to Kitsilano’s salt-water swimming pool, and East Van’s first craft brewery to the ferries in Horseshoe Bay, Hand Drawn Vancouver is a love letter to this beautiful and iconic city.

About the Author

Emma FitzGerald was born in Lesotho in Southern Africa to Irish parents, grew up in Vancouver and calls Halifax, Nova Scotia home. She has always loved to dance and draw, and wanted to become a choreographer, writer or architect when she was 10 years old.

After completing a BFA in fine art and a Masters in Architecture, she worked in architecture offices in South Africa, Vancouver, Calgary, and Halifax. She taught architecture in the Gambia, West Africa. Since 2013 she has run her own business as an artist, creating drawings of buildings and people in Halifax, Nova Scotia, selling them as both cards and prints. This led her to create her first book “Hand Drawn Halifax” (Formac Publishing, 2015), which has become a bestselling and well loved ode to the city. As Emma draws on location people approach her and tell her stories, which are woven into the book.

Subsequently Emma explored the South Shore of Nova Scotia in a similar fashion, resulting in “Sketch by Sketch Along Nova Scotia’s South Shore” (Formac Publishing, 2017), and she recently completed  “Hand Drawn Vancouver” (Appetite, 2020), which shares stories of the city she grew up in.

Emma shares her passion for drawing through teaching on location sketching workshops. She has done so at the Lunenburg School of the Arts, at Urban Sketching Symposiums in Brazil and the UK, and in Libraries all around Nova Scotia.