a Red Pumpkin Studio

Take Me Away

2012-02-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

I was sitting around thinking about another t-shirt design, and looking at some of the most popular shirts of redbubble, when I came up with this idea. It's very very geeky. It's a combination of my favourite ways to escape reality, the spaceships and quests I wish I could be on, all made into balloons to carry me away. Clockwise from the top that's Serenity (from Firefly), the one ring (from Lord of the Rings), the Millennium Falcon (Star Wars), the Nimbus 2000 (Harry Potter), and the TARDIS (Doctor Who).

This is my original sketch. It didn't change much from this to the final version. I thought about switching Serenity and the broomstick, because I thought it might be hard to identify the ship without the nose, but then the similarly coloured balloons would all have been side-by-side, so that wouldn't have worked. I move Serenity up a little, so that it's more visible, and I think with the detail anyone who's seen the show will be able to tell what it is.

Purchase this shirt at Red Bubble.

A Memorable Introduction

2012-02-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

This is a little t-shirt design I did this morning. It's a polished version of a graphic I did waaaaay back in high school after watching Dr No. And I mean, who doesn't like James Bond, right? I'm not normally much of a minimalist, but I think this is a pretty neat little design based on that amazing opening. It's a version of the gunshot sequence, and the dot pattern during the theme song. I took the colours from my trusty Retro Graphics book in the section on 60s posters.

Purchase it on Red Bubble.

The Evolution of the Guitar

2012-02-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

I'm still not flying, so I have tonnes of time to keep drawing. This idea occurred to me last summer, but I just didn't get to get until now. This idea is the the guitar starts off very traditionally, echoing it's roots as a string instrument, and then morphs into an acoustic guitar, electric, and finally Guitar Hero.

It's available on Red Bubble!

Moose Milk t-shirt

2012-02-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

Yay! More t-shirts! So I'm stuck around in Portage La Prairie (read: middle of nowhere on the prairies) waiting for my first flight training, so I have loads of time to do some drawing (and avoid studying). The idea for this design came from the fruitful night that also brought about the Teamwork shirt. Moose Milk is a drink that originated either with the RCAF or RCN, and is basically a mix of milk, ice cream, and a few different types of liquor. The recipes are all a little different. The idea was to make a fake, vintage looking label, as though it were an actual brand. The slogan came from a mash-up of a few different things I read on old snake oil bottles while I was doing the research for this. It's dated to 1909 because that's a date of the establishment of the RCN, and I've always heard it most closely associated with the navy.

Here's a picture of how it started out. This is where I realized that I would have to use computer generated text, and adjust it to look hand drawn rather than actually drawing it out. This is the first design I've done by hand out of the last few t-shirts because it needed that imperfect, vintage feel:

So I kept the outline, adjusted all the text to look less computer-generated (holy labour intensive), and added some colour:

Even though I put a bit of a vintage filter on it, it just wasn't enough, which is why I ended up actually cutting out some of the label for the final version (at the top), so it looked really worn out. I'd originally thought about having it on a light shirt, but as it turns out is also looks really good on some of the darker colours.

You can pick out the colour yourself, though: Purchase it at redbubble.com

The Sketchbook Project - William Morris

2012-02-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

This is my favourite page. The colour is a little off - I really really am going to find a scanner soon, I promise. I based this off a William Morris design, though I simplified it a little because I wasn't going to sketch every little frilly bit. I not only like the shape of this the best, but I also like the way the writing looks on this one better than the other pages.

The Sketchbook Project - Tree

2012-02-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

I tried something a little different on this one, changing the way the text way incorporated. I kind of like the way it comes off the tree, though overall I find this page a little boring. Actually, I've been finding the entire thing a little boring, but have no fear, I've got something up my sleeve, but I'm going to try it out first to see how it goes before I tell you.

The Sketchbook Project - Pow!

2012-01-29T17:28:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-22T06:11:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

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!

2012-01-12T06:14:00.000-08:00

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!

2012-01-09T19:26:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

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!

Books Reduction Lino Print - Oranges

2011-12-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

The first colours of this print are all the highlights for the final product, so they are looking very very neon right now! The first is an orange that will (should, anyway) add the nice gold tones of the books:

Then comes a red-orange for a few more highlights. This colour did not print very well at all. I ended up printing it twice. There's probably a big rule against doing that somewhere, but it just wouldn't work the way it was! As it turns out, the registration was perfect and I had no problems printing this colour a second time. So, go me! I'm not only quite pleased about that, but it makes me pretty hopeful that the rest of a colours will continue to print where they should. So far, I'm four colours in and still haven't ruined a single print with bad registration. This is sort of unusual for me. If this keeps up I'll be able to be extra-picky about which prints I keep in the end, and that makes me very happy.

I'm going to give one of these away when I'm finished, leave a comment in any (or all) of the related posts. Each one gets an entry.

Books Reduction Lino Print - First Colours and Contest

2011-12-30T06:56:00.000-08:00

I'm starting out with seventeen prints on this one! I decided to do twice as many as usually, because there will be over twice as many colours (plus the last sheet of paper in the book, for good measure). That's my table covered with printmaking goodness. And here is the first colour:

I decided not to print every single corner because there simply isn't going to be any yellow showing, and I figure it will be easier later on if I don't have to perfectly line up the really dark colours on top of it, and still have some bright yellow poking through to ruin the whole thing. So I'm going to easy route (I hope). The nice thing about doing so many layers is that I don't feel I have to get a perfect print every time, because chances are most of it will be covered or obscured, so no one colour is the linchpin of the entire piece. Takes the pressure off a little.

Speaking of being glad there are many layers to come, look what I did to this print:

I noticed that there was a little build up of ink of the corner of the last print, so I grabbed a spare bit of paper and blotted it. Without thinking, it was written on with pencil, and that transferred into the ink, and from there on to this print. No big deal, it won't be seen by the time the rest of the layers are on, but certainly and amusing and potentially useful bit of information. For future reference?

The second layer was a little bit of bright green. It's only going to show up on one book in the final print, so, again, I only put it on a small section:

I'd like to give one of these away when I'm done! Leave a comment on any (or all, for extra entries) of the posts related to this piece for an entry. I'm going to draw it when it's finished.

Books Reduction Lino Print - Idea and Contest

2011-12-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

I took a bunch of photos of old books a few months ago, and took one to separate into colours for a reduction lino print:

It's eleven colours. Eleven! That's ridiculous. But hey, the one with only four colours worked out well enough, so I'll just jump ahead to something way way more complicated instead of maybe taking it easy and doing one with, say, six or something. Sigh... oh well, that's how I roll. This should be interesting. I'm going to start with more prints, because I want to have at least six prints that turn out in the end, and if I only have six good ones out of eight (that I started printing) on a four colour reduction, I'll need to start with at least twice on this one, and be a lot more careful!

I have high hopes for this one, and since it's Christmas and I'm feeling warm and fuzzy toward the world, I'm going to give one away! Just leave a comment below this, or any of the posts about this lino cut (each one gets an entry). If you want extra entries, let me know that you've mentioned this on your blog.

Armillary Sphere - Last Two Colours

2011-12-26T19:12:00.000-08:00

This was such an easy project, with only four colours total! Of course, I had to go and rush the third one, so I didn't get the registration right on a few because I was going too fast. grrrrrr. Oh well, I started with eight and will still have five or six good ones once I look over them to see how they turn out.

When I was mixing the last colour I discovered that the yellow ink actually has a fair bit of white in it, and made the black grey instead of turning it brownish. I ended up making it fairly purple in the end, which looked more like what my monitor did to the dark brown of the original colour separation I did when planning this.

I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. For the most part I cut everything where it's supposed to be, and I like the blue. It's still a learning print, but not too bad overall.

