Barcleona was full of it

Here's a picture I made for the birthday of a one Jay Haffie-Emslie (turning sixteen, he naturally needed sixteen birthday presents). This was inspired by a photograph taken outside the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. I really wanted to go, but the wait was long, and my fellow travelers, including Jay, were generally unimpressed with what lay inside. Yet despite the collective malaise, I'm pretty pleased with how this worked out. He and Ben look more like a family in exile, in the midst of a long winters trek, then they do Canadian tourists is Spain. I've taken a bit of a break since finishing this (the detail was pretty exhausting), but I think I'm ready now to get back to it.

jt

A Burrowing Gregarious Plant-Eating Lady

I've been drawing a lot of animals lately, but found that I was missing the kind of portrait drawing that I used to really love doing as a kid and in High School. So my current animal fixation has morphed a little bit into something stranger (and more disturbing?).

Rabbit Rabbit

After a productive few weeks of writing, I gave myself a day off to do some drawing. This little gentleman was intended to be part of a larger project, but I kind of like him on his own. 

I think I'll probably incorporate him into the larger work in the long run, as I'm pretty attached to the broader idea, but he's nice to look at in the middle of nowhere, for now.

In other news, my sister suggested yesterday that I start drawing pictures of my neighbours. I kind of like the idea, it's just about the right time to start such a project, (Little Portugal will start taking to their porches pretty soon), but I think to pull that off I would have to sneak pictures of them unwittingly. Would that be so wrong?

Granada Frowning Lady No. 1

In Barcelona, at the Park Guell, amongst the herds of hippies hocking scarves, jewelry, and agitating bird noisemakers, I stumbled upon a bizarre book stand. It was home to several offbeat design books, a catalog of Art Deco post cards, and a magical Shirley Temple paper-doll kit with detachable torso. I look through the stand much longer then Nick would have liked, but ended up taking home a book of Erte's fashion-inspired designs for early editions of Harper's Bizarre. His hard contrast line work and Art Noveau aesthetic made me think that I might want translate some of his techniques into painting. I've seen a lot of amazing line work done lately in gouache and even in oils, which I might attempt in the Future when I have more time and less guilt. But in the mean time, I tried out some Erte-inspired line work for the hair and fur collar of one of the infamous Granada Frowning Ladies (these women have become pretty popular amongst my friends, and some can be seen on my earlier Granada photograph post). I'm pretty happy with the result.

Art Direction: Andrew Austin

With the new year well underway, I'm thinking a lot about 2009 and what is has meant for me. While I hardly accomplished my goals for the year, I can say that 2009 brought a surprising new direction to my otherwise academic mode of work. Being surrounded by some pretty talented people meant that I was given all kinds of opportunities to do Art Direction as a compliment to their work. I got to design for some short films, a music video, a couple photo shoots and even some merchandise, and although I was a total novice at all of these endeavors, got great feedback, and (perhaps more importantly) I really enjoyed the work. So in the interest of making my status as an Art Director existentially official, I thought I'd declare it on this mostly-personal pseudo-public way, and post some of the work I've done.

To start off, here's some merchandise I designed for Toronto singer/songwriter Andrew Austin:

This was cover art for the first single. Some people have told me that it looks like a shell, and others a pear "as seen from above" but the intention was that it be the planet Mercury, which would be followed by three other planet-theme single covers.

And here's the t-shirt I designed, which can now be seen all over Southern Ontario sported by both my father AND my sister.

And finally if you're interested here's a link to Andrew's music video which I did the art direction for. I cut 127 circles out of foamcore, and spray painted them gold. Exciting right?

Cowpoke (For Becky)

Here's a new picture that I finished in December for my sister's Birthday. I was trying to continue on with this idea I had about weird animal encounters, and horses being Becky's favorite animal, felt like the next logical step.

Yesterday was for the people.

Lately, life has felt good. I’m riding my bike in late November; my thesis is back on track; and I’ve had art published twice in the past two weeks. It feels good, really good to live in a place where I’m continually confronted with inspiration, and opportunity for collaboration, and until yesterday I was convinced that life in Toronto was for me.

I woke up happy and clear headed, made coffee, turned on the CBC, and heard on the news that a deer was found sleeping in a tiny park in the downtown Financial District. Growing up in the suburban scrawl of St. Catharines, I remember a sense of excitement when our overly manicured, playground landscape, was disrupted by a deer, or another undomesticated creature. Wild animals amazed, not only because they challenged the tedium of our everyday scheduled clockwork life, but also because they reminded us of the space and shape of the wilderness we encroach upon. Aside from the odd grumbled-at raccoon, we used to feel lucky when we happened on a wild animal. But not anymore, and not in Toronto.

Apparently the urban world has completely lost touch with the part of humanity that feels bad about our ever-expanding environmental destruction. Yesterday, at around 11:15 am, shortly after the arrival of a veterinarian yielding a tranquilizer dart, the Toronto Police Department tasered the shit of the deer. The doe had been lying calmly in the garden for hours, a calamity that apparently brought much of the downtown core to a “standstill”(where would we be without the National Post)!?! When surprised by the dart, the Deer made a break for the sidewalk, and was met with tasers, according to Const. Tony Vella of the Toronto Police, in the interest of its own safety. You can see the video for yourself here on Blog TO.

Its pretty horrifying to realize that we live everyday in an environment that is a danger to all animals except for humans. Our own ambition has shaped us into creatures that navigate the world aggressively by neon street signs, walk always on the right, and bridle our children with adorable leashes for their own safety. I hope this trend turns around, but with the ever urbanization of our world, that seems unlikely. I feel helpless.
This is making me think about working on a series about confrontations with animals. Here’s something I did a few weeks ago for my Dad’s birthday present. I think I’d like to do more.

New work

Someday these posts will become consistent. I promise.

In the mean time, here is some relatively new work. I've been distracted, trying to feel out the world of art directing, which means I've been drawing for others, as opposed to for myself. But I've managed these last few sketches as part of a drawing group I started with a few friends.

Here goes.
This first one, called dinner, ended up terribly scanned in a McMaster Art Magazine. I have mixed feelings.

This one was inspired (loosely) by the idea of a time machine.

Some Ideas

So today was tattoo design day in my head, and here's what I came up with:

For my friend Coral , who wants a judy to commemorate her thesis film and mom.



For me, although chances are I'll never be able to muster up the commitment needed for any life-long image, no matter what the significance.
And for Nick, even though he has no intention of getting a tattoo. But it would be funny if he did, right?

I'm baaaaaaack.

I must admit that my dedication to this blog over the past months has been pretty fickle. And by fickle, I mean flaky. And by flaky, I really mean non-existent. But I'm 27 now, and I've recently quit my job here at Law law law, and I feel as though I have a new lease on life. So, like a phoenix, from the ashes of complacent ennui, My Micropsic Vision rises again (this time as a halfbreed blog/ web comic, or blebglomic?).

So here comes the first post of 2009, a tribute to my good friends Eli and Jess, whose LOLCATS fanaticism has inspired so much laughter, anguish, and moral indignation (they also bought me my first set of nice drawing pens).

So here goes ANIMAL RIGHTS COMIC: VOLUME 1

HUMAN KITTIES LUVS THIER MUGS