Watercolour Silhouette

I've been toying with some ideas on how I can combine my love of watercolour with some digital work. I really should be planning and packing but when I have a few moments to spare, I do little things like this.

This is my eldest daughter's silhouette done with a bit of the watercolour backgrounds I've been playing with. The watercolour background was scanned and I did a little bit of colour adjusting. The illustration was created in Photoshop.

I'd love to hear any feedback whether you like it or if it's not your cup of tea. Tips to improve, etc. I am planning to explore this style a touch more and have some ideas for other portraits and objects.

Christmas Card Archive

I cannot tell you how awesome it is to be married to my tech support. The old Mac was located, plugged in and on the network shortly after I requested we try to look for it. Booyah!

So, I went through my old cards and had a good laugh at a few but mostly reminisced and noted my growing skill and changing tastes. Let's take a walk through memory lane, shall we?

2008
The first Christmas that our kidlet doesn't sleep through it and is able to open presents. It must have been the excitement of a kid-oriented Christmas that gave me temporary amnesia and made me think we could get a really good family picture. We took the picture ourselves with a timer on our camera and the outtakes are priceless. We have pics with Dad barely in the shot, the kid melting down, Mom rolling her eyes or giving the stink eye. Many where someone is half way to blinking thereby looking stoned. The only way to keep the kid amused was to cheer which is why the hubs has his mouth wide open. This picture was the best of the lot and not too shabby now that I look back.

I had been doing a lot of Christmas doodles and added them to the foreground. Kind of busy, but very festive.

2007
The only year since 2001 I bought manufactured cards. By the time I needed to get them prepped and mailed out I had just finished the birth announcements and was still trying to figure out my 8 week old baby. 

2006
We're pre-first child, spending our Christmas in our first house and I have oodles of free time. I took a picture with our timer, grunged the picture up a bit and chose a grunge-script font.

2005
One of my favourite cards. I took a picture of us then took my time illustrating the card. I love this illustration style and I think I'm going to do more of it for the next little while.

2004
As I recall I was very, very busy at work and left my card design to the very last minute. I wasn't really feeling the Christmas spirit yet so I took a quick picture of our hands and threw it on with some snowflakes. I do like the combination of red and light blue.

2003
I created a quick and simple illustration of us this year. This was the last year I printed it myself on our home printer. I may have a hardcopy somewhere, but that would take some major excavation to uncover it. Just imagine it being printed on a cream, slightly shiny pearl paper. It sparkled a bit and was very pretty.

2002
This one actually cracks me up a little. I printed it at home and for some reason I thought a really small card was perfect. It was tiny like those itsy, bitsy cards that are attached to gift bags. Somewhere around 3"x3" folded. I have a picture of us taken before we went to a friends wedding that past summer then added illustrations and scans from bits of origami paper. Same batch of stuff I used in my Sketchbook Project.

2001
This one also makes me laugh. It was our first Christmas together and I think it was at the peak of the web cam fad. I took a bunch of web cam pictures of us, made them black and white then printed it on oatmeal coloured kraft paper. Again, a hard copy is kicking around but who knows where. I remember taking gold, sliver and black marker and illustrating twinkling Christmas lights around the card.

It was a lot of fun going through these old cards and remembering the process of each card and design. I'm looking forward to many more years of cards.

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2009 & 2010 Christmas Cards

I originally wanted to post a retrospective of all the cards I've done since around 2001 but that entails digging out my old Mac that may or may not be packed, locating my files (uh, and perhaps backing them up while I'm at it) and copying, etc. etc. I'm usually more organized but I'm going to blame this on having two instead of one child and being in the early stages of moving. My husband just read this and said "uh, huh....." Ok, fine. AND I procrastinate.

Anyhoo... Let's start with what I happen to have on my laptop at the moment. 2009 and 2010 cards!

I had a lot more time to create my 2009 card. The sweet angel on the top of the card was still in daycare and I was on mat leave. I wanted to do something cute, a little campy and a combination of illustration and photography. The only irony of the card is that I made my little girl an angel. She was two at the time and I don't think I need to explain this point any further.

 

Christmas 2009. 8.5 months pregnant at the time so Mrs. Claus opted for head shots only.

I applaud anyone who can get a normal looking full family picture without using a professional photographer and tranquilizers. My family does not fall into that category. Some of the best (or only available) head shots of each person in a hand drawn frame over a scan of a watercolour piece I painted.

Christmas 2010. Merry Christmas mug shots with bows.

If I don't put the others up before Christmas I will post them shortly after. This is the first of several posts on card designs I plan on doing. I have some birth announcements and wedding invites in my archives.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

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Handmade Ornaments

Last Christmas I decided to continue with my hand sewn felt adventures. Between my maternity leave and daycare overlap before Christmas holidays I had most of the day to myself. I wanted to stay busy but needed to spend a chunk of it sitting down because I was so very, very pregnant and uncomfortable. I picked up a few supplies and used leftovers I accumulated from other projects to sew about half a dozen star ornaments from a tutorial I found online at The Purl Bee.