Armillary Sphere - First Two Colours

2011-12-24T13:02:00.000-08:00

First of all, apologies for the crappy photo. I really am going to buy a nice scanner one of these days. I started doing the colours for the armillary sphere print, was was surprisingly easy. Yay! I got an easy carve lino block, and it has proved much less frustrating, and less painful, on my wrists. I could even still see all the pencil marks once I'd washed off the first layer of ink, which made my life considerably easier when it came to carving in the second colour. Here they are:

Armillary Sphere - Idea

2011-12-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

Reduction linos - right. That things I tried doing a couple times a few month ago and haven't touched since? Well, I'm on Christmas vacation now and pulling out a bunch of stuff I haven't had time for and generally puttering about my condo doing whatever occurs to. Peppermint martini this afternoon? Hells yes. Anyway... I was looking through the photos I worked on last summer for a new print. I had taken a few and separated the colours so they would be easy to carve. I choose this photo because it had the least amount of layers, and therefore, would be the easier not to screw up. This is what it looked like though:

Which is really pretty boring. So I played around with the colours, and finally decided on changing the middle brown to a nice blue:

and deleting some of the detail at the bottom. Very nice! I didn't even change the dark brown, but I like how it seems to look a little purple against the blue and yellow. Should be a much more interesting print this way.

Laughing Kids - Finished!

2011-12-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm finally done school, and that gives me a whole lot of free time to start drawing again, and to get a few posts up! I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but haven't been very good about posting things. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I think it has a lot of energy. Not to mention, I finally got everyone looking right, so that's a big bonus. It's been sent off and I hope will make someone very happy for Christmas.

Here's a couple close-ups of the faces:

Laughing Kids - Almost There

2011-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well, a few layers and corrections later, and this one is turning out pretty well. I've started adding some colour into the shadows, because I want there to be quite a lot going on, given that the subject is high energy, even if the original photo was more neutral. Also, I think I've got the boy's face sorted out pretty well, he's not looking squashed anymore:

And then here's a photo with another layer, and starting to build up the background a bit more. I've also toned down that orange shirt a bit, because I was finding it too distracting in the overall composition. First a added blue and purple, but that really muddied it up too much, so I ended up blending in some light grey, and that really did the trick.

Laughing Kids - Corrections

2011-11-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

I left you on the last post with a cliffhanger about how I'd destroyed the boys face in my pastel. I've been working and fidgeting with it for the past few days, and here's where I've gotten so far:

Followed by a few layers to flesh everything out, and I'm getting close:

I still have a fair bit to do, including finding a better spot to take a picture, because I can't get the colours right for you here. He's coming along fairly well now, and I think another day or so and I'll have it.

Laughing Kids - Underpainting

2011-11-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine asked me to do a picture of he and his sister wen they were little. It's a really cute photo, and they've both got big grins of their faces. Should be a fun picture, with lots of bright colours. Here are the first few shots.

I choose a nice dark paper, because I want to colours to really stand out. It is a lot darker than I've done portraits on, though, so it might get interesting. I'm starting out with darker colours, then lightening as I go.

Ok, now the problem. I don't know if it's the different technique I'm using, or I'm just getting over confident in my pastel abilities, but look what I did to to the poor boy on the next layer:

Yeah, he looks a little squashed. This should be interesting.

Rudiments - Drapery 1

2011-11-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

I finally realized on Monday that my Saturday drawing session had long passed and I should get myself in gear. So I grabbed my neglected drawing board and hopped on my bed. Fortunately (?) I hadn't taken very much care when I made it, and everything was nice and wrinkly. Plenty to draw! I'll admit I wasn't 100% focused, so it's not the greatest drawing I've ever done, but helpful nonetheless. I think even a little bit of the different textures can be seen. The next session will involve finishing that front pillow, which has some rather intricate and metallic brocade. I need to find a white pencil crayon first, though, so I can try for the shiny highlights.

In Flanders Fields - Inside

2011-11-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

I had left plenty of room around the full page of the calligraphy I put up in the last post, so it was easy to trim the edges to fit. Then I realized I slightly misunderstood the directions and had to double the amount of folds I had for the book, but thankfully that was easy to do. I ripped all the edges of the flags because I didn't want them to look nice and neat.

I started glueing everything in place, starting at the bottom strip, and realized by the forth layer that the backing paper was a little small. It was actually a bit big to begin with, but I guess I left more room between the layers than I realized. Thankfully the paper was pure white by this point, so it was easy enough to make that layer a little bit smaller without losing any of the image. The placement on a few of the flags is just a little off at the edges as well. Between all that, and the difficulty I had gluing everything neatly, I've learned that next time it would be best to glue one fold vertically at a time, rather than the full horizontal strips. I think. The glue did tend to get all over the place, and I've already spent a good deal of time scraping it away. None of this is really noticeable, and I'm probably going to keep fixing everything, but I'm anal enough for it to really annoy me.

This is what it looks like flat, which is neat because you can see how the flags were originally part of a larger image.

And here are a few shots of what it looks like in book form:

In Flanders Fields

2011-11-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Remembrance Day is coming up, so I've begun a book based on John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields. It seems to me like a bit of an odd thing to make into a book, somehow, but I am in the military, so I guess I just work with what I know. It's going to be a flag book, which I've never made before. The pages/flags will be made up of a this, which is the poem written over and over again in ink, with red ink 'poppies' interspersed. I've used this calligraphy/abstract way of writing a few times, and I love it every time.

Here's a close up. I dropped the red ink onto wet writing so that it would bleed along the letters. I'm not 100% on how it turned out, but once I got some watercolour on the red they looked better, and a lot more like flowers instead of random blobs of ink.

Rudiments 1 - The Idea and a Rant

2011-11-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first person to admit that this is not the most exciting thing I've ever posted here. It's actually just a quick sketch I did because the class I was in today was very very boring. However, it's here for a good reason. It's one of the first things I've ever drawn in which I focused on the textures and materials of the object, instead of just it's shape. It's a water bottle made out of a matte rubber, somewhat reflective plastic, and a highly reflective clear plastic base. It somewhat astonishes me that I've never really put much effort into drawing textures before, and this seems like a massive oversight in my training. I've also never done a drapery study, and only once a perspective study. Really. Yet I have a BA in Art with Great Distinction.

So I've decided it's time to start remedying this giant oversight in my education, and will start putting aside a certain amount of time every week, probably three hours or so every Saturday, to work on these things.

While I was thinking about this, and coming up with a few things to practise, I googled 'drawing rudiments' to get some ideas. One of the articles I came across, targeted to beginners, talked about how important it was to put 'emotion' in the drawing, and let the 'spirituality' of the artist or drawing or something come through. (Rough paraphrase). How completely ridiculous! Drawing is a skill, just like any other, and it takes hours and hours of practise to know what one is doing. Style will develop with time, and only truly skilled artists will be able to put emotion into a piece of artwork. Forcing this at the beginning, especially for a beginner without basic skills or knowledge, is much more damaging to someone trying to learn what they are doing than it is a learning experience. One must learn the rules before one can break them. Furthermore, this idea perpetuates the myth that art is some kind of mystical practise, and that talent simply descends on a chosen few. This notion keeps non-artists, and potential art-lovers at a distance, and blames the viewer for not appreciating the artwork instead of ever entertaining the notion that the art itself might be to blame. Art is not made only for the chosen few who know the right words, wear the funny clothes, and raid the buffet at a gallery opening. It would be fairer to the viewer, to the veteran artists who have put the effort in, and to potential artists to admit that art is just a skill, and like anything else, will take a very long and frustrating time to master. And then show them the Sistine Chapel so they can see that it will be worth it.

The Sketchbook Project - Cityscape

2011-10-31T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm mining another old sketch/style for my newest page. I've done a couple of sketches, and a painting based on Al Hirschfeld's style in the Rhapsody in Blue sequence in Fantastia 2000. I think it lends itself well to how I'm doing all Sketchbook pages, especially the background buildings that are jut windows - the darker parts around the outline really bring them out.

