waving lady

Jane, le renard et moi

Jane, le renard et moi by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, published by La pastèque, was released last fall.  It's a beautiful graphic novel about a young girl who is bullied at school and finds refuge in the pages of Jane Eyre.

I loved the story as well as the illustrations.  Each spread was so beautifully handled that it was hard to choose which ones to share in this post.  Most of the book is black and white and colour is only added for effect. Take a look...

spaghetti haired girl

Remember this game? The sketch below used the words: light, baseball cap and spaghetti. The colours on the right were unrelated experiments.

family portrait commission - final art (3 of 3)

family portrait - painting progress (2 of 3)

Stay tuned for the final art tomorrow!

family portrait commission - sketches (1 of 3)

Here are some of the preliminary sketches for a family portrait that I worked on last fall...

Tomorrow I'll post some progress shots of the final painting as it came together.

one more ornate frame

alice au pays des merveilles

I had been coveting this book for a very long time and finally treated myself to it just recently.  It's a gorgeous, hardcover,  French edition of Alice in Wonderland, beautifully illustrated by Rébecca Dautremer, and published by Gautier Languereau.

I first became aware of the art of Rébecca Dautremer while traveling in Europe a couple of years ago. Her work is smooth, luminous and highly detailed.  I'm usually not a big fan of more realistic illustrations, but Rébecca's work is so beautiful and luminous that I'm completely taken in by it. I especially admire her use of colour, negative space and composition. As you'll see in some of the photos below, the way she chose to crop her images is absolutely brilliant.

Considering how many lovely versions of this particular story are already in existence, I find it really impressive that Rébecca was able to provide a unique take on it. 

You can see more of her wonderful illustrations here. I also found these videos of her painting images for this books here and here.

more ornate frames

a peek inside my home - the bathroom

My husband and I bought a house last summer and we just finished a small bathroom reno.

Wanna see?

marshmallow soup (2 of 2)

When the art director for Ladybug magazine contacted me about doing an illustration for them, she was looking for a very specific image. She wanted a little boy in a chef's hat and apron dropping marshmallows into a cup of hot chocolate.  

I began by doing sketches of little boys' faces.  Once I had one that I was happy with, I played around with different compositions, keeping in mind that there needed to be a space for the text.  The art director initially wanted a full body view of the little boy, but after trying a few different compositions, I found that a close up of his upper body and face worked best.  She agreed.