I changed it up a little bit. I chose two shades of felt, red floss and opted for a blanket stitch. The beading was a new thing for me but I enjoyed learning and there was no right or wrong when arranging the beads. Turned out pretty well and I hang them on our wreath at the front door.

 

Judge a Sketchbook by its Cover

I had a ton of ideas for the cover but saved it for last since I kept changing my mind. I created a book of 'it'. I like that it's a bit perplexing, having only the word 'it' on the cover. Perplexing makes me take a book off the shelf and open it. Once you open the book there's a spread with the second word of my subject matter 'must' and then on the next spread 'be'.

For the front and back cover I covered it with a quick wash of neon pink, a colour I've used many times in the sketchbook. The pink is accompanied with a light blue for contrast and just because I like blue. I covered the background with a line pattern I love.

The sketchook of it. Like your cousin it. 

The inside cover and initial page has another wash of watercolour but this time it's in a more subtle purple. I added another line pattern I love. The word 'MUST' is in chunky letters with patterns over a wash of several colours.

Pattern, pattern pattern.

The next spread has a small illustration from every page or spread of the sketchbook and the word 'be' over some origami paper I glued down.

Compilation and found paper.

The inside back cover has a simple 'this must be the end' text on one side and the decorated pocket with bio on the other.

Bio is hiding. She's shy.

The bio is from a sheet of watercolour experiments I was doing. This one looked like a kimono so I went with it and added a bit of ink for definition.

Bio's out and she's awfully pretty.

I'm not one for lengthy bios. I made this one more of a thank you for viewing my sketchbook and communicating my gratitude for this project which has brought me a lot of fun and inspiration.

The blog addy is on there in case anyone wants to add to my current hubby and mother readership.

Outside back cover is simply the extension of the hot pink wash and line pattern.

 

Now bio's just hogging the camera.

In the Beginning

I think I stated here that I wasn't necessarily going to post my sketchbook drawings in any kind of order. While finishing up, taking pictures, adjusting in Photoshop and adding to my Picassa site, I realized I had a few pages I hadn't posted yet. I think it was probably because they weren't as strong as some of the other ones but in time they are growing on me. They're also an example of my thought process for this sketchbook in the beginning. Starting with just what popped into my head or what was going on around me.

 

Laundry or sketchbook. Sketching about laundry won out. Watercolour and Ink. 

Laundry theme continues with the sniff test and stray socks. Origami paper, marker and pencil.

Using the bleed through to my benefit with another sock and sniff test. Magazine clippings, marker and Origami paper.

This post is about the beginning of the sketchbook but I'm nearing the very end of the process. I am literally just double checking any glued bits for reinforcement and then this suckah is DONE and ready to ship back to Brooklyn. I can tell I'm already going into a bit of withdraw because I'm considering how to decorate my shipping envelope.

 The End.

Loosening the belt already

A few years back we decided not to travel to visit family for Christmas. I was looking forward to baking but soon realized that baking = eating and when you only have 2 adults in the house and your three different cookie recipes make 2 dozen cookies each that is a lot of eating. Once we bought our house, met our lovely neighbours and had kids I discovered that holidays now mean gifting with edible treats. I made the mistake one year of baking and then we were gifted with copious amounts of treats. There was so much we had to freeze quite a bit and save it for later. I can only be so glutinous. I have now learned to only make my favourite, Almond Roca, for gifts and a little extra left over and let everyone else supply us with baking.

Needless to say this status update struck a nerve and I had to whip up a quick illustration.

Oh the eating I have to look forward to! Watercolour & Ink.

Where, indeed

Text reads "It's a sad day when you realize all of a sudden the sun is gone, you're sitting in the dark, still in your PJ's doing homework at 5pm. Where did the day go?"

I guess I'd currently define myself as a SAHM (Stay at home mother). As many other mom's can relate to, I often can't believe it's time to make the next meal because I could swear I just made and cleaned up the last one. Before you know it, it's bedtime, then mom's wine time and then we start the next day all over again. Sidenote: Dooce used to call herself a SAHM (Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker) and you have no idea how many times, since reading that, I have nearly blurted that out when the 'what do you do' conversation comes up.

Watercolour & Ink

Albino Rain

This is a bit of a random post. I have two sketchbook spreads ready to blog about but they don't have much in common other than being from the Facebook portion of my sketchbook. I like the combination of the names in my title... Albino Rain. I think I may lock that away in the memory bank for inspiration later.