Life Drawing Session - Procrastination

2011-10-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

I find I'm never as creative as I am when I should be doing homework. Last night I really, really needed to be working on a paper. I decided to draw instead. It's still a good use of my time, I could have been watching TV, after all. Oh wait, I watched all of Being Human series 3 too (my god Aiden Turner is beautiful). hmmm, getting distracted again.... Point is, I did a few little studies of the type I should really make a point of doing more often in order to keep my skills sharp.

Looking at all three I can tell my interest was not holding until the end, though. The first started out as a careful, academic study, the second one is much closer to my typical scribbly style, and the third is barely started, though I like outline look as well. I may try a few studies in which I concentrate on a few simple lines, because it's so hard to do right.

The Sketchbook Project - Retro Circles

2011-10-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

I couldn't decide what to do for the next page of my sketchbook, so I did a Google images search for 'abstract styles' and used the first one that appealed to me - a retro poster with rays and circles. It was kind of fun, and unusual for me, so it seemed like a good fit. I started out doing the writing along the rays, but for some reason forgot to adjust the angle as I moved, so it ended up perpendicular at the end. That's OK, it was kind of a nifty composition experiment anyway. I d feel like it's missing something, though.

Graphic Novel tests

2011-10-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with an idea for a graphic novel with a writer I work with, and have come up with a few ways to draw our hero. I'm trying to find a good style for the story, which will be set in the 40s, and stars an ex-RCAF navigator turned private detective. Or something like that. Here are some incarnations as I'm working my way towards the final style.

The Sketchbook Project - Cubismish

2011-10-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

I sat down last night to try and figure out my next sketchbook page, and started thinking about a few sketches I did years ago in a sort Cubism-inspired style, where I basically drew a bunch of lines, then put different bits of whatever I was drawing in the spaces, like this apple:

So I did exactly the same thing and picked up the first thing I saw to draw - a little globe. I think it turned out very well.

Shadows

2011-10-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

I finally got to work after a long weekend of being lazy, unmotivated, and full of turkey. I'm not normally much for abstract pieces, but I loved the shape of this so much I couldn't resist. It's the silhouette of a bracket I ordered a couple of weeks ago. The pair are sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to become my entry closet, and I saw their shadow one evening and loved the shape and the way it blurred the further out it got. So I replicated the effect with my little light and traced out the pattern:

I think it looks great, though I may yet darken the top area.

Available on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/83760780/art-nouveau-silhouette

A Night at the Circus - Take a Bow

2011-10-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

This is Round Two of the little sketches/experiments I've done with my circus-themed photos. After the feedback I got that the first one was a little difficult to read I tried a different technique. I used the masking fluid more as a safety to keep certain areas pure, rather than as the negative space and only image. The colours were used for mid-tones and modelling, rather than all blending together in an abstract field to highlight the white. The black was used almost exclusively for the shadows, again, instead of simply blending into the colour (at least, not as much as the first painting).

I'm not totally sold on this version. I think in some ways it's an improvement. It's certainly easier to see the figure. One the other hand I just don't think it's as interesting. Of course, it doesn't help that I got called away in the middle and the waterproof ink dried in the middle, making it very stripey because I couldn't blend it afterward. Still, that's hardly the big problem here.

The Sketchbook Project - Abstraction

2011-10-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

I finally finished this page for my Sketchbook Project. I wanted to do a little experimenting with different textures while staying within my 'grey side of life' theme. I soon remembered why I don't generally do abstractions - I'm bored within minutes. They're just not my thing. But that's ok, I need to get out of my comfort zone once in a while! I added some letters, the diagrams for sans serif capitals, so that it would match the other drawings, and then in some of them I even put some writing, which was kind of hard to get in the odd shaped lines because I wanted it to look like a pattern, so it had to disappear on the edges.

I got the idea when I went to Nuit Blanche on the weekend and one of the galleries had drawings with Arabic calligraphy done in different shapes. They had obviously been masked out, then the calligraphy filled them in so that they were in perfect circles and the writing just seemed to carry on after the shape. It looked amazing, and I'll probably do something more formal that features that idea later.

I added a bit of watercolour as well, again to match the first couple of pages. Then I went back to the last one and added some watercolour and handwriting to it, in order to keep everything consistent. I think I'll use the sketchbook to see how many different images and styles I can come up with that still tie together this way. I don't have any real direction, except that I want it to all be grey, so at least I have some sort of idea where I'm going with this.

Permission

2011-10-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of a print I got last year, and has since been in hiding until I decided to add it to my postcard collection. It's from an artist in Ontario who's work is available on Etsy. His store is Jackson Creek Press. I got this at a craft show, along with a couple of other prints, including the 'Ode to Guitar' he has for sale, and a bunch of cards. This one is my favourite. It just makes me happy to see it. I wish they'd put one up in every art school. Of course, I have it next to my dining room table, but I think people will be able to figure out it doesn't apply to the food! In fact, I wish it came as a pair, and the match would say "If you think you can do better prove it".

If anyone is thinking about my upcoming birthday, feel free to get me the Rest Easy print.

So True

2011-10-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

The life of an artist? From kartoen.be

A Night at the Circus - Negative Space

2011-09-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

This is the first painting I've done with all those photos I took at the photos I took Sunday. I really wanted to play with the negative space created by the contrast in the photos, and with blending washes of colour for the background. It's taking the little grey watercolour I did a few weeks ago to an extreme.

This was a bit of an experiment to see how much detail I need to convey the information I want, and to trial a style I really like. I think it would be excellent in backgrounds and atmospheric scenes, especially if I ever get to do a graphic novel, like I keep talking about. Something very Film Noir. I sort of imagine this as the first step, with detail added to the foreground and any important figures.

I put the finished painting at the top because I'm curious to get some feedback before you see the photo it's from. Can you tell what the picture is of? I can easily tell, but a friend of mine was completely confused. Of course, he doesn't have an artistic bone in his body, but as his eyesight is as good as anyone else's, I'd like a second opinion.

Here's how it all came together. The photo, cropped to size:

I used to 'threshold' edit in Photoshop to try and determine exactly how much detail I could put in/get rid of and still have a recognizable figure (you can tell me if I picked the right balance):

Here's the sketch, taking out the extra detail and person. I just wanted a simple image:

Followed by masking fluid based on the Photoshop image. My idea was that I could then play with the colours however I wanted, and the girl would still be recognizable. Any detail I added would be a bonus:

And here it is before I took the masking fluid off. I love that bit:

A Night at the Circus - Reference Photos

2011-09-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

I took quite a few reference photos while I was at the Drawn & Plastered night. None of them are any good as photos, but I was just using my phone to get some poses, and the Hipstamatic app because I like what it does with the colour and light. I find bad and flawed photos tend to make the most interesting paintings. I have a few things in mind for these, can't wait to see if it turns out the way it looks in my head!

A Night at the Circus - Sketches

2011-09-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to Drawn & Plastered, an event held about once a month here in Winnipeg. It was a fun night, I got to go to a pub, have a pint and do some sketching. Right in my element! The theme for the evening was 'Circus', so the models were in costume, and they even had a couple little shows too. I took plenty of reference photos, which I'll make something of shortly. I certainly didn't create any masterpieces, but I enjoyed myself anyway.

Tep's Wedding Portrait - Ready for Framing

2011-09-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

I'm very pleased with this and can't wait to get a frame. They're coming to visit for Thanksgiving, so I've got two weeks to get everything ready, which should be plenty! I wish it photographed a bit better, because it's reflecting a little on the whites, and washing out the colours in the darker areas. Nevertheless, I'm sure you get the idea. Can't wait to give it to her!

Tep's Wedding Portrait - A Bit of Life

2011-09-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Looking at the last photo I took of this pastel I realized that the entire thing was fairly dull. There wasn't much vibrancy or life to the two, supposedly happy, people. So I went over it and added some depth, darker skin tones, more colour in the background, and a bit of contrasting colour to make things pop. The photo isn't capturing all the changes, but the overall tone of the piece has a lot more life in it. Not for more contrasts, and to go over the details.

