The Sketchbook Project - Pow!

You might remember that I got a sketchbook for The Sketchbook project many months ago, and have had only moderate success getting anything done in it at all. But I have high hopes and lots of determination! I'm going to have it ready to go by the deadline. And with that attitude, I got to work on this page. It doesn't look like a whole lot, and I'm not wild about it, but anything done was better than waiting around for the "perfect inspiration," which never happens anyway. If one sits around waiting such a thing, nothing would ever get done at all. The halftone dot pattern was quite difficult to make look even somewhat correct. I penciled in a grid, and put the dots in the centre of the squares in something of a diminishing scale. hmmmm. Not a terrible system, and it certainly wasn't meant to be exact.

Teamwork to the Rescue

I'm really enjoying designing t-shirts lately. This idea came from a night at the pub listening to a couple fantastic bands. A few of us were discussing the Angry Birds shirts I did, and then we saw the stamps we'd been given at the door were of a little monkey. We started talking about monkey t-shirts, and someone suggested turning the Barrel of Monkeys monkeys into SARTechs. SARTechs are Search and Rescue Technicians, and pretty much have the coolest job in the CF. They where bright orange suits, hence the colour, and SAR aircraft are painted red and yellow, hence the barrel that's been turned into a Cormorant helicopter.

This is available on redbubble.com

Angry (snow)Birds

I enjoyed my last Angry Birds t-shirt design, and decided that the cute little Snowbird needed it's own design I love how it turned out! So, go buy one right away.

RCAF Birds

I put this new t-shirt design up on Red Bubble. It's based on the game Angry Birds, but I made all the birds look like different RCAF aircraft. The idea for this came from the patch I'm designing for the nav course I just started. We wear a course patch on our left shoulder of our flight suits, which we (and that'll mean me) choose and design. We were talking about doing an Angry Birds theme, and I said I would make one that looks like a Dash 8, because that's what we fly in for training. It went well, and now we just need a motto before we can get them made. I enjoyed doing it so much I decided to make a few more, and see what kind of design I could come up with.

This is the first version of the planes I came up with. They're based on (left to right) a Polaris, Hercules, Aurora, Cormorant, Tutor, Sea King, and F-18. I tried to choose different types of aircraft used for different purposes. to have a good variety. I couldn't do one of everything because I was limited by the number of birds, and it just would have gotten to be way too many planes to make into a nice design. I decided it would be nicer to limit the numbers and do something cool to the layout instead.

Some of the plane/bird pairings I choose because they went really well together for more than just shape. The Polaris is used for air-to-air refuelling, so the bird that lays eggs was a good match. In the final design I used a trail of little clouds, similar the the ones the game uses to show the path the birds take in the game, to 'connect' it to the F-18.

The Cormorant is used for Search and Rescue, so it's painted yellow and red, and it's similar in shape (or as close as you can get in a game made of geometric birds attacking pigs) to the triangle.

The Tutors are the small planes used by the Snowbird acrobatic team. The little blue bird that splits into three was perfect for that. They're my favourite.

The Sea King is based on the exploding bird, which I kind of thought was funny because they are so old and we always joke about their state of repair. I originally had the explosion from the game behind there, but I though it was too close, in regards to copyright, and figured it would be a good place to put the RCAF rondelle. I used the yellows from the Cormorant, and the vintage maple leaf to get get a bit of the 'explosion' feel.

Books Reduction Lino Print - Winner!

I just drew for the winner of the Books lino print, and Lizzie, a fellow bookbinder who write the lovely Lizzie Made blog, was the winner! I hope everyone enjoyed the posts as the print was being made, and that Lizzie enjoys her new print. That you for all the comments!

Books Reduction Lino Print - Finished!

I apologize for the delay posting this, I only just got back to work after Christmas break today, and as I don't have my own scanner, I had to wait. The colours are just much closer to real life when they're scanned instead of photographed. So here it is, finally finished! I'll admit, I was getting a little sick of it by this point, and I got a little more ink around the edges than usual, but the majority of my fingerprints and whatnot will be covered by the mat, assuming these get purchased and framed. The series went quite well, and the registration stayed perfect the entire time. I still have to go through them and see if there are any to discard because the ink didn't print well, but I think there will only be one I do that to. Awesome!

It's now available on Etsy. You can go buy it, or, if you'd rather just win one, leave a comment because I'm going to give one away. You have until Wednesday night, when I'll draw the winner!

Books Reduction Lino Print - Darks

I'm finally getting to the dark colours, the ones that will give some actual shape to the neon rainbow that is my print. First the dark red, which printed very badly. I think it's because the only red ink I could find was in the squeeze tubes, instead of the jars, so wasn't nearly as thick as the other colours, unfortunately. 

I ended up printing all the dark reds twice, but I neglected to take a photo after the second time, unfortunately. I do have one of the dark green, however. And that means there is only black to go!

I want to give away one of these, so if you want one, leave a comment.

Books Reduction Lino Print - Blues

One of the books is blue, which of course means I have to print two versions of that hue to give the shape it needs. First the bright one, which will actually a little bit of the shading on a neighbouring book:

And then the shading:

I'm going to give one of these away when I'm done, and you get an entry for each comment you leave in any of the posts about it!