 

Sweet, sweet, Rhino lovin'. Watercolour & Ink

Second rain themed post & sketch. Watercolour & Ink

Young Love

Is there anything better than young love? I'm in my 30's with two kids but I can still remember the gut wrenching intensity of first love. When I was a teenager (back in the olden days), we didn't have cell phones or the internet, let alone texting and facebook. We just talked on the phone ENDLESSLY. Remember those days, internet peeps of the same era? Lengthy phone conversations are a lost art.

I read this person's post, who happens to be a teenager, and was flooded with memories of sneaking away and, er, holding hands at the library, ahem, cough.

Young, hipster love. Watercolour & Ink

'Tis the season to be crabby... fa la la la

There's a little tradition that was started around our house a few years ago. On December 1st we officially kick off the Christmas season by opening some small presents. These presents are specifically Christmas style gifts like an ornament or a chachki. This year my oldest daughter is finally able to help make cookies so I have plans to make a simple sugar cookie recipe and add red and green sprinkles. Once the kids are tucked in I'm going to watch my favourite holiday movie, Love Actually. This should help everyone get excited for the big day and warm our hearts a little.

Nothing can ruin Christmas for me faster than a busy shopping mall. I am trying to avoid them at all costs this year. This facebook post had me saying 'Word, brotha' out loud so of course I had to illustrate it.

Happy December 1st!

"I love Christmas but I hate shopping mall crowds" Watercolour & Ink

That Mouse is Gangsta

I've been following the adventures and struggles of someone's mouse-catching story on Facebook. It seems to have followed the average arc of soap opera-style drama.

- A discovery was made
- The matriarch was informed and a plan was hatched
- Through trial and error the perpetrator was caught and vengeance was had

In all honesty this person handled the critter spotting and catching with a lot more humour and grace than I would have. I have a real thing for bugs or critters in my house. That thing being 'nearly loose my sh*t and call hubs to take care of said problem'.

Throughout the status updates I always imagined this really tough mouse that was too smart for the average trap or was organizing the troops with distractions. This mouse was truly Gangsta.
Watercolour & Ink.

Filling up the Sketchbook

The Facebook section has dominated my sketchbook. It's been the easiest section when it comes to generating ideas. Makes sense, I suppose. There's a constant stream of new material and all I have to do is find, edit and then draw.

BFN!! Watercolour & Ink.

This is actually the Facebook post that started it all. No idea what the reason was for this person to post this message and it got me thinking and theorizing and I kept picturing a door being slammed and the sound of feet stomping up the stairs. It helps that the post was written in ALL CAPS. Yelling too, it seems.

Really wish I could have magically switched places with this person for the evening. Instead I decided to drink wine and paint. Watercolour & Ink.

I am not a fan of brussel sprouts. I have called them mini farts, so when I saw this post, I knew the brussel sprouts had to be accusing each other of letting one rip. Watercolour & Ink.

Zombies, anyone?

What mom can't relate to feeling like a zombie some days? This was a facebook post (from a mom) and I can relate. I put my own perspective on this illustration by adding two little jumping silly bean kids, so alive and raring to go in the morning. My mom-zombie (mombie, perhaps?) feeling was driven home more clearly by the recent time change.

Speaking of zombies... I am becoming obsessed. The new series The Walking Dead on AMC is my new Sunday night indulgence, now that Mad Men is over for another season. Have you seen it? Do you love it?? If you're joining my obsession, there is a great essay on this series and comparative zombie analysis on Cinesnark's blog. Enough with the vampires already, let's talk about zombies!

Watercolour and Ink... and sleep deprivation.

Washing & Brushing

I love these two observation and confession updates. The sharing of information in Facebook statuses can be cathartic, funny and TMI. The stranger the better for my illustrations.

No matter how often Larry scrubbed and dried, he was still covered in a slimy film. Watercolour & Ink.

Squeaky clean and minty fresh. Watercolour & Ink.

A big ball of stress

I know that I need to learn to chill and that I should take change in stride. My 'worst case scenario' thoughts are a coping mechanism in which I theorize if I can handle the worst possible outcome of a situation, maybe it won't happen. I think that makes me a pessimist.

Deciding to move is stressful. There's a moment or two of relief once the decision is made until the reality of ALL THE WORK that goes into the process sets in. Moving across the country in my mid twenties with my boyfriend was easier and exciting. We had so much less stuff and could pack all night long if we wanted to. Now, with 2 small kids who can't skip a meal or skip naps, moving is so much more complicated.

I created this illustration quite a while ago from someone's Facebook update. It very easily sums up my current feelings.

Stress dude is not a happy camper. He hasn't slept well in months and his T-shirt is too small. Watercolour & Ink.

Facebook + Sketchbook = Fun

There is an almost euphoric state when an illustration works. From brain to paper things click perfectly in place. These are the illustrations I like the most. They were instant ideas, an easy process and fun to do.