Tep's Wedding Portrait - Moving right along

2011-09-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

This stage of the portrait seemed to go very very quickly. I think I need to adjust the features a fair bit, but I still like how it's coming over all. I also need to start thinking about how I'm going to do the dress, since it was lace, and the background simply isn't anywhere near developed enough to suit the portrait. Much to do!

A Career Change? or The Art of Everyday Life

2011-09-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I wondered what I should do with my art degree, and one of the things I looked into (or googled, at any rate), was interior design. It would have required a whole lot more school, so I left that idea behind, but I really do love putting my home together. Here are a few shots of my new, obviously owned by an artist, condo.

Although the bedroom is separate from the rest of the place, it's nevertheless still technically a
bachelor, and therefore severely lacking in storage. It doesn't have a closet, so I made this shelving unit to show off the clothes I wish I got to wear more often. After all, they're lovely, and this way I make them into an art display.

This table was custom made in Indonesia from an old temple door. It seats six easily, and eight fairly comfortably. As I love having people over, and figure on usually owning a small space I wanted multi-purpose extensions for it. The end tables in the previous, bedroom, photo are those extensions. They're the same height and width as the table, and can fit a person on either end (albeit a fairly slim one), meaning I can feed twelve people should I take it into my head to do so, but at all other times have two separate and functional pieces of furniture.

I have a token brick wall, because I am apparently a yuppie. I love my postcard/random art collection. They're just clothpinned to ribbon, so I can change up that display whenever I want. I love that painting but I'm starting to feel I should try to store it somewhere, despite it's size, because there's already quite a bit going on.

The lack of storage led to these shelves, which are actually old door frames (the top bit), from a local place that specializes in stuff from, and to restore old homes. I was planning on using them as a base for a shelf, but they're actually wide enough to display things as is.

That red man is actually a knife block. I traded a drawing for it. That little ledge/laptop/stool area is my studio.

The Sketchbook Project - Some Days

2011-09-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually one for abstractions, but, well, some days are like that...

Found Art

2011-09-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

This isn't exactly something I made, but it is something I painted, so here's a quick photo of m new bathroom mirror. I've had this old mirror lying around for about six years now, and for some reason it made it in the move to Winnipeg. I had a hideous big, frameless mirror in my little bathroom, which was totally inappropriate for the size and shape of the room, so I tore it off. I also changed the cheap ugly light fixture. I painted the frame of the old mirror, which used to be a terrible fake gold colour, and hung it instead. A little creativity for my new condo:

Love What You Do

2011-09-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

While I'm waiting for training I work at the Multi-media lab on base, doing graphics and such for the training courses and videos we produce. Occasionally I'm also an actress or voice for our productions, as we often need people and we're the easiest ones to call on. The lab has five full-time staff, and three part-time students there on a government program to get work experience. It's easily the best job I've ever had, and I think I can probably claim to have more fun at work than the average person on a day off.

We're currently working on a video about logical arguments, and this little clip is going to be a small section of the larger 'before' section:

We're not actually going to leave that blood-splatter on there, one of the students sped the car up more and added that just for fun. Typical day at work.

I'm also working on a big project that's entirely in the form of a motion comic. It's turning out fantastically well (I'm saying that about all the backgrounds I'm doing for it anyway), and if I can I'll share it, or at least a portion, after the animation is done.

Tep's Wedding Portrait - First Colour

2011-09-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Now that I have the basic shapes in I've gone over the portrait with a first, pretty rough try at the colours. It's a little strange because they have the identical skin and hair colour (Mennos! They all look the same) but I want to differentiate between them, at least a little. I've lightened his hair a little, which is helped by the balding, so I can work more of the skin tone in. I really need to start a little blending, And definitely darker it up, so I can go in and put the highlights in later. I think I should have started with the base skin colours, more reds and oranges and blues, then put in the lighter tones on top. Oh well, it's early in the portrait, I have lots of room to make corrections.

Tep's Wedding Portrait - Form

2011-09-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

I got right to work on my sister's present (and by right to work, I mean I spent a couple hours picking what tea I should have, rearranging my pastels, and creeping Facebook). The first stage was to put in highlights and shadows, trying to pay more attention to what needed to come toward the viewer (yellow) and what needed to recede (blue). I'm not always god at distinguishing between that, and what's simply lighter or darker. Oh well, it's still a good start:

After that I put in the lights and darks. I used an off-white and purple, because I don't want to desaturate the image too much, which is easy to do when they both have very pale skin and aren't wearing any colour:

Tep's Wedding Portrait

2011-09-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

My little sister got married this summer, and I still haven't given her her present! I usually give my friends a painting or drawing they like, and bring it to the wedding. I was a little behind on this one, so I'm doing one of my favourite photos from the wedding in pastels, and I'll either ship it out or hold it hostage until she comes to visit. The reference photo is above, and this is what I've got so far:

I really like this blue-grey paper, and I think it will lend a nice soft colour to the finished product. I'm going to do it in colour using some of the many many other photos taken that day for reference. I intend to make this a little softer and more 'pastely' than the previous pastels I've done. I want to take better advantage of the medium, instead of the very tight style I've used while familiarizing myself with the pastels. It will be a challenge to maintain recognizable portraits while using something closer to my usual loose, painterly style. Stay tuned, we'll see how this all works out!

Life Drawing Session - Shades of Grey

2011-09-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

I wanted to play around with lights and shadows, so I grabbed a photo (so, no, not actually a life session, but I'm keeping the blog titles similar for orginization sake) and tried drawing it with just black, instead of shading everything in. I always love the way sections can be entirely missing, like the edges of the leg and arms, and yet the brain fills in what's missing. I was paying more attention to the shadows than the drawing, so the details are a little off, but I like the way it turned out anyway.

I took this sketch and made a small watercolour from it, done in washes of grey-ish navy and brown watercolour, and black ink.

Currently for sale on Etsy.

Life Drawing Session - Lace

2011-08-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

I find myself with a decent amount of time on my hands and a couple of drawing sessions a week easily available, but I have to admit, it really feels like one of those things you do because it's good for you, and not because you actually enjoy it. And this comes from a girl who runs to work with a 10lb backpack each morning. Generally, especially with the longer poses, I've pretty much lost interest by the hour and a half mark. But a little complicated clothing seems to help. With this one I concentrated on the bra, especially the strap, because getting it to curve just enough to suggest form underneath, without too much exaggeration, was really difficult. Ahhh subtlety. Once again, something I do because it makes me a better artist, and not out of the love for the process. Still, it turned out well eventually.

Moleskine Covers

2011-08-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

Today the Moleskine cover I made last year was featured on Notebook Stories, and that finally motivated me to figure out how to take some photos to put the other ones I've had hanging around on Etsy. I still don't have most of my stuff, or at any rate, any big white sheets of paper, so I improvised a background with the new shelf and brick wall of my condo. I hope it's neutral enough for some good shots. At any rate, they're good enough for now and I can always redo them when I get a good setup.

I have two covers for the large notebooks:

This one is marbled paper and recycled leather. Available in my shop.

This is linen and recycled leather. I really like the contrast on this one. Available in the shop.

And one small notebook cover:

I think this one is really lovely, and a neat way of using little bits of paper I'd normally throw away. Justification for hoarding? See it in the shop.

I've actually written blog posts about all of these, if you want to check them out, but this is the first time I've had them in my Etsy shop.

The Sketchbook Project - Title Page and Jack's Letter

2011-08-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've finally started working on my contribution to The Sketchbook Project. Well, actually I did a page last month, but with no real plan of any sort other than to doodle whatever came into my head when I thought about the theme I'd picked, 'The Grey Side of Life.' It went very badly, so I tore out that page, came up with an idea, and started back to work. I decided to do more text based art, thinking about this old sketch I still really like:

Here's the title page. It's just pencil, with a tiny bit of watercolour. I'm trying to retain the sketchy look, so I haven't erased any of my guidelines or the like. I just drew and shaded the letters, wrote a bunch of words that describe my grey life at the moment (good thing the photo's a little fuzzy!) in the background, and added some colour. Well, navy blue in a really light wash, for a bit of interest.

