Illustration Friday - Grow

Kleenex is the new paintbrush

A while ago I found myself hunting through Loomis with Laura and couldn't resist buying some new coloured inks. Ever since I discovered these inks as an alternative to watercolour, I've been in love with them. You get intense, bright colours with all the translucent fun of watercolour. That day I picked up these gorgeous basic colours – Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.

Then, a few weeks ago I made a mix cd and needed covers for a bunch of copies. For a quick but pretty solution, I chose to go with mass-production (photocopying a drawing) + customization (hand-colouring each one). As I sat down to ink them in, I suddenly remembered that all of my brushes were at work. Hmmm, how could I get the ink on there? I'm not sure why this was my first impulse, but I grabbed a kleenex, squirted some ink on it and started painting away. It turned out to be the perfect tool for achieving that happy, swirly, dreamy summer sky I wanted.

Illustration Friday – Geeky

On Saturday I wanted to go to the beach. Also on my to do list for the day was Illustration Friday – Geeky. I thought, great, there will be lots of geeky people at the beach I can draw! Hmmm. Turns out that really, sincerely geeky people don't hang out at the beach so much. Not at Sunset Beach anyway. So I spent the day looking around wondering, could she be geeky? Is he a geek? Are they doing something that could be considered geeky in any way at all? So here I present for consideration, a compendium of things that may or may not be geeky beach activities. You decide.

Illustration Friday – Twist

My new favourite place

I was lucky enough to spend May long weekend on Quadra Island with two lovely girls and nothing to do but eat (veggie-chili-huevos rancheros, black bean burgers with mango salsa, sweet potato spoon bread), drink (whiskey sours, whiskey in coffee, porters, wine with mango), read (To Kill a Mockingbird – for the first time), reconnect with Mookie the dog, admire the cabin's collections of curious things, explore the beach and run through the trees, and... draw!

27 Collage

I've been meaning to post this for ages – a collage I made for Erin's birthday card last month. More to come...

Illustration Friday – Communication

Last weekend I was lucky enough to see and hear Ruthie Foster perform at the Alix Goolden hall in Victoria. It was incredible. She had this huge smile that never left her face, communicating along with her voice. Near the end, she said "I don't know about y'all, but I've had myself a good time!" Me too! This is an attempt to represent what it was like to be there listening to her – warmth, joy, power, everything offered up with such intensity.

Illustration Friday – Gravity

I feel like this is just the beginning of getting this idea out... but here it is. I developed a habit of drawing people on the bus during my morning commute. After a while, I realized many of the same people were showing up in my sketchbook, those I take the same bus with every day, and I started to feel less anonymous and therefore more afraid of getting caught! The solution? Draw people who are sleeping! And the sleeping ones are most affected by the perils of gravity on the lurching bus. I'd love to have a whole pile of them unintentionally intruding on each others' space, spilling out in every direction...

Illustration Friday – Crash

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As Darryl's been working night shifts, he often crashes at odd times, usually while wearing a shoes and a coat. And sometimes, even though I'm in the middle of making dinner, I join him for a few minutes.

Dear blog – be my valentine?

I've been so horribly neglectful of you, for six whole months – sad and lonely months for you, I'm sure. But now, with Valentine's day coming up tomorrow, I can't bear to ignore you for another day. I'm pledging my everlasting love and making a commitment to spend some quality time with you at least once a week. I promise. Because I love you blog, even though I haven't always been the best at showing it.

Luckily, I have a friend to help me stick to this new commitment. Illustration Friday. Here is my belated response to last week's Sprout theme.