'Comic Book' Portraits - Smith

I'm back for three glorious weeks this Christmas and went straight to my studio. And kitchen. Oh, and bedroom of course. Real blankets! Sleeping in past 5! It's nice to be home, but I've got work to do.

This is the first in a series of portraits I want to complete. They're based on people from my platoon and are going to be done in a variety of comic and graphic novel inspired styles. This one is sort of a Frank Miller - Sin City thing. It's also based on the Mad Men season three poster. Not bad for a start. I'm hoping to have enough good pieces by the time this one is done to submit some applications and get a show at some point.

But how are you going to make things?

When I was leaving for basic training one of the questions I kept getting was "What about your art?" And it turns out that I did get a big opportunity to make pretty things. I designed our platoon t-shirt, and I have to say the results are pretty much awesome. Usually these things just have the platoon number on them, and maybe the school's logo, but we're going all out here!

The design is based on 'nose art' (paintings on the front of planes) we saw at the Canadian War Museum, which you should all visit if you're ever in Ottawa. About two-thirds of my platoon is air force (myself included), so it's appropriate. We have very little navy, so they only get the tattoo on the army girl. The saying is something our instructors say frequently that we've picked up on. They're mainly Francophone, so the spelling is supposed to pick up on their accent. The maple leafs with the bombs were taken directly from one of the pieces on exhibit. It was how the crew had marked their hits. It was a pretty cool design, so I used it and added the ranks of our instructors to them. Then I made it look vintage in Photoshop, and we're good to go!

A Quick Update

I'm afraid I don't have any photos for you, but I thought, now that I have access to the internet, I should give a quick update of what I've been doing. I'm currently going into week seven of a fifteen week Basic Military Officer Training course with the Canadian Forces, and so far have been having a terrific time. I'm confined to base this weekend, unfortunately, but last week we got out to Montreal and I had an absolutely amazing time. I hope everyone gets to visit at least one in their life. I spent so much money in the little boutiques and ate nothing but pastries, hot chocolate (and by this I mean basically liquid chocolate, not the powered watery junk), and poutine. I've never been so thankful the constant workouts they make us do! I spent an incredible amount of money in the little stores on Saint-Denis and wandered all over downtown. Next week is my brithday and I'm hoping I'll get to go back and visit the art galleries and sleep in a real bed again. Nothing against the horrible ones here, but I've had quite enough of hospital corners and want a nice fluffy blanket to curl up in.

Business Cards / Prints

I said I would be providing something as bag stuffers for the craft show I'll be taking part in in November. The first hundred people get a shopping bag with samples and things from the show. I made a simple lino block print and printed a hundred little cards. On the back I printed (just on the computer) a simple "Sketchbook - journals - art books - calligraphy - prints" so that people actually know what it is I do, and a 10% discount. A few are 20% off, so lets hope they need some Christmas gifts.

I don't really have a drying rack, so they just went all over the floor and sofa and whatnot. I was watching Hoarders at the time, so this was sort of a weird making a such a mess! I cleaned it up first thing this morning!

My Plan

On my long list of things to bring to training is writing paper. That was sort of boring, and I want to be able to have at least something small to be creative with, so I cut up a bunch of scrap watercolour paper into postcard-sized pieces and I'll bring that instead. It's amazing what a travel palette and a few waterproof pens can do.

'Scrap' book and some big news

First, I must apologize for not posting anything in about three weeks! Life has been a little crazy and I just didn't get much done as, unfortunately, I had other stuff to take care of instead. Specifically, my enrollment date for the Air Force finally got here and I and will be leaving shortly for training, so there is much to do to prepare. I'm done work now though, so I do have a little time for some side projects.

This book, as well as the ones I'm working on like it, is an effort to use the last bits of leather I have. I don't have quite enough for full books and don't want to make hundreds of miniature ones, so I came up with this design. I quite like the look of it, though I think I'll use gromets to attach the next ones because sewing takes an excruciatingly long time.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but the light leathers are all a little different.

My Weekender Bag - front panel

This is the front of the bag. The pockets are all sewn on (the last bit my hand, unfortunately, because the machine couldn't get in there), but the lining isn't completely in so that I can still sew in the straps and then cover up the stitches. I've only got the first bit on yet, but for now the next step is the top/zipper/sides.