From here I had thought to start documenting 'grey things', like my many grey dresses and shoes (I love grey) or something along those lines. However, on Monday Jack Layton died, and I decided it would be a good subject. For those of you reading this who aren't Canadian, Jack Layton was the leader of the NDP, the official opposition party. He was a very well respected and inspirational leader to many people, and not just his own party, and as such was given a state funeral and motivated spontaneous memorials in major cities across the country. Take a look at the photos of Nathan Phillip's Square in Toronto, the chalk messages are beautiful, and in part a reason for sticking to the same style as the title page, a little in order to mimic the memorial.

The words are from the letter Jack wrote to Canadians before he died. I used the memorable last words for the large text, and the background is the paragraphs addressed to Young Canadians and All Canadians. I ran out of room just before the really political statement about the NDP at the end, which is kind of perfect for my purpose, keeping it a memorial rather than a political statement.

I made the letters just a little too big, so I don't have enough of a margin between the 'My Friends' and the rest of the text, but other than that it turned out very well. I'm really pleased with the layered texture, and pleasantly surprised by how much depth can come with just a grey pencil.

A New Studio

2011-08-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

I'm finally moved into my new, tiny condo. I really like how it's turned, including my postcard collection:

The print on the top right that says 'People Are Allowed Not to Like It' is one of my favourite pieces. I'm going to get it framed whenever I move somewhere with a bit more wall space. I love it after going to art school, where we had to very snobbily condemn such mundane vocabulary. We only used 'succesful' or 'unsuccesful', never 'good' or 'bad', and 'like' was reserved for the uncultured and uneducated, how dare they. Though, one should note that this does not apply to the food, as I also have a postcard that says 'Make Your Own Damn Dinner'.

My studio now consists of the eat-in nook (ledge, to be more accurate) in the kitchen, and the cupboard underneath it:

That's the cleaned up and organized version. You don't even want to know what's in my storage room. There will be no painting while I live here, only nice, flat, easily stored drawings and prints. I've got a big roll of newsprint, and I'm going to spend a lot of time simply working on some drafting skills. Here's my first little drawing. It has actually turned out very well, despite the fact that I can't find a pencil sharpner. I'm a little disappointed it isn't on better paper, in fact. Why can't I ever find a pencil sharpner? I do have about 30 pencils, however, so I'll simply go through them instead.

Old Stuff

2011-08-09T05:38:00.000-07:00

I've been going through all sorts of old stuff in order to get ready for the big move, and came across an CD with photos of some old projects. Most of them were fairly cringe inducing, but there where a few that I still liked. Here they are:

I can See How This Will Quickly Become an Obsession

2011-08-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

Has anyone tried Pintrest? It's like Google Images, but filtered so it's only good stuff and I can save whatever I like. I've been on there almost non-stop for a couple of days now. I've got a board for my dream house, and one for book arts ideas.

Speaking of dream houses, and to explain why I haven't posted much recently, I bought a little condo! I'm in the middle of packing everything up and having a massive anti-hoarding session because it's much smaller than my house. I take possession at the end of the week, and am looking forward to setting up some kind of studio (or at least a work station) in my new place. It's very cozy (read: tiny) so we'll see what I can come up with.

I've been thinking that to celebrate, and because I'll soon be on my 200th post (even at this slow rate), that I should do another giveaway. I have no idea what yet, but if anyone has a feasible idea? I was thinking a print or something.

I love dresses

2011-08-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have something amounting to an obsession with dresses, especially grey ones for some reason. I don't even get to wear them very often, but I love them dearly. I made a treasurey on Etsy of some of the ones I'd love most. Go take a peek.

Beautiful Cousins - Suddenly it All Comes Together

2011-07-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

I don't really like blaming my tools, because I think it's the last refuge of people who don't actually know what they're doing, but I didn't have a good white pastel, and I finally made the long walk to the art store, and got a couple hard pastels (white and dark brown, for details), and a nice white with just a tiny bit of yellow, to get the colour right. I also got a few paper stumps to get the blending right, and help with the little details. I don't know if it was the new tools, or they just gave me a little more confidence, but on this layer everything just sort of fell into place. The colour is much better and the portraits considerably more accurate. I'm going to give it a couple of days, then maybe go back in and touch things up.

Beautiful Cousins - Details

2011-07-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

With most of the colours set I can now go in and add detail on top of the larger areas, in order to bring out the image. I think both their hair worked really well, and the clothing is turning out nicely. I'm still not happy with the drafting of their faces or their skin tone. Also, the flowers are now incredibly bright compared to the rest of the piece, so that will have to change. I think the background is a little distracting, and the colours are incongruous with the people. In other words, I'm not very happy with this picture at the moment. But I'm not done yet. We'll just say it's progressing, so check back for the next incarnation, and we'll see if I manage to pull this off. If I do I can say that this stage was all part of the plan.

Beautiful Cousins - Developing Colours

2011-07-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

After blocking in the colours I went back in and started to develop the colours towards their real hues, adding more subtlety to the general colours that went in first. I also put in more darks, to give form to the subjects, and because I want the background colours there when I start layering on top (in the hair, for instance).

It's progressing fairly well, though I seem to have switched tactics halfway through, because it's considerably lighter on the right hand side. Partially this is because I'm giving the girl a slightly different skin tone to differentiate the two, but it's supposed to be more subtle than this. That, of course, comes with the eventual layers. I'd rather have things much starker than necessary to begin with than try to add them in the end. Also, I always work from left to right because I'm right handed and don't want to smudge what I've done before, but sometimes this backfires a little if I change things, or leave off before the entire layer is finished, and this is the result. Oh well! There's lots left to do, I'll fix it eventually.

Beautiful Cousins - Block Colour

2011-07-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm attempting this drawing in much the same way I would do an oil painting (since it's referred to as 'pastel painting' it seems like as good an idea as any for only a second attempt at pastel portraits), and after the warms and cools I start blocking in colours. At this stage I can stat seeing where everything is going to develop, theoretically. The faces are really going to need some correction, though, because they've gotten kind of off by now. The impreciseness of pastels is something I'm just not quite getting a hold of. Sometimes I can make it work, and sometimes it just confuses me. Which only means I need more practise, of course. Here's hoping I can pull it off on this one.

Beautiful Cousins - Warm and Cool

2011-07-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

I'm drawing this pastel very much the way I would do an oil painting, so the first layer has nothing to do with putting in the colours, just with adding some tonal values, showing what is warm and cool, regardless of what colour they'll be in the end. I like this stage because it really sets outs values for the final piece, and tends to make it simpler in the next few stages in terms of shadows and highlights.

Beautiful Cousins

2011-07-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

I took this photo of my lovely cousins at my sister's wedding. I decided to do a pastel of it because they're just too gorgeous to resist. Besides, it's only a portrait and a half, so it doesn't seem too complicated. Right? Famous last words. I haven't done a lot of pastels, and I'm always a little unsure of what colour paper I should pick. I choose a subtle blue-grey for this, which I hope will be in keeping with the mood of the photo. So far, I've just done as detailed a sketch as I could, especially since things will get blurry as soon as I start layering on the pastels.

Fabric for Sale!

2011-07-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was very excited to have a couple packages and a postcard in my mailbox! One of the packages had the samples I ordered from Spoonflower a few weeks ago. I'm happy with how all the designs turned out, especially the coloured steampunk pattern. I'm going to make bookcloth out of them to make some cute little books with. I know you've been dying to buy your own, and they're now available in my shop! Go check it out!

Suddenly Popular

2011-07-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

I have to say that I find it pretty encouraging that within days of reopening my Etsy shop my Words and Letters book has been featured in two treasuries! Both features lovely black and white, typographic themed works. Take a quick peek, and add a comment!

