Three Cheers for February

February for me has always been one of those months you just have to tough through. Not much exciting stuff happens and the weather is usually poor. On February 2nd the transit system here in Halifax announced they were going on strike. I normally rely on transit pretty heavily as I live a little far from the action. In the first days of the strike I complained about all the time I was losing by walking to my friend Rosalind, who is wise in many areas but especially wise on matters of health. Rosalind reminded me that the increased amount of exercise would actually reduce stress and improve my energy. I may have rolled my eyes when I heard this.

But of course, Rosalind was right. Nearly every day of February I walked between 8 and 15km, powered solely by my legs and audiobooks. And with all that time walking, February still turned out to be a highly productive month! It was a particularly stimulating month because all of my interests were engaged. Here’s a recap of my February:

-I started work on a fine art piece for the show A View From Here at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, which excitingly just received a grant in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. (The photo to the right is a detail of the unfinished work.)
-I’ve collaborated with the CBC on a story about photobooths and I started building the official Fotomaton website (a photobooth-art initiative that I started last year with American artist Aran Graham.) I also built the props for the next photobooth animation I’d like to shoot this summer (a blogpost on this coming soon.)
-I designed and got my first two ever tattoos!
-I accepted a few commissions, including an emblem for Bad Dog Theatre Company in Toronto (top photo), a custom cross-stitch through Etsy and two a couple of posters for a band in Halifax.
-I’ve just started collaborating with Lisa Amerongen on a children’s book she’s writing and that I’ll be illustrating this summer.
-I spent a week volunteering as a judge for the Canadian Improv Games and kept up my regular volunteer shift tutoring kids at the public library. And I’ve kept up top-notch grades in my five classes and still found time to attend my regular yoga class.
-And perhaps most excitingly I’ve decided I’m going to attend the 2012 Photobooth Convention in Venice, California from May 18th to 19th. I haven’t got the resources to go yet but I’ve got a few ideas.

Thanks February!

Student Day of Action!

If you are a student, if you have been a student, or if you plan on being a student at a post-secondary institution in Canada it's really darn important that you show up to your city's event on February 1st!

Don't Worry...

I've never posted work by other artists on this blog before, reserving it for things I've made. However, as I'm in the last stretch of this semester and stress is seeping from my pores (a great mental image, I know), I thought I would post this image that has kept me going.

It's by UK illustrator/designer Olly Moss.

Honing the Portfolio - pt.4

This week I made a postcard and a bookmark that I can give out as samples of my work. The bookmark features Post-War American authors alongside a pattern inspired by their most popular novel.

The postcard was actually an illustration I did as part of an advertisement for one of my classes and I thought it could work as a stand alone image.

Right now I’m working on illustrating a calendar and two large posters, it'll be a few weeks before they're ready, but they'll be worth the wait!

Honing the Portfolio - pt.3

These are three alternative book covers for J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories that I made in my typography class for a little exercise in composition. The bottom two are digital illustrations and the one to the right is a photo I took with my manual film camera.

Salinger has also snuck into another piece I'm working on for my illustration class that should be finished next week.

Honing the Portfolio

Eek! It’s been almost a month since my last post. Time operates so differently when you’re in University. I certainly miss that bubble of time I had to work all on my personal projects while I was freelancing this past year. There are a few assignments though, particularly in my illustration course that I’m so excited to work on so I can have them as new gems in my portfolio.

September zoomed by and I have a handful of new portfolio pieces, from school assignments and from client work to show for it. I’ll post a new completed project every day for the next few days. This project is called Whyte Bull. It’s based on a Greek Myth about the origin of the Minotaur. The drawings are meant to show points in the story but not tell the full story, so the imagery may be a tad confusing without existing knowledge of the myth.



Let me know what you think, click to enlarge any pieces.