Illustration Friday-Sight

Ink and acrylic on paper.

Prepare- Illustration Friday

An illustration Friday Drawing for Prepare. I find my drawing rather bland, yet I like it at the same time...

Grounded- Illustration Friday

Ok, so this isn't my best work, but here it is anyways. I recently adopted an adorable dog, and he was the inspiration for this work. I'm not sure why I put grass on the ground, when there is snow all over the place currently. I guess it's wishful thinking.

Highlights

There are times when all those end of the year reflections are annoying to me when I see them in the paper, or on TV, but I put together a set of highlights of my last year. I just had my 29th birthday on the second, so the timing of the new year and my birthday makes it easier for year-long resolutions and contemplations.

Illustration Friday:Separated

It's been a while since I've done anything for Illustration Friday, and here it is. An ink drawing with oil pastels. The word is separated.

Check out other illustration friday drawings here.

Illustration Friday- Swell

It's a bit late in the week, but still Thursday, so here is this week's Illustration Friday: Swell.

Folk Fest Drawings!!!

The 2011 Winnipeg Folk Fest has come and gone, and this year I made a point of doing more drawings. At certain times I tried to sit close to the stages so I could see the performers' faces. Drawing the eyes of people on stage was the most difficult aspect of this type of drawing. People watching at Folk Fest is hard to beat, so there was a great assortment of subjects for my sketchbook. All my drawings were done as marker washes.
This was a guy from the Band Dawes:


This is a singer/songwriter named Chuck Prophet. I saw a very enjoyable solo set at Little Stage on the Prairie.


This is a member of the band Jaune Toujours- they are a really fun Folk Rock/Roots/Balkan band that in some aspects reminds me of Cat Empire.

Gesture-Illustration Friday

Gesture drawing done at the Winnipeg Folk Fest. People watching(and Drawing) is extra fun there. It is done in markers with a wash overtop.

New house, paint and watercolour Crayons...

A recent image I completed today. The text is a verse from a song by Gavin Sutherland. There are four verses, I want to illustrate each one. This week I acquired some watercolour crayons which I had never used before, but saw them for a good price and thought I'd try them out. They were really easy and nice to use. They are on par with watercolour pencil crayons, except are chunkier so it is easier to complete bigger areas faster. They are not as smooth as marker washes, which is what I do a lot of. I might try combining some crayon with marker washes and see if it's a good combination. I think the colour was slightly washed out in my scanned image, I could stand to up the colour a little in Photoshop. It's nice to have the time today to sit at my desk and do some art. I've been very busy lately with a lot of things, but namely that I bought a house, and got Posession last week! Here are few comments inspired by this recent purchase:


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Duet- Illustration Friday

Duet for Illustration Friday. I tried two versions. I'm on images number 193 and 194 for my year-long image a day project, with means that I'm actually a little more than halfway. All year I've been doing pretty good at not falling behind, but in recent weeks I have missed drawing for a bunch of days which leaves me almost three weeks worth of images behind. I'll have to push myself to catch up.

Toy-Illustration Friday

The topic for this week's Illustration Friday is Toy. It is a picture of my dog's stuffed toy.

Illustration Friday- Layer

Jackrabbit Layer.

Op-Ed Illustration

Recent illustration classes have been educating me on the history of illustration (Thank you Craig Terlson!). These lectures got me thinking that I should do some of my own internet scavenger hunts for inspiring illustrators, and to inform myself a little more about what's out there, what's been done, and what's new.
My search today led me to this great video on the history of the New York Times op-ed pages. It has really good visuals and a great variety of commentators and contributors:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/25/opinion/opedat40-illustration.html

Maira Kalman-Illustrator

I was browsing TED talks today at work while I was finishing up marking and getting some things together in my room, and I came across this talk by Maira Kalman. The pictures posted today are her images. Maira Kalman is an Illustrator who works out of the states. She is most known for her illustration work with the New Yorker, the Elements of Style, and for illustrating various children's books. To me she is familiar because on more than one occasion I have considered buying her book "Principles of Uncertainty," which began as a weekly visual column for the online New Yorker. She has a kind of run-on personal style that combines writing with paintings. She tells stories in such a way that makes you wonder if they are real or if they are all made up, or only party based on something true and silly and maybe wonderful or maybe just ordinary. She tells her stories with colour and writing that makes me believe that it is at least a little bit wonderful, just because it's coming from a her very unique perspective.