Summer Reading: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTUwNjc3NTV8NDMxNTI3ODY1/summer-reading

Written Down in Black and White: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTUwNDY2MDN8NDQ1ODQ2MTc2/written-down-in-black-and-white

Row on Row - Reduction Lino Print 2

2011-07-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

I'm really pleased with how this print has turned out. Amazing what a little practise will do, it already takes only a third of the time to print as the first try I did. I'm excited for what that means as I get better.

Here is the second colour:

But the big excitement comes with the black layer:

Of the eight I started out with, four turned out well enough for me to be happy with them, so those are the ones I'm keeping, numbering, and, I hope, selling. They're now on Etsy.

Vote Now - Butterflies

2011-07-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

Voting is now open for Spoonflower's Palette-limited butterfly themed design contest. This is my entry. I'd encourage you to go vote, there are some beautiful designs up, I'm just so impressed with what people have done with only a few colours.

Row on Row - Reduction Lino Print 1

2011-07-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

This was one of the photos I took a couple months back in a flooded cemetery. (Take a look at the original post.) Since I've been thinking about working with more reduction lino prints after the first one, but with a simpler image, I pulled them out again as an option. I thought that because the shapes are fairly straightforward and there was no need for colour I could use this as a image to practise my technique with.

I started by separating the image into different colour layers in Photoshop, which gave me a good idea of what I'd have to carve. I'm getting better at thinking in terms of negative space, but it's still very foreign. This is a good image for me to learn because I'm only going to need three layers. I also flipped it , so that it comes out correctly once it's printed:

With the first layer printed so far it looks like this. I didn't need to ink the entire way, since that will be covered by the other colours, which is why it just sort of trails off:

Jabberwocky - On display!

2011-07-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

I am so very very pleased with how this book turned out! Although the maze shape was at times extremely difficult to work with it turned out to be the perfect shape, and displays beautifully.

NEWS! To celebrate I've finally re-opened my etsy shop after being on vacation mode for months. It only has a few pieces in it at the moment, but I will add more as I become a little more settled.

Tell your Alice in Wonderland loving friends to buy the book!

Here are plenty of photos, enjoy.

Fabric Design - Go Vote!

2011-07-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

I submitted this design for Spoonflower's Fireworks contest. Feel free to go vote for mine!

Jabberwocky - Cover

2011-07-04T05:07:00.000-07:00

The idea behind the cover for Jabberwocky is that it should look like the hide of the beast itself. I reused some old leather, and made a pattern on the board that vaguely resembled some kind of reptile:

Once the leather was glued on it took quite a while to get the shapes to really come out, by pushing the leather into the gaps until they stood out. After that I painted the leather to make it look more monster-like, and then the pattern really came out:

Jabberwocky - The Last Words

2011-07-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

Whoo! Done at last. The writing, anyway. The negative words turned out very well, I think. The paper is all torn up, and is now being pressed so it will hold it's form when it's on display. I've decided on the cover as well, it will be leather with a pattern underneath like reptile skin, so that it looks like it's made out of 'Jabberwock hide'.

Time: 1 hour

ACSO patches

2011-07-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

I'm stuck waiting for training to be an ACSO (Air Combat Systems Officer) in the CF, and therefore have a naked flight suit without any proper badges. However, they're going to be changing that soon, when we get an ACSO In Training patch! Or it's rumoured, at any rate, that they're going to hold a contest to design one. Which is good enough for me to start playing around with a few ideas on a lovely Saturday morning. The top one is my favourite, it's based on the t-shirt design I did for my platoon at basic.I finally fixed her head by tilting it back a little, which had always annoyed me. She's sitting on top of the ACSO (formerly Navigator) symbol, that we'll someday have on our wings. I used the same background and rivets as the t-shirt, keeping with the idea of 'nose art' as the inspiration. The phrase at the bottom is a play on the air force motto "Per Ardua Ad Astra" (Through Adversity to the Stars), changed to "Through Coffee to the Stars" because the running joke is, that, as we are just in make-work positions until our course starts, we do nothing but make other people coffee.

This patch is a bit of a joke based on the coffee idea. I took the Navigator wings and replaced them with a coffee pot, and the Star Wars reference is because 2LTs (Second Lieutenants, our rank until we're qualified) tend to get tasked to do all the crappy jobs no one else will.

Jabberwocky - Second Half

2011-06-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've got almost all the wording for Jabberwocky done now. The only part left is on the right hand side, but because that's going to be masking fluid covered by ink to put the words in relief, I'm going to do that after I've torn the paper, which should keep the ink from bleeding into the other panel.s

This is my favourite bit.

Jabberwocky - Words!

2011-06-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

It always amazes me how quickly a project progresses after the planning stage. Hours and hours on research and layouts and experimentation, and yet the things itself only takes a short amount of time. I suppose that means I did my planning correctly? Here are the shots of the first side of the paper. I'm holding the pen very loosely and barely putting any pressure on it, as well as loading too much ink in the nib, giving it a thick, wobbly, appearance, and trying to mimic the font used in old newspapers.

I'm fairly happy with it. I still have to decide on a cover (I have no idea at all!) and whether or not I'm going to draw some kind of Jabberwock on it. Suggestions are welcome!

Opps! For some reason I wrote the 'bur' all on a line instead of curving up.

The drip was a happy accident.

I like the upside-down words, and occasion backwards letter. I'm going to be more conscious about adding extras when I write the other side of the paper.

Jabberwocky - I give up!

2011-06-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

I came to the conclusion a few days ago that this is a ridiculous project to attempt as an edition. It's just going to be a single, handwritten volume. It's simply to large and unwieldy to make any other way. I'm going to make a book edition soon, but I will start with a much simpler format. I may use Jabberwocky again as well, since I already have ideas for how I'd like to do it. As it is, here's what I've managed in the last couple of days. It looks a few hours to pencil out the layout on the big piece of watercolour that will become the book, especially because I kept putting things in the wrong square and had to erase all my beautiful sketches. It's a full 22" x 30"piece (140lb cold press), but after all the folding the book will only be about 2 3/4" x 6". I haven't torn the maze pattern out yet because I don't want to compromise the paper until absolutely necessary. All the turning and folding could really damage the edges, so I'm not going to until I need to actually ink on the edges. This will going to put a lot of pressure on me to tear it perfectly, because I don't want to restart at this point!

Apologies for the crappy photos, light pencil doesn't show up very well.

Time spent on this part of the project: 5 hours.

Officer's Mess Coin

2011-06-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Officer's Mess here at CFB Winnipeg voted to give out special coins to departing members who have been here over a year. I believe most messes do this, and there are lots of nice examples of designs available. They are having a contest (I think they only got two entries though!) and this is my contribution. It's a vintage maple leaf on the left and a stylized plane on the right, in two shades of blue (what else? It's a good thing I like Air Force Blue because there's nothing else around). In the plane is a simplified map of downtown Winnipeg, focusing on Portage and Main, of course. The yellow parts would be in metal, and the colours in enamel or whatever it is they make them out of.

Variations on a Theme: Butterflies

2011-06-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

I posted this design on my last blog entry, and today I worked on two designs based on it for a contest at Spoonflower. The theme was butterflies and it was limited to six colours, which they specified. This is what I did with the above design, given the parameters for the contest.

I'm not even sure I like the colours they choose, but I'm fairly happy with what I did with them. I entered the bottom design. I hope that was the right choice! I'll sure sure to let you know when voting starts so you can help me win!

Butterflies, Dandelions, and Steampunk Paisley: Fabric Designs

2011-06-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

Sometime last year I joined Spoonflower, a neat site that allows people to uploads and print custom fabric. They also have contest every few weeks on different themes, which I enjoyed the challenge of designing for. For about three weeks until I got interested in something else... I've finally made some new designs, and a couple of variations on an older one, and because they're offering free shipping until tomorrow morning I broke down and ordered some samples. They come in 8"x8", and I have to order them before the designs can go on sale (quite the racket!) but I want to see them in person and I think it will be really neat to use fabric I designed myself to make spines for books.

