Good news for the New Year

The Mayoress of Cloud Town

Messing around & preliminary sketches for a new logo.

Recently

It's been a long time since my last post, because I've been working away both at school and in my temporary studio at The Long Haul. I've been using my time at the studio to get back into painting and drawing and as a result I have become a bit obsessed with pattern designing - drawing things by hand and manipulating them in Photoshop... I've been loving trying some things out in that direction. Here are some of the latest results:

(I feel like this last one would be be perfect for gift-wrapping anything in Pee-Wee's Playhouse)

I've always loved hand-lettering and calligraphy so I've been enjoying practicing that too.

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!

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.)

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).

Stack O'Spanish Leather

Shots from a visit to the Centre des Métiers du Cuir de Montréal a couple of weeks ago:

In other news, the unthinkable has happened... I now have a Facebook page! (An artist page)  I don't really know how these things work, I guess you have to "like" me or something. Or maybe you have to "poke" me? I'll be posting more stuff as time goes on, but for now it's somewhere I can post new and old drawings all in one place.

Here's a couple for ya:

Guess how old I is

Birthdayface had a party last week:

Here are some of the collages we made at the party (there are some that were too big to scan, I will try to post them later). You can also see collages from the 26 yr birthday party in 2011 here.

Oh boy oh boy! What nice friends have I.

My friend Lauqua kindly lent me some of her beautiful calligraphy to display here as I was so taken by it:

She was inspired by the calligraphy that she found in this beautiful little gem of a book - a French children's book about deep-sea diving written and illustrated in the '60s, when Cousteau-mania was in full swing.