My book and freaking Artist's who are freaking flaky

I have had my first real frustration with this book deal.  My publishers called about a week ago and informed me that they were still interested and were just wondering if I was still waiting on an artist. I told them yes, that I was probably going to fire this artist because although he is very talented he has been a bit of a slacker. 

The problem lies with the fact that this was an artist from Mo's work and I didn't want to make things weird for him. So I tactfully asked what the status was on his work and he informed that it was the same as last time, which is pretty much nothing. He had a few ideas but basically he has done nothing since we spoke at Christmas.

Well, I was not too upset because during this time I realized that another person I know would make a fabulous children's illustrator and so I asked her if the job comes back to me if she would be interested. She said yes, and so I hired her on the spot. 

I am hoping to have the 5 pages they need of illustrations done by the end of this month and to get this ball rolling once again.

I told the previous artist that once I am raking in the dough I won't gloat too much :)