Visit my store to see the designs, and stop back soon because they'll be up for sale soon.

News from the Grey Side of Life

2011-06-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

I love mail! Especially when it's a brand-new sketchbook. My soon-to-be filled entry for the 2012 Sketchbook Project I wrote about just arrived! Many photos are to come as I start filling it. I choose the theme 'The Grey Side of Life.'

I put this design up for sale on redbubble.com. Buy one! Tell your friends! It's a great site for t-shirts so I'm going to start putting up plenty more designs and artwork. Just as soon as I get to it...

I learnt a little about createspace.com this weekend, and I'm looking into using it to publish copies of The Tell-Tale Heart. This will be a huge amount of work, so it will be long-term project preparing all the images. Please let me know if there would be any kind of market for it, because I don't want to go through all of that for nothing!

J'adore Montréal

2011-06-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

I love Montréal, though I always seem to end up spending long periods of time at the airport (through no fault of the airport itself). However, since this is the first time I've had internet all week I'm extremely happy for the opportunity (also, the bar I'm at makes good whiskey sours). I've been in town for five days at a hotel very near both Centre-Ville and the Old City. I had to stay at a major hotel because I was at a conference, which is too bad, but it was a great location nonetheless. If you've never been to Montréal, you should, but stay at a small local hotel or B&B. These are some of the pictures I've taken in the past few days. I've got a quite few more that I'm going to make into lino prints as well, if I ever get home. The photo above is one of those 'You know you're in Montréal when...' moments (I got cheese in my registration package. I love Québec!), thanks to their much more European attitude to, well, most things. You can bring your own wine to restaurants and things of that sort. I hate wine, but they have a few excellent breweries here, so I'm well satisfied.

I got in a little early and got to play tourist in the Old City. I did loads of shopping as well because the city is full of great boutiques by local designers, but those shops weren't quite as pretty.

This statue based on Robert Indiana's LOVE was outside a hotel in the Old City and I snapped a few shots because it looks pretty cool on film.

Just outside Notre Dame Cathedral.

Well who doesn't?

Wedding Photos!

2011-06-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

I think I may be getting hang of this photography business. Or at least I'm taking enough photos that some of them are turning out alright. Here are a few from the wedding I was just in. I've got loads more, but we'll save all the cute little blonde cousins for when I make pastels out of the photos. I'l probably do a few drawings out of these too, so there's plenty to come!

T-shirt designs: Zeppelin rides.

2011-06-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

I spent the last couple of days working on this t-shirt for no particular reason other than to try it out. For the non-geeks out there it's based on the sci-fi trope that parallel universes always seem to have zeppelins. This was a fun project because I got to pull out my Retro Graphics book and mimic art deco travel posters, which I love. It was also a way for me to experiment with vectors in Photoshop, which I'm finally getting a hang of. I also enjoyed having to limit my colour palette to six colours (for printing), which made me get creative with the design, and learn to do halftones for the gradients. I think this would be kind of cool on an orange shirt, which is why it's pictured on that background, but there are probably a lot of colours that would work well. Now to find a good place to publish this!

Jabberwocky - Trials and layout

2011-06-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with what the text would look like for Jabberwocky, and here are a couple of the thumbnails I've come up with. I experimented with the size, spacing, and font in the red picture. I want the strangeness of mixing up font elements, but I'm also going to orient the words strangely: upside-down, sideways etc. I want to keep the letters packed in like that, and may even remove the spacing between words, because it makes the text look more like a design element and, again, makes it stranger.

I'm going to work in a couple spots where the text is in negative as well. The black areas, including the dense text, will contrast in the final book with the parts that have no or little writing, especially given the maze book shape I've chosen.

I've made a three mini books on scrap paper to work out the layout. It looks pretty cool when it's all folded up!

A photo of the other side of the book. I like it a little better with less colour, so I may cut down on the amount of Jabberwock illustrating the pages, or maybe use less colour (I have it in yellow and green right now).

This is the layout when it's not folded up. I accidentally grabbed an orange pencil instead of red, but it looks OK anyway. That's going to be a stand-out panel with 'O frabjous day' on it.

From the other side. The blanks are where the last verse, the repeat of the first will be. I am actually going to reuse the lino cut from the first verse because the layout works a second time, which is a piece of good favour I'm going to take full advantage of.. I'm just too lazy to draw it twice.

Logistics:

Between the additional research from the last post, and all these drawings, I've done about 9 more hours on this book.

Jabberwocky - Style Evolves

2011-06-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

I've been drawing out some thumbnails and miniature versions of Jabberwocky in order to figure out the style and setup of what I'm going to be making. I've got a good idea now of what it will look like. I did a bit more research because I wanted to get more of a Victorian feel to the book, since the poem was written in 1872. Here are a few things I've found that are influencing the final design:

I just can't resist adding a few gears. This is Steampunk Dragon by Kerem Beyit. The Jabberwock will be more of a decorative element than a full illustration, but the parts that are showing will have a bit of a mechanical feeling to them, and be patterned after some of the fancy Victorian swirls and flourishes used to decorate posters and books.

Like these ones. I'm also going to use them to decorate the punctuation marks. There are so many exclamation marks in this short poem, and I just plain love ampersands and can't resist fancying them up a bit. There are loads of neat corner flourishes and borders out there, but I think it will look out of place to have random decorations floating on the pages (given especially the maze shape of the book), so I'm only going to use these designs where they can be worked into the text and illustrations.

From the British Library. Normally the rule for graphic design is TWO FONTS, period. It's actually an enormous irritant of mine to see work with multiple fonts, colours, styles, sizes... Yet for reasons that escape me entirely Victorian posters are nothing but a mix of different types, and it works very well.

This beautiful poster is available from Angry, Young, and Poor. I was really excited to stumble across this one because it's very similar to the colour palette I had in mind. I found a few posters with this diagonal layout for the main word/title, as well as a fancy first letter, and that's going to be worked into a few of my own layouts.

Jabberwocky - Logistics

2011-06-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start quickly noting on these post the time and materials etc that have gone into this book because in order to get a realistic figure when I put them for sale after I'm done, I need to have a better idea of what I've done, and I think it's about time I start thinking a little more like a professional, and a little less like this is just a cute hobby.

But I've already completely lost track. This is not natural for me (a good reason for me to work on it) and I'm a little lost. Do I count the time I spent on google images looking up random searches in hope of inspiration? How do I subtract all those times I obsessively checked my email? Then I roamed around the library a bit looking at things, planned things in my head when I couldn't sleep, picked things up for a couple of minutes at a time while doing something else, etc etc. How do I keep track of that?

As close as I can figure, so far I've spent:

Research - 5 hours

Form trials - 3 hours

Materials - yay! I haven't had to buy anything yet at least. I think this will be the most depressing part to look at.

Jabberwocky - Form Follows Function

2011-06-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

One of the first things to decide on for my new book is, of course, what it will look like. Shape, size, form, and all that other stuff that will determine how I make the rest of it. I knew from the beginning I didn't want to do a straightforward book, and finally decided on a maze book to get that sort of crazy meandering feeling from the shape, they display really well, and can be put on show and written on in different directions.

If you're not familiar with maze books there's a good tutorial here from Diana Trout's blog. The basic idea is to fold up a piece of paper, cut along some of the fold lines, and then fold it back up so the paper follows a long line. Check out the tutorial for a better explanation and because it shows a few different patterns.

These are some experiments I did to figure out the shape I wanted, since where the cuts are changes the shape of the book. The people at the library definitely thought I was a crazy person with all of these little attempts strewn across the table.

This is the pattern I finally decided on, with just a few things jutting off the main book.

Then I decided I should try and figure out how the flat paper translated to how it displayed, and because it changes so much from the flat to folded version, making it hard to visualize, I wrote grid numbers on all of them, folded it back up the way it would look finished, put little arrows the show which of the pages went up when the others where down, tried to figure out what was beside the other page, where the adjoining pages (before it was cut) ended up on display...

