Christmas Eve

Here is the image I created for the Christmas Eve pamphlet cover at our church. It looks a lot different on my computer than it looks when it's printed. Unfortunately the printout was very dark.

The Three Robbers Part IV

Here is the final scene that I did.

The text:
Dressed in red caps and capes, the children moved into their new house. Stories of the castle spread throughout the land. New children came or were brought each day
to the doorsteps of the three robbers. The children grew until they were old enough to marry. Then they built houses around the castle. A village grew up,
full of people dressed in red caps and capes. These people, in memory of their kind foster fathers, built three tall, high-roofed towers.
One for each of the three robbers.



See
The Three Robbers Part I
The Three Robbers Part II
The Three Robbers Part III

The Three Robbers Part III

This is the third scene I did for the Three Robbers by Tomi Ungerer.
The text:

They made up a soft bed for her in a corner of the cave. And there she slept. The next morning she awoke a find herself surrounded by trunks of glittering riches.

"What is all this for?" she asked. The robbers choked and sputtered. They had never thought of spending their wealth. So to use their treasure they gathered up
all the lost, unhappy, and abandoned children they could find. They bought a beautiful castle where all of them could live.

See:
The Three Robbers Part I
The Three Robbers Part II

The Three Robbers Part II

This is the second scene from the story The Three Robbers.

The text:
But one bitter, black night the robbers stopped a carriage that had but one passenger, an orphan named Tiffany. She was on her way to live with a wicked aunt.
Tiffany was delighted to meet the robbers. Since there was no treasure but Tiffany, the thieves bundled her in a warm cape and carried her away.

Go to:
The Three Robbers Part I

The Three Robbers Part 1

I recently finished an assignment where I had to illustrate a story. I was required to do 4 illustrations for the story "The Three Robbers" by Tomi Ungerer.
Unfortunately, I have handed in the first panel and I have not scanned it in. So here is the first panel that I did in rough.
And here is the text to go with it:

Once upon a time there were three fierce robbers. They went about hidden under large black capes and tall black hats.

The first had a blunderbuss. The second had a pepper-blower. And the third had a huge red axe. In the dark of night they walked the roads, searching for victims.
They terrified everyone. Brave women fainted. Brave men ran. Dogs fled.

To stop carriages, the robbers blew pepper in the horses' eyes. With the axe, they smashed the carriage wheels. And with the blunderbuss, they threatened the passengers and plundered them.

The robbers' hide-out was a cave high up in the mountains. There they carried their loot. They had trunks full of gold, jewels, money, watches, wedding rings, and precious stones.

Stay tuned for the next panel!

Lettuceman

This is an assignment I did in photoshop where I had to experiment with textures. I think my favourite part is the body of the shirt with the buttons.

Worried Rabbit

This is an assignment where I had to create a character in Illustrator. It's probably a strange rabbit because I was just making it up as I went.

Halloween

Here is an assignment where I was supposed to do a self portrait where I was wearing my Hallowe'en costume. However, I did not dress up for Hallowe'en this year so this is a picture of how I would have liked to dress up for Hallowe'en.

The Three Robbers

My latest assignment has been to design the characters for a story called The Three Robbers. The first picture was my first attempt. However, the three robbers didn't seem to have enough in common, so I picked my favourite robber and triplicated him. I think that I like it when the robbers are all similar. What do you think?

Bathing in Colour

This is the colour version of the piece, and I'm quite happy with it. I did it for an assignment about the 4 elements. I chose water because I like the cleansing and spiritual aspects of water.

Bathing

Here's the rough I've done for the illustration. I'm going to refine the shape and spacing of the ripples for the coloured final.

Ugly bug

Here's an ugly bug I drew in pen and ink. It was tedious, but an interesting experiment. I think I could have pushed the black more, but I didn't think it was worth the effort.

Wet Cat

Haven't posted lately because life has just been crazy busy! Here's something that I did earlier this year.

Bird Wash

Here's another variation of the same bird. I'm not sure which one I like better - this one or the last one. I like this one because of its softness and I think it will be easier to scale to a larger size. The last one is perhaps more striking because of its hard shapes. What do you guys think?

