Toiletpomorphism

I can't help myself; I love these toilets. It's like the the white toilet seems to be reaching out to the pink toilet with its flusher. So romantic!(?) In spite of my better judgment, I'm considering using this image for my business card.

Skeleton Crew Quaterly.

Let me introduce you to my friend Ryan Pratt and the Skeleton Crew Quarterly.  The SCQ is a music review platform from which Ryan writes poetic reviews of upcoming and often undiscovered albums, devises incisive yearly best of lists, and tweets wildly. It’s become my primary source for music journalism, and to return the favor I made a design for the site's banner. He asked me to do this about six mounths ago, and after multiple distractions and a couple rough attempts, I'm finally finished. So here goes my first attempt at graphic design:

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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.

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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?

Stormy Weather

Things are getting a little desperate over here in the Thesis Factory. It should be a great comfort to anyone who feels like they might be in direct competition with me (for say a lifetime achievement award?) that I've spent the past 24 hours doing this

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.