If you're thinking at this point that this is ridiculously complicated, this is about where that clicked for me as well. I certainly don't mind complicated, and I kind of like the shape this folded into, but I have to remind myself constantly that I'm trying to make a printed edition, not a single handmade book. I keep thinking to myself that it would be so much easier, and have much better results, if I did a single book, but I'm trying to stick to the original plan. Perhaps I should do a full template version? It might even be better in the end, because the idea is to make a less expensive book and it will certainly take less time to handwrite, compared to how long it will take to carve all the words... No! I need to concentrate on the first idea. It's about time I started pushing myself when it comes to what I make, and if it turns out the time it ridiculous, I'll just publish a larger edition number to bring the price down.

I'm going to use this pattern instead. It's simpler to make, simpler to figure out how it folds together from the paper, and displays better.

Jabberwocky - Trying a Book Edition

2011-06-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start working on a new book soon, and I've finally decided on the text it will be based on. I'm going to use Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. A little cliché, perhaps, but for good reason. I think the poem will work well because it's a good length (long enough for a decent size book, but short enough for a small project), and even though it's a nonsense poem, it still has a story to follow, which should allow me a huge amount of freedom when it comes to illustration. I can follow the story or invent whatever I want. I think I will focus of the letters themselves, because the poem features the bizarre words.

The main reason I'm starting this new project, and why it's taken me so long to figure out my newest project is because I want to make a printed edition. This will certainly be a bit of an experiment. Actually a big experiment. It's going to made with lino cuts, with the idea that if I make 20 books instead of just one the price will be 20 times less than a single handmade edition. And that could lead to one actually selling, which would be very welcome indeed! Of course I still need to buy an awful lot of paper and lino blocks to begin with, perhaps someone would like to pre-order one? Maybe I should start a support-an-artist fund? Send brushes!

A Few Influences:

This illustrated version is by Stephane Jorisch, who also did one of The Raven (great minds apparently think of the same authors).

Fantod Tarot Card Pack by Edward Gorey. I've always loved his drawings, there's something about the lines and stylization that I just can't resist. I got this set of tarot cards a few months ago and have yet to figure out how to display them, so I just pull them out once in a while to look at them and read the funny book that goes with it. I think the stark figures on a plain background may be the way make their way into my book.

I definitely want the words to be a little random and twist and turn all over the place. This is a lino cut of Amsterdam by Mark Andrew Webber. His work is incredibly cool, take a look at http://www.markandrewwebber.com

Things I Don't Want:

I like the reproductions of the original illustrations that are all over etsy, especially the ones done on old pages of books, but I don't want my book to be one of a thousand copies.

And while I think this is beautifully illustrated I really dislike it that the poem itself is printed and not drawn. If you're going to put that much work into something, finish it!

The Sketchbook Project

2011-06-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

I discovered last year this incredibly cool project from The Art House Co-op but didn't have the time to participate. This year, however, I should have plenty, and I'm very excited for my book to arrive. It's a really neat project, basically a library of sketchbooks that tours different cities, and people can check them out just like regular books. I choose "A Grey Life' for my theme because I like grey ad thought the theme would push me a little more than simply choosing 'Monochromatic.' I like the option to have them digitized the site provides, but I'm too broke and not vain enough to go for it. Maybe next year!

If you get your own, check out the website here: http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject

Rock From the Inside Out, a new t-shirt idea

2011-06-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this design for a couple of weeks now. I was playing around with the idea of doing something with anatomy, and got the idea of playing around with traditional, rockabilly style tattoos to mimic the shape of the organs. I think it turned out very well. Now the only thing I have to do is decide what goes in the banner. I think this would made a great band t-shirt, but since I'm not really familiar with anyone needing one, so I have to come up with something else. It'll probably just be 'Rock n Roll' but if anyone has a good idea, please let me know!

Dawn's Decorations

2011-05-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

One of the other things I made for Dawn's wedding was a boxful of origami cherry blossoms for the centrepieces. The idea came from The Flirty Guide, but I changed it a little by making the flowers out of a few different papers and in a few different sizes. I made about 210 total, then we glued them on sticks and added them to the vases.

Here's how they looked when they were done.

And an action on the big day.

Flowers in Winnipeg

2011-05-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the photos I've taken lately while wandering around Winnipeg.

I think this one is my favourite.

Dawn's Wedding Present

2011-05-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

I usually give people a painting for their wedding, so I had Dawn send me a photo she liked. She actually sent me four photos that she had taken in a photo booth. This is the only one that turned out at all. It's watercolour, but done just in shades of blue and grey because the original photo was in sepia-tone and somewhat blurred.

A Guestbook for Tep

2011-05-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

The second wedding I'm going to is my sister's, and her colour is navy. She sent me a photo of what she liked and I sort of did something similar. I found a really nice heavy white silk (in lieu of the silver she wanted and was unavailable) for the cover, and then used some ribbon as contrast. Apologies for the photos! I need to get something set up here so I can take some good ones.

The original book had beads along the ribbon so I sewed a few along the wider one, nice little ones that really catch the light, even if the photo doesn't show it.

I'm a little low on paper right now, so I had to do a bit of improvising for the endpages. I only had enough blue paper for one side of the ends instead of both, so I used it on one side only and then added a sheet of transparent white mulberry paper with little bits of gold in it. Very bridal!

A Guestbook for Dawn

2011-05-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm about to set off on three weeks vacation in BC in order to be Matron-of-Honour at both my best friend's and sister's weddings. This guestbook is for the first wedding. Her colours are red and black, and I found a terrific paper, sort of like a thick mulberry paper that's red on one side and black on the other. The black sort of shows through and it looks terrific. The black stripe is made of silk and I like the contrasting textures. I used a coptic stitch on it, but unfortunately because I was recycling a sketchbook the original holes were a little off and it shows a lot more than I though it would. Still, it'll look great and has lots of room for signatures, and that's what we need.

Old Things are Beautiful

2011-05-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Here are few more photos of my exploration of Winnipeg. I was also experimenting with the Hipstamatic app on my phone (yes, I'm not really a photographer). These were taken with the Lucifer VI lens and Float film, if you're interested in trying out this particular filter.

I like this one because it combines my love of exploring the city, old books, and all things map/globe related.

Nijmegen T-shirt Design

2011-05-17T07:03:00.001-07:00

This is a t shirt design I did for the Nijmegen team at CFB Winnipeg. The team is training for a four day march in Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and will be doing 40km per day, totalling 160 km. I had to drop out of the trainnig because of scheduling conflicts unfortunately, but I'm still working on the design (mostly so I can get a shirt!). Check out the March's website for more information.

Canada has been participating in the March since 1953, so I wanted a vintage feel for the design. I started with the old RCAF crest and manipulated the orientation and banner, and changed the wording to reflect the occasion. I took the maple leaves that were around the roundel and alternated them with tulips to represent the Netherlands, and after that drew in all the swirls, which are loaded with more maple leaves and tulips. I used the wartime crest with George's crown to keep with the vintage feel, but we're switching it to Elizabeth's for the final print.

I'm going to find somewhere to print it now, in white ink on Air Force Blue or maybe brown.

Old Montréal Street - Part 3

2011-05-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the final product. I wish there was a little more of the dark blue on the left hand side, but over all I think what's there really makes the image cohesive and gives it the neccessary depth. I'm also pleased because I think if I keep working on these I may have some less expensive pieces to sell. I started with 12 prints, and 7 ended up looking good enough for me to admit to them. If I divide up my time and the cost for materials I can sell them for about $45 (matted) and still feel I've come out ahead.

In no particular order here's what I've learned about print making after my first-ever attempt.

1. The correct amount of ink to put on the block is a skill that will take a huge amount of practise to master.

2. The registration will make or break the final product. The more anal I am about it, the better.

3. A little planning goes a long way.