october update

I just got back to Calgary on Friday night after being away for a week. I went to my home town in north-east Saskatchewan to visit my family. It felt so good to leave the city and spend a few relaxing days out in the country. I also got to spend some time with my nephew, who's a year and a half, and that was something I really enjoyed.

Prior to leaving on my road trip, I had the occasion to spend an evening sketching at Mike Kerr and Renata Liwska's new studio in Art Central. In all the chaos of moving and renovating and unpacking and working, sketching for pleasure is something that has gone by the wayside the last few months. It felt really good to get back into it. Also in attendance were Carolyn Fisher and Byron Eggenschwiler. Mike took some photos:

I drew a bunch of little heads in my sketchbook. I was trying to play with different ways of making facial features, but in the end I fell back into my comfort zone. The only one I really ended up liking was the man in the bottom center with the handlebar mustache.

Mike has a small moleskine sketchbook where he's done some sketch paintings. You can rip out one of his if you make a sketch of your own. Mike's sketches are amazing so it was pretty intimidating, but I loved the idea of take-a-sketch-leave-a-sketch so I went for it. But first I had to practice in my own sketchbook...

Mike has photos of the swap on his blog if anyone is interested. I love the little zombie gnome painting that I ended up with :)

In book news, Bye, Bye, Butterflies! got a really good review in CM Magazine. You can click here to read it.

One more thing that I forgot to mention previously is that I'm going to be teaching in extended studies at ACAD once again. This time around I'll be teaching an illustration class. After a two and a half year hiatus, I'm really excited to get back into teaching again.

some ladies from my sketchbook

book trailer for bye, bye, butterflies!

review for word on the street

A few weeks ago I posted a link to a review of my picture book on my illustration facebook page, but I wanted to mention it here too. It was by a five year old girl for Word on the Street. It's a really good review and her thoughts on my illustrations for question #4 made my day.

To answer her question, 'How come some of the butterflies look like magazine pieces and not real butterflies?'  I just really like layering textures in my images and thought it was a good way to depict different kinds of butterflies.

There's also an interview with the author of the book, Andrew Larsen, here.

my origami for spider magazine

Here's an illustration that I did for the September 2012 issue of Spider Magazine.

my latest promo postcard

I sent this puppy out to potential clients in the children's market back in early July.

home sweet home

This is our new house! We took possession of it just over a month ago and have been renovating and slowly moving in ever since. We're so happy to be in a house again. It's not big or fancy, but it's absolutely perfect for us. And there's enough bedrooms for me to have an entire room as my studio. I'm still getting it set up, but I'll take some photos of it once I'm finished.

press

Here's a link to some press for my picture book from Publisher’s Weekly and in the Waterloo Record.

recent commission - the silk road building in calgary

painting process

Here's how one of the illustrations from Bye, Bye, Butterflies! looked at different levels of completion:

(Sorry about the yellow tone on some of the photos.  I wasn't using the best camera and didn't always have the best light).