I had the pleasure of having an illustration featured in STEPHEN magazine. It’s was for an article on unconventional theatre set ups.

Other than that, just been busy working on other freelance projects and enjoying my first summer in Vancouver. Like I said, I did add a LOT to the gallery, so you should really check it out. That’s all for now!

I’ve been mostly preoccupied with settling down into my new home, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing some kind of art. I’ve been doing a lot of playing with techniques as well as doing a lot of promotional works — working on my second portfolio book, promotional postcards, some client work — so I’ve managed to keep myself busy when I’m not running around getting things for my new apartment or applying for jobs.

Anyway, here’s some fun stuff I thought I’d share. First, just a collection of lighting tests I did. The subject matter is very boring — random girl’s faces OMG — but the purpose of the exercise was to play with mediums and lighting, not have some brilliant concept. These are very quick studies, about 30 each.

The next is a little treat — a preview of the cover of my new portfolio. It’ll be done by the end of this month, so check back later!

I’m refining this style the more I work with it, and I finally getting pleased with how it’s looking. I think part of the idea is to be less… finnicky. Blocky, whimsical shapes add to the effect, I think. What about you?

It’s from a project we had to do for Children’s Book/Story Character Design. I chose to do a story based on the poem/song The Cat Came Back, which used to be my favourite poem/song when I was a kid (it had cats and people died = instant childhood favourite?).

The characters I designed were The Old Man who tried to get rid of the cat, and the cat himself. Then I had to do a page spread, where I chose the bit where the cat drowns a boy.

Man, even when I do stuff with my cutesy style, it is morbid. The stuff I’ll show you next will be happier. I promise. Also, wish me luck!

Anyway, some news of interest: I entered an Olympic themed exhibition that was set up to generate artwork that could be displayed locally at the celebration for when the Olympic Torch rolls through town, which had two prizes of $1000. Hi giant run on sentence! But how could I pass that up? So I entered a few pieces, an experiment and an old piece from second year.

Well, I ended up winning one of those $1000 prizes. Ooh, aah, pat on the back. That was nice, to be certain.

The piece that won is below — it was actually a 2-hour experiment, more in the style of my abstract and old web/graphic design work than my usual illustration. I just find that funny, in some way. It’s completely made out of circles, and only circles.

But that’s some artwork I’ve done. I didn’t put it in my portfolio section because I don’t think its really representational of my illustration style. I am doing some other stuff that I should hope to show you soon — we’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, its in sketches til I get a better picture. However, the gallery intends to photograph each piece in a more professional manner, so I’ll just use their photo once they’re done and put it in my portfolio. Or pull out my SLR to do it myself. MEH.

I also designed the invites for the event, so I’ll have to photograph those too. Soon, soon my friends!

Here’s my contribution — so far. I apologize for the poor quality photo! I took it with my iPhone in the poor lighting conditions of my room. I couldn’t find my casual camera and didn’t want to drag out my SLR just to throw this online. If you have any input or suggestions, now is the time to tell me, while I’m still in the pencil stage. It’s based off of a previous sketch in my sketchbook (which you can see a few posts down), and is also called Infinity. I’ll post more process as I go!

Here’s something I do while I work at the front desk on weekends with nothing to do; drawing memes! I used the Deity Generator to generate (duh) random descriptions of a deity (duh). Then I would draw them. It was a fun experiment, trying to cram all the details into one character, but sometimes you get things that don’t really work. Whatever, its better than staring at Facebook for 4 hours. The first one scanned really poorly, but I’m not choked as it is just a sketch.

I also spent the last 40 minutes doing a speed paint of a sketch from my previous post; Blacknose Boy. It was fun, I guess? I do so love to draw horrible things right before I go to bed. I also added a semi-process for it, which I’ve added below. Actually, after putting it together, I prefer the 3rd step to the final 4th, but the final 4th looks more “dead”. What do you think?

That’s all for now, kids!

I meant to post these on Friday because one was a submission for Illustration Friday but Telus decided that i didn’t reeeeally need to use the Internet, so I didn’t get to blog it until today.

The theme was “Infinity”. It was a pretty random sketch that kind of fit. I am also adapting it as a small painting for the local gallery’s annual Pick-a-Painting fundraiser.

This actually comes from an episode of Ghost Hunters (some people watch Big Brother… I watch paranormal reality TV); they were visiting a house were the children had claimed to see a boy with “black hair, black eyes, a black mouth and a black nose.” It was the visual of the black nose and mouth that creeped me out the most, so I was compelled to draw it. I’ll paint it once I have more of a drive to paint.

This is one of my favourite observational sketches from the summer; accompaning my close friend to watch a soccer game, we mostly watched the crowd instead of the game. They were much more entertaining, as you can see.

Seeing as this is quite a tedious task from my iPhone, I may save the rest of my sketches and comments for when my Internet connection is restored. You can view them here if you are impaitent, but you’ll have to wait for my insights. Soon!

So here’s an update. I worked at the local art gallery all summer, which (I must reassert) is the best job ever. My mural team and I painted nearly 40 canvases that make up a total area of 11 x 36 FEET. Yes, my friends, it was a big job indeed. It’s still incomplete, and I must still do some touch ups as they were damaged in transit, and at the moment, I don’t even want to think about painting. Woe!

Beyond that, I’m still working at the gallery, and will until my planned move to Vancouver at the end of March. I’m teaching art classes in addition to retouching our pieces for the mural, so at the moment I am still quite busy (who knew there was going to be such a demand for my classes?!) but I hope — hope — that once everything evens out I’ll have a drive to work on my own projects, as well as start marketing myself to clients.

In addition to beginning a freelance career, I would like to fix up my website a bit more. And when I put my portfolio book in the Summer Show at the gallery I had several requests to purchase it and to make more. Seeing as my current portfolio was $150 (a bit pricey!), I think I may make a miniature version through Lulu.

I’ll post again soon, and this time with a few sketches that I managed to do in my down time.