Moved and Settled

I'm finally moved and settled! Seven days ago I arrived in Montreal and moved into my sister's place, which seriously reduced the amount of usual moving stress and worry. She already has everything! 

I'm living on a busy street, conveniently very close to a Metro station, which conveniently has a photobooth! YES, I'M LESS THAN A ONE MINUTE WALK FROM A PHOTOBOOTH. This will significantly improve the quality of life.

Here's a photo taken from the balcony, that bump on the horizon is Mont Royal.

My schedule has been quite upside down for two weeks now, so I'm really looking forward to getting back into a routine. It took me a full week to sort, pack and store all my belongings at my parents' house. I thoroughly went through all my possessions, made an inventory list and thoughtfully packed the things that I'm keeping but don't immediately need.

I gave away, threw out and recycled 25 large garbage bags worth of stuff! Who knew I had that much non-essential stuff?

While going through my belongings, I found so many funny, accidental collections. It seems that I've been gathering little things over the years, not knowing how many of them I actually had until taking this big inventory. For example, I apparently really liked wood grain MacTac for collages, as I had about 6 different "wood finishes." I also had a lot of vintage wallpaper samples, here are just the gold coloured ones. I didn't keep these things, but I did keep this accidental collection of vintage Canadian buttons. 

I have seriously slimmed down my life's possessions and feel much lighter and freer. And for the time being, I also feel repelled from amassing too many more things... we'll see how long this lasts for.

Fonts and Type

Things are in flux! I'm moving to Montreal in just nine days and have been a busy bee getting ready. Presently, I'm in Edmonton, packing up my childhood bedroom and cataloging all my personal belongings, which is no small feat!

On my list of things to do before the move was to take some self-portraits and pictures of my studio space for Uppercase's Work/Life 3 book, which will be out in August. Here's a little peek into those, these two won't likely be in the book.

 

LaCuna Trailer

Here's the trailer for LaCuna, which I've submitted to some film festivals and hopefully it will be screened a few times this summer and fall. The music is by Jason Michael MacIsaac of the Heavy Blinkers.

TRAILER - LaCuna from Meags Fitzgerald on Vimeo.

Desk Aerobics

I've been busy juggling three separate artistic endeavours lately, they are as follows:

1. LaCuna: My stop motion animation made of photobooth pictures is FINALLY FINISHED! I have officially applied to my first Film Festivals, it will be a few months until I know if my submissions were successful or not. To maintain exclusivity rights for festivals, I won't be sharing the animation online until next year, in the mean time I'm working on a trailer and I've made these two posters. I owe a mountain-sized thank you to Jason Michael MacIsaac of the Heavy Blinkers who composed LaCuna's original soundtrack.

2. Editorial Illustration and Promotion: It seems that trying to book illustration jobs is a full time job in itself. I've worked hard to revamp my portfolio and have been regularly sending it out to art departments. And I've had some success! Though that work is many months away from being share-able. I've also for the first time applied to illustration competitions. The objective is to be included in an awards annual or illustrator directory that is then distributed and used by art directors and other creative professionals. It will be a while still until I hear back about any of those, but my fingers are crossed.

3. Photobooth, A Biography: I'm working on my graphic novel around the clock, and I've finally got into a nice rhythm with it. Of all the things on my to-do list, its the one I'm most excited about. I've been sharing work with two friends, one who gives me feedback on the writing and another who critiques the artwork, but I won't be sharing any of it publicly, everyone will just have to wait a year for it to come out.

I know what you're thinking after reading that:

She must sit at a desk a lot.

You're right, I do! But fortunately for me I found a set of  light aerobics videos. They're keeping my joints alive. 

Given that I'm working hard on three things that I can't really share, my blog may be a little dry for material.  So! I'm going to switch up the content here a little; posting more old work that I haven't shared before, more photos of my collections and lists of my favourite people/things. 

Feministory Comic

Going through on my latest blogposts, I realized that I forgot to share the piece I did for Bitch Magazine's winter issue. I wrote and illustrated the Feministory feature on the magazine's theme of Habitat. Bitch has always been a great read and I'm happy to say they were a pleasure to work with too. Clearly, they have an awesome team. It's nice whenever you can do paid work that is also aligned with your values.

P.s. I recently discovered that Bitch has a podcast, it's most definitely worth a listen.

On the Up-And-Up with UPPERCASE

I got a really exciting email a few days ago that perked me right up! I'm delighted to say that I'll be one of the one hundred illustrators in UPPERCASE's book Work/Life 3! UPPERCASE produces a consistently amazing quarterly magazine for "the creative and the curious."(Really, if you are a designer, artist, crafter or appreciator of fine and interesting things, you should pick up a copy of UPPERCASE.)

Here is the most recent issue of the magazine. UPPERCASE has published a handful of stunning books on a variety of subjects, including two previous books on the theme of work/life, each featuring 100 artists. (Below are their covers, the one on the left is by Darren Booth and the one on the right by Alyssa Nassner.)

Work/Life 3 is a very unique publication, unlike other illustrator directories, each artist gets a spread and an article about them. Interestingly, the other participants and myself were asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire about our work/life relationships. Based on our answers, a custom illustration assignment is made for each person. Each of us will make a new piece in response to the assignment for publication in the book. I really love that this is a collaborative process and I'm so thrilled to be included amongst these very talented illustrators. The previous books featured some of my favourite illustrators, including Renata Liwska and Camilla Engman.

 Here's a video of Work/Life 2, it gives you a good sense of what this book might be like.



I haven't received my assignment yet, but I'm very excited to get started on this piece. The book comes out in August and will be available online and at select stores. It also will be sent to various art directors and companies on the behalf of the participants. I'm excited for the finished product and to see what all the illustrators have made!

Gone With The Wind

I'm pleased to share some illustrations that I've been gradually working on in my free time since October. I dreamt/ thought up this idea for a series of three pieces, two of which are finished. I don't normally share progress work, mostly because my sketches are so sloppy. But I always love it when other illustrators share their progress, so I thought I'd do the same.

The first in the series is of Harold Washington Library in Chicago. When I lived there, I occasionally went to the library to work. One night I dreamt this image, possibly inspired by the daunting figures perched on the library's roof.

Years ago I wrote a playful poem, one of the lines was "the girl with tortoise shell glasses and a turtleneck sweater." I decide to base the second piece in the series off this imagery, making the girl in the poem, a librarian charged with the task of protecting the books.

Most of you will notice the resemblance between the librarian and myself, and though I didn't originally plan it, she did become a sort of fantastical self-portrait.

I've got the third and final piece of the series sketched up. It will reveal the cause and purpose of the storm and hopefully offer a playful twist.

At the base of the Mountain

I've been pull-my-hair-out busy, so I haven't had a chance to post in a while. I'm chipping away at my to-do list and making good progress on small illustration jobs here and there. But the real work is my graphic novel. I've been illustrating it steadily this month and feel like I have comparatively little to show for it. I've already spent a year on this book and when I look around, I still feel like I'm at the base of the mountain.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of this mountain and I see a pretty clear path up. It's just that now I'm accustomed to projects with quick turnarounds and I love that feel of satisfaction of when I finish a work. It will just be a while until I get that feeling with Photobooth, A Biography.

Here's a snippet of a page of a chapter I just finished (sans text). Now I've got to get back to base camp!