Last Post 'Til Next Year

This afternoon I'm doing my '2013 In Review' exercise, looking through agendas and sketchbooks to remember important events and just reflect on the days of the year that was.

Above all, this year has been, for me, a time of very stimulating and exciting creative growth. I was especially inspired by my summer in Newfoundland, and I'm hopefully going to be returning again next summer. Though this year wasn't as explosively eventful or ground-shaking as 2012 (though that's probably a good thing...), 2013 for me was about steady, progressive building and exercising enough patience and diligence to see a project through. I think I matured a lot professionally.

Keeping up this blog in a regular way has been very useful in many ways, and though I don't know if anyone else actually looks at it occasionally, but if they do, I hope they enjoy it.

Here are some last few drawings to round out 2013 - and bring on 2014!

Comix in Classez

I haven't posted in a while, but here's something I made up while taking notes in class:

Crazy 'Bout Ribbins & Hosiery Too

From a 1919 ribbon craft catalogue found in my school's library.

 

(I would be extremely surprised if any of these mills still existed. I imagine they must have provided at least some economic support to those small towns.)

And some other textile mills and machinery that have gone the way of the small-town American ribbon factory (from this book):

All Bundled Up

This week's drawing!

Because the cold weather has now descended upon us, I've taken to the refuge of my overly large cozy granny sweaters, so this drawing is in that spirit.

And this week's inspiration -  today I borrowed a lovely little library book about 18th and 19th century wallpapers published by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The wallpapers are from the Réveillon Royal Manufactory and their successors, the Jacquemart & Bernard Manufactory.

(Trend forecast: Wallpaper is coming straight back - from 1781.)

After Maira Kalman

This week I thought I'd share images of my collection of small boxes and tins collected from here and there. The title of this post refers to a passage in this book (I highly recommend any work by Maira Kalman that you can find).

This Week's Inspirational - part 2

From 'The Arabian Nights - Stories retold by Amabel Williams-Ellis' (1957). The illustrations are by Pauline Diana Baynes. (click to make bigger).

Fun In Weird Hotels With Giant Fish

My friend Adam and I went on a photo-hunting adventure last weekend. Here are a few shots, but you can view the whole series over here on his blog, Montreal Street Life.

Click on the link above, the pictures will BLOW YOU AWAY.

I've also been doing some pencil drawings of algae, jellyfish and other cool organic shape-shifting thingies. I gave some of them names that sort of seemed to fit their personality.

This Week's Inspirationals

Here are some images from library books that I've borrowed and been delighted by:

I was quite happy to find that my school library had Worlds in a Small Room, a series of beautiful photographs by Irving Penn, taken in his portable travelling studio. His photographs always amaze me. You can see more images from the book here.

"Photographing a cake can be art" —Irving Penn.^[12