Travel

Thoughts of summer travel have been running through my brain as I plan for travels, and I'm trying to figure out some flight options....

Illustration Friday-Early

"Arriving early always ensured that there was enough cake."

Illustration Friday-Equipment

"Now that he had the right equipment, he was ready."

New studio Space!

I have nearly finished organizing my new studio space. It is a more spacious room, and has some great sunlight, I'm looking forward to creating in here. I'm still not used to it though, even though the desks are arranged in basically the same way, it doesn't feel as cozy as it did. I didn't show you the other part of the room which still has an assortment of items to be moved somewhere else.
Also the apple tree out front, which is in direct view from my studio window is blooming like mad! The blossoms have taken over the tree, which means that the apples once grown in will probably weigh the tree down quite a bit. To stand under the tree you can hear a steady buzzing sound from all the bees that are pollenating the flowers.

Meathaus-Website

I Came across the website Meathaus, and like the selection of work I see so far. The Meathaus website describes itself as:
"A loosely defined collective of friends and associates contributing to irregular comics and art anthologies and an art-blog-website with a special emphasis on drawing, sketchbooks and comics."
Naturally this would be something that would interest me. There are interesting postings on artists, their work and selections ranging from art, animation, comics, photography, design, and other categories. There is a particular flavour to the selections. If it were music I would define it as indie, but it is art...so I'm not sure what word comes to mind-perhaps part of the appeal and what makes it feel fresh to me is the drawings are more masculine(which is a change from much of the work I come across on Etsy and many other design/decor blogs). Check it our for yourselves and let me know what you think of it.
http://meathaus.com/
Screen shot from the meathaus website.

Treasury by natalya1905

Yay, someone featured me in their etsy registry! http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4bee9d2b15706d91e2628bc7/somewhere-sometime

An Old Recognized Favourite

"Often I am amused by my own idiotically tough will to live. I spit, choke, shove, crowd through in order to have success. But I would squeeze through all the sewers of the world, through all forms of debasement and defilement just in order to paint. I must do that. Down to the last drop all my imagination of living forms must be squeezed out of me, then it will be a pleasure to get rid of this damned torture."

Max Beckman, April 21st, 1915. From the Library of Great Painters: Max Beckman by Stephan Lackner.

I am cleaning my studio space which has just recently moved rooms in my house, and is still quite disorderly. The benefits to cleaning is that you can find things that were long forgotten. I found this quote that I had written down probably 5 years ago. I love it when you can find an artist that you love not only for their paintings, but also for their true conviction as an artist.

Image is a self portrait of Beckmann. Taken from: http://greenlanddesign.org/coleg/2008/12/expressionism/beckmann_self2/.

Drawing

I started this drawing several months ago back in October I think, and only just finished it recently. Sometimes I go back through a box of drawings and will rediscover drawings that were never finished, or ideas that were abandoned. It's actually satisfying to rework them after a few months.

Some New Drawings

Here are a few drawings I finished recently.
The horse disguise I can't say I really have an explanation for. It makes me laugh.
The two bird people were both drawn separately, and I placed them together in Photoshop, but I'm not sure if they really belong together. Perhaps without the meathead caption. The Meathead drawing was inspired by a couple of muscle-guys that must have been coming from the downtown Y when I was selling at portage place. One of them appropriately purchased a small post-card size print from me of the muslcedog drawing I did a few months back.

Against perhaps logic I posted the horse drawing on etsy, lets see if anyone wants it!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46635618/horse-disguise-drawing

Photography shop!!

Due to some encouragement this weekend, and some photos sales in the Craft show I was in, I decided to open up an etsy shop for phototography. It is nice to find a use for the photos that I accumulate.

My new shop is called Julia Mark Photography.
http://juliamarkphotography.etsy.com

Fearless- Illustration Friday

Completed this today. Parts of it arent' on par with what I'd like, but it's ok as a drawing. The middle part of the alligator's mouth gets a little clouded with too much lines, but I think you can still see it ok.

New Ink Drawings

At times the craft market was a little on the slow side today. The downside of that being that obviously sales were not as frequent as I would have liked. The plus side of it being slow is that I finished several drawings. The bird lady one is still waiting for a title, or some text to be added to it. Any suggestions?

Art/Craft Market at Portage Place Mall

I nearly forgot to post on my own blog about a craft show I'm in. For any Winnipeggers out there, come out to Portage Place Mall on Thurs and Saturday- May 7 and 8th. Starting at 11 until the late afternoon and from 12-5 on Saturday artisans and crafters will be selling hand made goods. I had my table today next to some gorgeous pottery, and there are some other great items out there.

Here is a link to a good description of all sellers:
http://handmadeinmanitoba.blogspot.com/2010/04/next-week-is-portage-place-shopping.html

And, someone who bought something today made a post about me/my work!
http://downtownpeggy.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/craft-crazy/

Art School Getaway?

May first finds me sitting at home, comfortably in my pyjamas in the late afternoon on a Saturday drinking Dr. Pepper. Things completed today: spoke on the phone with my two best friends, and also my brother, completed an Illustration Friday image, read the paper, and contemplation about my summer plans. I have been thinking about the idea of taking a summer course somewhere far away for part of the summer. My research into art schools outside of Manitoba has me looking at such schools as the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Concordia University in Montreal, and I have even been delving into researching schools across the Atlantic in Europe.

Every time I think I'm finished with school, I always seem to go back.
Emily Carr is very appealing to me as a school because it has a good reputation for actually teaching technique, and after reviewing just the summer session courses that they offer, it makes me wish that I had done my undergrad there, instead of at the School of Art at the U of M. It's been a few years since I've spent any time in Vancouver, and think it would be a nice choice. However, the Vancouver lure isn't nearly as strong as the lure of Montreal or Europe(both places I have visited in the last two years, and have since wanted to go back!). Montreal has disappointed me in that Concordia University has already closed it's acceptance for summer session courses.

That leads me to my grand idea of taking off to LONDON, England for several weeks out of the summer. I was looking at a few different schools and found the University of the Arts in London which is an amalgamation of 5 different art and design colleges in the heart of London. Their short courses are a week long, and offer a great range of courses that has me wishing I had the time and resources to do another degree with with them. I was also trying to find some English speaking schools in either Paris or Spain, but could only find a few limited options that were well beyond my price range. Spain had great appeal to me because if I could improve my Spanish skills at the same time as my art making skills, I would be accomplishing quite the zealous summer goals(as well I have a certain affection for Spanish culture having spent months in both Guatemala and Mexico). London naturally has some attraction for me to visit because I've never spent any time there(other than a 5-hour layaway in Heathrow airport), and it has all the things a massive city should have to offer to a twenty-something, museum-hungry, architecture-enthused artist who likes walking. As well it is English speaking, which eliminates potential language frustration. I am about 80% decided about what I'm going to do, and want to submit an application soon to make sure I get into the course that I want.

These are my current thoughts anyways. I have learned about myself that I am open to suggestions, so if I come across another idea, I could persuade myself to adapt my plans.
I feel like I should note, perhaps for any naysayers out there who think to themselves, "But, doesn't Winnipeg offer any good courses during summer?" Well the answer is not really- I tried to sign up for two courses, through Red River College and The Winnipeg Art Gallery Studio and both were cancelled due to lack of interest. Also, I just like to travel.

Illustration Friday-Cocoon

An illustration Friday image. I am surprised this is the route I took with a word like cocoon. I saw this text as an article title in today's free press homes section. It is perhaps a little on the boring side for an Illustration Friday Drawing, but here it is.