some fun mail arrived today

It's the invitation I illustrated for our friends in Switzerland. I'm not sure why it looks so yellow in this photo. It's actually printed on shimmery cream colored paper and looks lovely in person.

sketchbook activity

Someone once told me:
"If everything in your sketchbook looks good, you're doing it wrong."
I'm trying to keep that in mind as I experiment with media that I'm less familiar with.

library love / here comes the garbage barge!

I recently got a library card and have been having the best time signing out tons of children's books. I can't believe I've gone without one for so long! There are so many books, especially picture books, that I've read about over the years and wanted to take a look at. I have a pretty decent sized collection myself, but I can't afford to buy every book that I'm curious about. It's been really great to poor through so many fantastic books.

One such book is Here Comes the Garbage Barge! by Jonah Winter. The illustrations are by Red Nose Studio, one of my favorite illustrators, and he did an amazing job on this, his first picture book. Great characters, colors, compositions, hand drawn type...

I was checking out his blog today and saw a really cool video about how he created the images for the book. I love glimpses at other illustrator's process, and I especially enjoy his since it's so drastically different from my own. Check it out here.

today i played with colored pencil and water color

work/life 2 video

Check out this video, a preview of the Work/Life 2 Book, on the Uppercase Blog. At 00:15, in the bottom right corner of the screen, that's a photos of me sketching, and the spiral bound sketchbook with the drawing of buildings and the coffee stains is mine too :)

It looks like it's going to be a beautiful book - I can't wait to see it.

education

Although this piece is mostly hand done, there are some digital elements. I'm enjoying the contrast between the digital and the hand drawn. Any thoughts?

what I'm working on...

6 boxes of paint, brushes, pastels, pencil crayons, paper, canvas...

When my husband and I decided to go traveling a couple of years ago, my parents were kind enough to store our stuff for us. Since our return, when ever a member of my family comes to the city, they bring a load of our stuff. A couple of days ago I got my drawing table and the last of my art supplies so today was spent unpacking, cleaning and putting everything away. It feels really good to have a clean, fully stocked studio. Can't wait to get to work in the morning :)

I also spent some time tonight tweaking the design of my blog. Nothing drastic, but I think it looks much better now.

one of my favorite travel quotes:

I've been finishing up some loose ends in my 3rd and final travel journal, things like coloring in letters that I had drawn but hadn't had time to finish, gluing in some bits of paper, filling in a map with all the places that we visited... I've already posted some pages from my first 2 journals (here, here and here; and here, here and here), but because it wasn't finished I haven't posted anything from this one.

I'm also trying to scan my travel journals so that I can have a section just for them on my website. I'll let you know when I get it done.

erin boake

© Erin Boake

Calgary based painter and good friend of mine, Erin Boake, recently started a blog. Check it out. You can also see more of her work here.