Her conceptualizations and story telling are the kind that I want to do, if I could only figure out what stories I want to describe. The paintings themselves have a sort of modern Chagall-meets-Matisse-combined-with-German-expressionists-and-hand-written text feel to them. She has recently been working on another visual column about Democracy called the Pursuit of happiness through the New Yorker, which has also been published into a book.

Check out her New Yorker Blog/Column here: www.kalman.blogs.nytimes.com

The ted Talks video with her talking about her work is here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/maira_kalman_the_illustrated_woman.html


I kind of want to be her when I grow up, or at least maybe have her career.

Chicken-Illustration Friday

I did this drawing in summer and never posted it, but it fits perfectly with this week's Illustration Friday Topic Chicken.

While in London for an illustration course, my class went to the Southbank to draw the people and the sights there. The Southbank is a walkway in London where street performers go to try to earn money off of tourists and there are a lot of people in costume who try to get paid for taking pictures with people and children. I sat down on a curb against a fence that faced the Thames River. Across from me was this guy in a chicken suit. When I sat down to draw him I was trying to imagine what it would be like if that's how I earned a living. From where I was sitting I couldn't really tell if he was happy with me or not for drawing him, because I actually was thinking that if that was my job I wouldn't want someone to draw a picture of it. But this chicken guy came over to me by the time I had finished and LOVED this drawing! He wanted me to give it to him, but I didn't really want to, and also I wanted to be able to bring the drawing back to my class and show my instructor. We exchanged emails so that I could send him a copy of the image, or talk about an exchange. The chicken man now had a name, his name was Mike, and he was from Poland.
I agreed to have breakfast with Mike in exchange for the drawing. We met up for breakfast, and Mike proceeded to tell me his story about how he became a chicken man: after moving to London from Poland, several connections fell through for him, and it was difficult to find a job. After some hard times that including worrying about where to even sleep for the night he acquired this chicken suit because it was left behind at a job site. He felt that God had blessed him with this suit as a way of making a living, and that it was his destiny to be a chicken man. I was humbled by his story, his faith, and his enthusiasm for earning a living as a performer on the Southbank. He promised that my drawing would be hung proudly in his home, and I was honoured to give it to him.

Deja Vu-Illustration Friday

An Illustration Friday for the topic Deja Vu. It is a drawing collage.

Illustration Friday-Resolutions

This week's Illustration Friday challenge is Resolutions. Here are some of mine. I regularly create new resolutions for myself, about twice a year, sometimes more even, and usually I categorize my life so that I can achieve my goals professionally, spiritually, and in life in general. This one got all mixed together. My scanner is slightly smaller than my sketchbook, so a few items got clipped off in the scanning process. I think I could have refined the colour palette a lot more...but oh well, I can add that to my list.

Also, I was given a waterbrush pen for Christmas, which is just a great artist tool! I used it on the above drawing. It's a paintbrush that doesn't need to be dipped in water because the inside is filled up with water and the water comes out of the bristles. I tried one when I was in London, and it is perfect for traveling because you don't need to worry about anything to dip your brush in.
Here is a picture of it that I stole off of http://www.scribblers.co.uk/acatalog/Pentel_Brush_Pens.html

Spooky-Ilustration Friday

Marker wash with pen and ink collage. It makes me happy.

Illustration Friday- Transportation

Illustration Friday-Acrobat

Image #19

Illustration Friday drawing. Watercolours, ink, and ink drawn collage.