recent sketchbook activity - characters

sketches of bottles

inspiring interview

I just read a really good interview with illustrator Carson Ellis over at 7 Impossible Things. I've been in love with her beautiful pen, ink, gouache and graphite illustrations for a while now as well as her gift for telling stories with her images. Her style is clean and simple yet detailed and delicate. I recently read Dillweed’s Revenge: A Deadly Dose of Magic and was so impressed by the balance between words and pictures. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a well illustrated picture book with an unconventional story. You can read the interview here.

recent sketchbook activity - boys

letterpress print by meg hunt

I just got the most fantastic delivery from the postman. A few weeks ago, I finally ordered a letterpress print from Meg Hunt that I had been coveting for a while. It arrived today!



It was really fun to open the package and not only find her lovely print, but also a few unexpected bits. She threw in a hand written note as well as some business cards with her beautiful work on them. Thanks Meg!



I've been a fan of Meg's unique and vibrant illustrations for a long time. I can't wait to frame this and put it up in my studio.

bowl of soup thank you card - final

bowl of soup thank you card

Last summer I had an idea to make a Get Well Soon card where the letters in a bowl of soup spelled out the message. I did several sketches in my sketchbook, but I never actually got around to painting it. This past winter I revived the idea, but made it into a Thank You card. I recently painted a version of it in my sketchbook, where I'm still experimenting with colored pencils.

I'll post the final version tomorrow. Until then, here's some of the process:

website buttons

I made these buttons the other day for my website.

steam clock print

This is the beautiful photo that I mentioned in the previous post. I got it from Vancouver based photographer, Tracey Ayton, in a recent art trade:



It was really hard to chose as Tracey has so many beautiful photos, but I'm really happy with it. I think it's such a nice image and that it will look great framed in our living room. You can read Tracey's post about our trade here.

family portrait

A couple of weeks ago I posted a glimpse of a portrait I had done. That piece was part of a trade that I did with Vancouver based photographer, Tracey Ayton. Her website is full of really beautiful photographs. You should definitely take a look.

Here is the entire portrait of Tracey, her husband and her dog, followed by some photos I took of the painting process:



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I had wanted to post an image of the beautiful photo I got from Tracy, but my camera batteries are dead. You'll just have to wait :)