Splatter birds

This bird was fun because I enjoyed splattering the paint on it. It's a bit uncontrolled so it's interesting (and a bit worrying) to see where the paint decides to go.

Blue Bird

I’m sticking to the bird theme.  I’m not satisfied with this one, so I think I’ll give it another try later.

Another bird

Aylw was totally right in his comment on my last post - birds are cute and cartoonish. I could have picked a less cute subject, but I like pretty things. To be more specific, I like cute and fat things, so birds fit nicely into those criteria. The picture below is another attempt at being a little less cute. I think I at least succeeded in being less cartoonish than the previous post.

Little red bird

I’ve been studying birds lately because I think they’re beautiful.  I have a tendency to draw in a cute cartoonish style, but this is an attempt to push in a different direction. 

Fairy Godmother

If I had a fairy godmother, she would probably look like this.

Happy Anniversary!

Andrew and I have been married for a spectacular three years (plus one week).

I love my iMac

My iMac just arrived in the mail today and I’ve been playing with it ever since it got here.  I love my iMac.  Never PC again!

It’s done!

I’ve finished Briana’s mural!  I’m really happy with it because it’s perfect for a little girl’s room - pretty, delicate and fun!  And I like how the fancy textures and patterns make it interesting when you look at it close up.

I didn’t put anything on the left side because Briana’s eventually going to put a desk there. I’ve also left some spaces so that Briana’s kids can add their own squirrel to the hole and birds to sit among the branches. 

Send me an email if you would like me to do one for you!

Annual Church Weekend

Here’s the image I made for a pamphlet for St. John’s annual retreat.  I used ink, gouache, and then tweaked it in Photoshop.  I am not a grunge style person, but I think I like it.

Scrabble milestone

I did it!  I used all seven of my letters for a grand total of 89 points!!!  What can I say?  It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Dozing off

This is a little line drawing I did while travelling in Armenia. We really enjoyed our time there because Armenians are much friendlier than Canadians, or really, most other nationalities we’ve encountered in our travels.

I myself haven't been dozing off, although it may seem that way since I've missed a few days. I spent a couple days at The Leadership Summit and learned a lot. It was packed with information and my brain just couldn't absorb much of it by the end of the second day. My biggest take away from the summit was the resolve to start a group at my church to combine art and worship. I've been thinking and planning this group for about 6 months now and have been too much of a coward so far. So this is a big step for me!

The Rain Head

We got a fancy new shower head and we’re loving it!  I really feel like my whole body is being sprinkled on at the same time.  It is so good that it will be hard to enjoy showers anywhere else again. 

Briana’s Mural

A few weeks ago I blogged about helping Briana with her paper art.  Afterwards she went out and chose textured wallpaper for the trunk, and then decided to commission me to do the rest instead of trying to do it herself.

This project has been tons of fun so far!  I took this picture of the pattern I made from newspaper, which I’m super happy with.  We were going to paint the wallpaper brown, but once I’d cut the tree out from the wallpaper, we loved the white so much that we decided not to colour it at all.  Now all I have to do is paste it up on the wall.  I can’t wait until it’s finished because so far it’s turned out even better than I had hoped!

Let the good times roll!

I’d forgotten how much fun it is to go dancing!  We had a really good time dancing away Saturday night.

Let’s make some Vitamin D!

I had a doctor’s check up the other day and it turns out that I’m low in vitamin D.  My doctor suggested that I start taking vitamins, but I HATE taking pills.  So instead of taking her advice I’ve decided that I will start drinking vitamin fortified soy milk and spend more time in the sun.  Apparently the body makes enough of its own vitamin D if I stay outside for 15 minutes in the mid day sun (but this only works during the summer in Canada). Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been cooperating so I haven’t been out much…yet.

Augh! Get them away!

I made my first attempt at gardening this spring.  I bought some tomato plants (which I later found out were way overpriced) and planted them in the backyard.  I go out there every few days to look at them and dream about how marvelous the tomatoes will be. 

Today I was horrified to find hundreds of tiny white bugs that look like flecks of dust ALL OVER all 4 tomato plants.  Well there just isn’t enough tomato plant for all of us so they’re just going to have to go!

