Doodles

Wow! It's been an awesome (except for the weather) and super busy summer! I've had a couple of jobs come up, the latest being an illustration for an ad agency in Montreal! Oh boy! I'll be posting pictures of that when the project is done. Exciting!

But, for now, here's some random pages from my sketchbook I've been meaning to post for a while now.

Alphabet at Ampersand; A Collaboration with CHIKA!!!

My dear friend Miss Chika Ando and I just finished a collaborative piece that will be in the show Ampersand 2, at the Untitled Art Society Main Gallery (4th Floor, 319 - 10 Ave SW, Back Alley Entrance, Calgary).

We created an alphabet of adjectives that can be used to describe people. For each letter we chose a word that Chika was unfamiliar with and then made up a sentence and drew a picture illustrating the sentence. This is one of our favourites!

The show is on for three days. Today and Friday from 12-4, and on Saturday there's a reception party with the artists in attendance from 7-11pm. Come on out and see our lovely alphabet! And all the other neat collaborations!

Father's Day Card

Here's the front and inside of the card I made my Dad for father's day. Cute!

New Fabric Art - Come see them (and me!) at Market Collective this weekend!

This is a series of pieces I've just finished. They are 8x8 pieces of wood that I've covered with fabric. Each one features a different quote and has silk-screened and sewn elements.

They will be down at the MARKET COLLECTIVE in Kensington with me and my Mumble Tease t-shirts this Saturday and Sunday, the 19th and 20th of June! (Old Ant Hill Building, 148 10th St NW, Sat: 10-6 Sun: 11-5)

Shirts for A. B. C.

I just finished up a project making shirts and bags for a friend who has an urban beekeeping company. Her company is called Apiaries and Bees for Communities, or A.B.C. for short. Very neat stuff. It was really inspirational to talk to her and hear about her business and how she's found something she's passionate about and is just going for it! Her website is www.backyardbees.ca if you're curious!

And I'm really happy to have been able to help her out with the shirts! I made up the designs and printed them using cut-out stencils. So much fun! It's so neat to see your creations printed on cloth! I love it!

Silly new sketches

A page from my sketchbook. Just for fun. I started out with pencil crayons and made general shapes and filled them in with patterns. Then I used my imagination and a pen to create little creatures from the shapes. Imagining is fun!

FABRICS!

I love fabrics and have been using them more and more in my work and have started to amass quite a collection. I went to an annual sale at Woodcliff United Church and walked away with two HUGE bags of fabric for a ridiculously good price. All the fabric is donated by people who have leftovers lying in their basements and then all the proceeds go to Grandmothers in Africa. Very neat. And check out all the awesome fabric I picked up! I can't wait to use it in paintings, and on shirts and for random sewing projects! YAY!

Mommy's Day Card

My mom has been having some health problems and when I remembered yesterday that mother's day was coming up and I had failed to buy her any type of present, I was madly trying to think of some meaningful gift I could get her last minute, and thought about what she might want. I think the thing that she would want the most would be the magical ailment fixing rubber hammer. Unfortunately scientists haven't figured that one out yet... And so I figured my love and support and stuff in the form of a hug was as good a substitute as you could find...

Promotional Piece

This is a promotional piece I'm printing in postcard from and sending out to people who will see it, like it, and then hire me! That's the general idea anyways...

My goal is to send one out every fours months-ish. Each one will feature a quote that I find interesting or inspirational and my visual interpretation of the quote. Fun stuff!


Oh yes, and I thought it would be neat to show some process on this one.

I start out with a very rough sketch just to get ideas out. Yup. Pretty amazing drawing skills displayed on the first sketch. Then I do a nice line drawing in pen. Which I then scan and add colours to and play around with in photoshop to get some idea of what I want to do.

In the colour comp for this one, there's a bit too much going on and not enough contrast, so I fixed these things for the actual final painted version which is acrylics for the background, fabric, and gouache for the "drawn" part. And that, is how it's done!

New Printed Designs

Ooooo! And here are some close-ups of one of my favourites! Oh boy!

Mumble Tease - NEW SHIRTS!!!

Wow!! There's so much going on I just haven't had time to do any new posts! This is the most exciting bit! I've got five new designs printed and online for sale at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/mumbletease

I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about them and how excited I am, but it would take too long. I have written lots of things on the shop, a highlight (from my point of view) being the little descriptions of each design listed with each shirt. Read them! They're funny. At least I think so.

Ummmm, yup. That's about it for those. Oh and BUY ONE!!!!!!

Cards!

Here's a couple of cards I did a while ago that I forgot to post. The bottom one is a birthday card I gave to my boyfriend, and the top one is a commissioned card I did. I think there was an inside joke that I was not in on. I'm sure the person receiving it would have gotten it though...

I like doing cards on print-making paper and just doing a line drawing with pens, colouring it in with pencil crayons and sometimes using thread to make borders and stuff.

Mumble Tease - Process Photos

Wow! I can't believe it's been a month since last posting! That's crazy! I've been locked away in my basement printing a new batch of shirts for mumble tease. It's very exciting! These are some photos of what my work space looks like at the moment. I've worked out a pretty good system with a big table to print on and space to hang things to dry. Exciting stuff! The shirts will be for sale soon! Hooray!

Very interesting....

I was doing some experimenting putting different elements together in photoshop and this is something I came up with using a pen drawing from my sketchbook, a painted background and scanned fabrics to fill in the spaces. I think I like it.

My head is filled with song: Part 2

SMASHING PUMPKINS: 1979

Eesh. Posting every week is tricky. Okay, so here's the second one of the series I'm working on. Man! I love this song! Who doesn't! So good to drive to! Sooooo, yeah. I experimented a bit with using fabrics as a main element and gluing stuff on and whatnot. It's colourful that's for sure.... Keep on the lookout for another in the next couple of weeks!

My head is filled with song: Part 1

FLEET FOXES: Tiger Mountain Peasant Song

I've recently been working for a painting company (yes, houses, walls, solid colours...) to generate some income, and have been finding it tricky to make time anything creative. To get things flowing again, I've started a project for myself. Every two weeks, I'm going to try and make an album sized illustration based upon a song that I really like or has affected me in some way. The first one is inspired by the Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song." It's a neat image, but I think it could reflect the song a bit more. I don't think the illustration quite has the same feeling as the song does... I will do better on the next one!!! AHA!!!

Some flowery patterns

Here's a couple of patterns I made up a while ago from a pen and ink drawing... Just for fun!