Cards cont'd...

Things in my life have been very busy indeedy! But for a couple very good reasons :) Due to that, I have not been able to post as often as I had planned, but I will catch up soon! In the meantime, here are a few new cards I painted for a client.

"more birthday"

"happy home"

"a parcel of 25"

"a birdie thanks"

"new misc designs"

"a parcel of 25 - close-up"

"pack of 6"

More art to come! Promise :)

Cards for hire!

One of my fab clients ordered some more watercolour cards from me, so here are the new designs. Painting is trés fun :)

"thinking of you"

"just because"

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 :)

A coupla janitors.

Tams and I ran into Superstore this past week, and I noticed one of the janitors by the carts. He really held my attention, I found him to be a really engaging character, just by the way he was cleaning. It's funny, and fascinating to me, how much you can learn about someone in literally 2 seconds of observing them.

Anyhoo, this weekend I sketched out a couple janitor concepts... they still aren't exactly what he was like, but usually when I start drawing, many variations come out :) I love learning from life, I hope I never ever stop finding inspiration in the simplest of places.

Gesture paintin'

I'm a-still animatin' away on my film, so I thought I'd post some gesture studies I did from life drawing last semester.

Lookin' back at these, I do actually kinda miss it this term!

I'll definitely try to keep taking life drawing on the side, wherever I end up; it's such great practice for sharpening your drawing technique, and it's also a great way to experiment with styles. Unlike caffe drawing, the models don't move, so it's a great opportunity to take more time to study details.

Back to rough animating I go!

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.

Clownin' around

More watercolour action in life drawing class today....but I'm just gonna post one up. The last pose I did in class, I decided to have more fun with it and here it is! Still workin' on the blending, colours, lighting, etc....but I got a lifetime to perfect it!

It's a watercolour life!

I've been forcing myself to do the last couple weeks of life drawings classes with just my watercolours...it's a challenge, especially with the shorter poses! But it definitely is a very rewarding challenge, I love how painting forces you to slow down more than conte or pencil does...and you have to be constantly thinking about colours, lighting, blending, etc.

Me loves to paint!





Only 2 more life drawing classes....ever! I can't believe that. CrazyNESS!!

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!

To Kill a Mockingbird

Moving forward on tackling the AFI's Top 100 films....I screened To Kill a Mockingbird and did a bit of a longer watercolour study...prob 30 mins-ish. I was focusing more on tones again, but this time I blocked out the structures. I think because of the structure, this turned out better than the Singin in the Rain studies.

I fundamentally enjoyed this film...great acting, surprisingly captivating...definito enjoy-ito.


Gotta love those sweater vests. They never really go out of style, do they?

Set the Tone

This week in Life Drawing, Bobby had us purely focus on tone and shadow - so much so that we had to draw all of our poses ONLY using shapes of the shadows, no linework. Sound easy.....it wasn't! Without blocking in your drawing, things can get out of proportion SO easily unless you concentrate like a crazy monkey. [Don't ask.]

So, call me a crazy monkey, but although it was reeealllllllly challenging, I loved trying to see things more as abstract shapes of tone and shadow and not, 'Oh that's a leg, or an arm, or a shoe,'....I can see how this will definitely help the strength of my drawing skillz if I keep on practicin'!

I tried out what I learned by putting one of my fav films in, Singin in the Rain, and doing a couple quick watercolours by painting tone only. [see below!]




How can you NOT love Gene Kelly??

Drawrings o' life

Here's some more life drawings / caffe sketches from the last couple weeks of life drawing class. We are working on drapery, tone and lighting....and did I mention drawing 2 models is tough!

Once again, I feel the more I learn, the more I need to learn.......the more I want to learn!

I hope that feeling never goes away, 'cause isn't that what life is all about??

Starbucks watercolour

Just practicing my watercolouring skills at the local Starbucks.... trying to build up the facial tones on this gentleman. I like how his face turned out; not so much his suit jacket. Onward and upward!

Sweeney inspired art...

I have been attempting to see [most of] the Oscar nominated films before the big night, and so far so good. Last night we went to see Sweeney Todd, and tonight I watched Surf's Up.

Interestingly enough, the one that inspired me farrrrr more, was the live action one. Sweeney Todd [despite the gore and blood] was so beautiful in its' cinematography, time period, acting and such-fun lyrically genius-esque soundtrack. [Who knew Depp could sing too?]

It inspired me to take out my pastels and get my fingers dirty... and what fun it was! As cool as Photoshop is, it will never replace the tangible feeling of pushing colour around on a thick-toothed stock. I loved this dude [almost as much as Alan Rickman!]... he is so rat-like.

And a few cards I painted today as well... art is so fun without deadlines!

Demo Reel v2 Jan 08

Here's my biggest project over the holidays - rebuilding and updating my current demo reel. I shortened it overall, and cut in some new 3D work, Flash animation & character designs.

It's a constant work in progress, but here is the latest!
[Sorry for the small-ish size - that's blogs for ya!]

More festive paint!

So apparently I sold a few of my painted cards at the store, [yay!] so tonight when Tams and I went out for supper, we chatted about some more idears for Christmas cards, and I did a few quick sketches.

We had so many fun ideas once we got talking! I love Christmas!!

So tonight I took a painting break after working on the never-ending-action-analysis-is-this-term-ever-gonna-end-oh-my-
goodness-gracious-sakes-alive!

Well, happy and merry to all... :)

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!