Think Tank

Here’s the final painting!  I did a first pass in watercolour but it looked washed out, so I went out to the store and bought myself a whole set of gouache.  It turns out that I LOVE gouache!!

While I was at the store, I also bought myself an Incredible Nib to apply the masking fluid.  Previous to the Nib, I was using a toothpick to apply masking fluid because I didn’t want to ruin my brushes. 
Toothpicks suck.  The Incredible Nib, however, is totally amazing!  I even used it to paint the straight lines with a ruler.

You can click on the picture for a closer view. 

Fly problem

We’ve been experiencing a bit of a fly problem for the past few weeks.  I think it comes from leaving the front door open all day to let the work crew walk in and out.

It gives me great satisfaction when I am able to whack them right out of the air!  I get quite a bit of practice because there’s just so many of them.

Under the weather

I try to post something every other day, but I haven’t been feeling great lately.  I slept half the day away yesterday so today I’m feeling much better.

Bathroom decor

After I posted the picture of the houses, I was commissioned to make a similar painting to decorate the wall of a powder room. This time the theme is toilets!

I often find it difficult to choose a colour scheme, and this one is especially difficult because I have to match the colours that are already in the room. So I made a quick sketch in Illustrator to plan it out.

Here's my first crack at it:

I didn't like it, so I created 7 more. She liked the one below because of the strong red floor.

I played with it some more until I liked the colours...

But I found it was still too plain, so I added more details and more colours. Now if she approves the design, I’ll start painting!

How I love figure drawing!

I just started attending life drawing at a new place and I enjoyed myself a lot.  The model stayed soooooooo still and for so long that it boggled my mind.  This painting took me about 45 minutes and she didn’t want to take even one break.  Even the artists were getting up and stretching more often than she did.

Windy day

Any day could be a lucky day.  Today is looking pretty good so far…

My effort at Less is More

I’m trying to learn from Ben Tour and his loose way with paint.  I like the way he splashes things around and makes it look so easy.  I’m still a long way off as you can see, but at least (I think) I can see progress!

The BIG renovation

My parents are doing renovations.

Andrew’s new iPhone

Andrew is obsessed with his new little toy.  He pulls it out every two seconds to play with it and he likes to give me regular updates on what he’s discovered every hour or two.  But it’s ok because I think it’s kind of endearing. 

Cottaging Doodle

I don’t know where this came from.  Really I think I was just stuck inside the cottage for too long and this is the result of it.  I think the dog has a strong Chinese influence to it though.  The dog is the part I like – the guy didn’t turn out so great.  Normally I don’t do anything in pencil & pencil crayon but I forgot my palette at home.  Duh.

Bored

  Have you ever felt zombie-bored?

Cottaging

We spent the past few days up at the cottage and unfortunately it rained the whole time.  I didn’t leave the cottage once while we were there because of the rain and the mosquitos.  I did, however, help to make dinner by cutting onions.  I wish I had prescription safety goggles for such occasions, but instead I just cry.

Box Cover

I have this huge ugly cardboard box sitting on my shelf in my studio and I can’t stand it.  But it’s the perfect size, so I don’t want to replace it.  So here is the cover that I made for it.

Housing Research Results

I’ve been comparing the performance of schools around Yonge & Finch and have discovered that there are some REALLY poor performing schools.  We were so surprised that we started to look in other areas that have better schools around it.

After spending so long looking at school statistics I pulled out the pastels and drew this picture.  I’ve only used pastels a couple of times before so I’m pleased that this drawing isn’t hideous.  I thought that I hated pastels, but this was actually a fun experiment.

House hunting

This is a super exciting for me because we have started house hunting!!  We’re not in any rush to buy anything but we just went out with a real estate agent to take a look around and see what we can afford.  I’m so obsessed with houses at the moment that all I watch are house makeovers on the Home & Garden TV channel.

My husband is a computer genius

 
I am so proud of Andrew because he’s so good at what he does, and he’s getting the recognition for it.  He’ll be starting his new job in a couple of weeks and I’m so excited for him, especially because it feels like his team is rolling out the red carpet.  Congrats Honey!!!