Petsecure - dog in the park!

Second poster for Petsecure - starring the dog romping in the park!

Here are a few super rough sketches I did to get an idea of placement....

 

 After the client chose which one they liked best, I did a bit cleaner rough...

 Then did a few rough colour passes to show the client - I couldn't decide which worked best for this one....

And here is the final! Yay! 

Petsecure - at the vet!

This was the first poster I was commissioned to do for Petsecure, featuring the new pets I had redesigned for them. They wanted the first one to have both pets, going for a visit to the vet.

Here are a few super rough sketches I did to get an idea of placement....

After the client chose which one they liked best, I did a bit cleaner rough...

 Then did a rough colour pass to show the client....

And here is the final! Yay!

New pets for Petsecure!

So much of what I work on at the studio I am not allowed to share. Which is sad, cuz it's super fun. BUT, it motivates me to create other projects and art that I CAN share!

This newest project is for a company called Petsecure - a large company focused on insuring your pets. Having two cats, I understand that your pets are like family!

What a fun project this is shaping up to be. I first did a one-off redesign of their two pet ambassadors Ruff & Tumble - pictured above - which led to doing a series of 3 posters starring Ruff & Tumble! I have just completed the posters, and will post them soon, but thought I would post this first!

I love doing fun projects!

Painted panda.

Fiddling around in Flash, trying to paint like I am in Photoshop. 'Tis tricky, but always fun to try new things in a totally different style than my usual....

Cheese please?

Aww... he had no idea.

Yesterday we were outside and a little woodpecker did this next door to our house. Tee-hee.

Yield a Krop.

So many online portfolios to create, so little time!

Here's one more I just did, it was easy and rather snazzy!

Turtles and frogmouths.

Animals are awesome.

They come in every possible shape, colour, texture, speed, personality.... it's an endless drawing festival waiting to happen! Which is why I love visiting the zoo. These are from my latest jaunt to the Winnipeg Zoo a few days ago. I am hoping to visit a few more times before moving, fo' sure!

This little dude of a bird was called a "tawny frogmouth". We bonded:




Jewels took a pic of me sketching the turtles:



More to come!!

Little birdie, meet bigg[er] birdie.

So whilst relaxing the amazing sunshine on a deck in Wpg Beach this weekend, I re-read "The Art of Up" from cover to cover in one day. I just absolutely LOVE the concept art, and hearing the voices of the artists and directors, learning how the story developed and what the ideas stemmed from. It always inspires me to see how something so beautiful and simple can grow from one quick sketch, or even a small comment someone makes. That's what I love so much about animation, you can share so much beauty about life in "cartoons"!

Aaaaaanyhoo, I did a quick watercolour of these birdies after reading the book. I felt so inspired, my head was full of ideas. Hopefully this week I can try to get some more out :)

San Diego Zoo sketchlings

The amount of sketches I did in comparison to the amount of animals we saw at the famed San Diego Zoo! What an amazing place, if I lived anywhere around there I would SO get an annual pass to draw it up!

I [stupidly] forgot my pencil pack back at the house when we left, so I bought a nice ol' HB San Diego zoo pencil and used that.....aaaaahhh, the quality lead that comes in those pencils, lemme tell ya.


I can't wait to spend some quality sketching time this summer at the ol' Winnipeg zoo!

Chirp, Chirp

Watercolour birdies from the Royal Winter Fair a few weeks ago....I wanna go back! Birds are fun. And even more fun when they look angry. Don't ask why, it's just one-uh-those-things.

Royal Winter Fairin'

Soooooooo this past Wednesday we did our annual visit to Toronto's Royal Winter Fair to do our day o' drawrin'! It's funny, I realized this is my fourth time comin', and it's always so interesting! Soooo many great and diverse people, funny animals...the day always flies by and I always leave wishing I could come back and continue the drawin'. However, Alysia and I had a great day with our pencils and watercolours, and here's a few from the day!

Back to drawring life....year 4!

OH golly, talk about jumping back into the deep end! First week of school, and already we have to present our story concept, homework for 2 electives and 3 hours of intense life drawing.

Hmm, perhaps I thought it was intense because I never picked up a piece of conte the entire summer. Or MAYbe I thought it was intense 'cause I was still in summer mode...

Who knows. Regardless, I thought I was gonna completely bomb and draw pure stick figures. Couple that with the pressure of handing something in at the end of class - well, I wasn't exactly looking forward to the results. But I tried to just, phew, let go, just see what happens.

Here's the highlights....not TOO bad for first week back! These are all 1 minute or 5 minute gestures. Ed was wearing a hippie costume - if ya couldn't tell from the fro wig!

Wowza, 4th year. Insane in the membrane.










Part of our sketchbook assignment this week: a page of realistic drawings from life. Fortunately I spent the weekend at Pipe Creek Farm, a beautiful B&B in Western NY, and they had many animals to draw! Although I have to say....it was reeeeeeaaaallllllly hard to draw realisticallllly. MUCH more fun to stylize!

Royal Winter Fair 2007!

This year was really great! The fair is always fun, despite the crowded crowds, freezing fingers and allergies going haywire....! I tried to approach this year with more fun, caricature stuff, trying to capture more the animal's personalities rather than just the anatomy.

BUT, it's easier said than done!! You have to really know the structure before you can properly distort it! Therefore I feel today as I always do after a day at the fair.... I wish we could have a week there! I just get warmed up [not literally however] and then it's time to go.

I do always stretch myself, learn lots, and this time, even used lotsa watercolours. Yay! Here's my highlights from today.

These guys made us laugh, they reminded me of bandits with their ill-fitting head coverings.

This farmer seriously DID have a sheep on his hat. Classic.

I barely even exaggerated these guys!

Cows are just good clean fun to draw. Hmm, maybe not clean.

I couldn't resist. I love llamas!