Does this sirloin make my hips look slender? Watercolour, Ink & Clippings.

Hopefully the peanuts didn't give the jam a hard time. Watercolour & Ink.

The virus is a bully. He should really partake in some anger management classes. Watercolour & Ink.

Facebook Inspiration

I've collected a real eclectic assortment of status updates. They vary from observances to gripes to confessions. I start the process by checking my Facebook page to see what people have been saying. I copy and paste the ones that spark some interest. When the kids are down for the evening I review my collected notes and pick a few that I think might work well. Sometimes I sketch in another book to see if my idea will work, other times I just go right into it and start painting.

A pink tracksuit. Wonder if she was on her way to somewhere special, like bingo. Watercolour and ink.

While I'm off of the Timmie's myself, I do appreciate the uniquely Canadian understanding of what a double-double is and what it means to NEED one. Watercolour and ink.

The cream and sugar are making plans.

Is complaining about the weather uniquely Canadian too? Ink.

What's on your mind?

Been plugging away on my sketchbook, feeling inspired by a new subject. Before I go into more detail I need to confess something. I am fairly addicted to Facebook. Twitter is growing on me, but Facebook is usually the first site I check during breakfast. My favourite part of checking the site has to be the status updates. They are mini journal entries, confessions, blog posts and little windows into what's going on in someone's life. I love getting a good chuckle from someone's status that is part geeky and part confessional.

I've often day dreamed about the imagery that goes along with some of the wackier updates and so I decided to make this a new section of my sketchbook. I've been collecting some of my favourite status updates and tweaking the wording on a few.

It must be... what's on your mind.

Title page begins like a Facebook conversation. Watercolour and ink.

Knights in shining armor have to work night shifts too. Janitorial work, or maybe data entry. Watercolour, Pencil Crayon and ink.

On another kind of status update, we have decided to pack up and move across the country. Nearly as across as you can get... Ontario to BC. I'm committed and determined to finishing my sketchbook and mailing it back in time. I'm going to be writing as many posts as I can in bulk and posting them using the scheduled posting feature. (Man, I love that feature.) That way I won't be MIA for months.

To say things are going to be busy around here is a massive understatement. The due date for the sketchbook is January 1st. Our house will be on the market soon so prepping and showing will take a great deal of time. We will be moving as quickly or as slowly as it takes for our house to sell. Halloween is just around the corner and Christmas is really only a few weeks away. Did I just freak you out? I just freaked myself out.

Sweet Dreams

After the Summer theme ended in my sketchbook, I started on Sweet Dreams. Sweet being not so much sweet as a little on the scary side. Sleep has been a bit of an issue at this house. I'm sure it is with all parents, especially parents of multiple kids. When one is sound asleep, the other is restless and if both are sound asleep it's likely that I'm not sleeping well because I'm expecting someone to wake up. Sleeping more lightly tends to result in some pretty messed up dreams. Vivid as hell and sometimes frightening.

 Sweet Dreams title page. Pen.

Starting this section reminded me of the most vivid bad dream I can remember from my childhood. There were balls of tangled string gliding down tight strings and coming towards me like they were going to catch me. In retrospect that sounds pretty lame for a scary dream but for some reason it was terrifying at the time. It made an impression because I can still clearly see these balls of chaos.

 Chaos and anxiety balls. Pen.

Thinking about my childhood dreams brought me to my next sketch. My oldest daughter often wakes up in the middle of the night and comes into our room. Sometimes she's scared, sometimes she just needs a cuddle. She used to sleep 10-12 hours straight so I often wonder what could be making her wake up. Perhaps it's a family of wee monsters talking too loudly.

 I curse those argumentative monsters for waking up my daughter. Pen and pencil crayon.

My dreams tend to be heavily influenced by what I read or watch on TV. Sometimes the scary dreams are hampered by a TV or movie character playing a role, making it ridiculous and unbelievable.  How can I take a nightmare seriously when Tyra Banks is telling me to go down that dark alley? I drew a few skulls and illustrated in a couple of different ways. On this spread my frightening dreams about death are illustrated it in a whimsical way.

 Skulls spread. Pen and pencil crayon.

 Skull left.

Skull right.

I used a set of very soft pencil crayons to colour in my skulls as well as the monsters under the bed illustration. Because I left a blank page next to the monsters and coloured the skulls after, it left the nicest impression on the blank page. Ghost-like and fragile. It wasn't intentional, but as one of my favourite design instructors in college would say, it's a happy accident.

 A happy, ghostly accident. Pencil crayon impression.

My last illustration in this section is of scary faces. I don't know how often I've told my husband about a dream and I say something along the lines of 'it was you, but your face was different' or 'this happened but I couldn't see the person's face'.

 Dark faces. Watercolour and pen.