Rick Court Blog Drawings

Rick Court's blog entry reminded me of old stories my dad used to tell me- especially about kingers (he showed me how to play this game when I was little!) I decided to try an illustration style that reminded me of old storybooks from that time.

Here is the big illustration that represents the whole story. The chestnut tree seemed to tie the whole story together, so I used that.


Here are the two spot illustrations: one based on kingers and one based on his working days at Dofasco.




As always, constructive feedback is much appreciated!

Illustration Friday - Adrift

For this week's Illustration Friday theme, "adrift", I thought about what would experience the state of being adrift (without purpose, aimless, off course) and this poor little robot character came to mind. One of my favourite albums, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, tells the story of a robot that begins to feel human emotion, specifically love- not quite a robot, not quite human. Seemed pretty adrift to me.

In a shameless shout out to the nice guys who run Monsters In Real Places, I decided to place him in a a real setting. Plus isn't it pretty bittersweet to see a robot wandering around trying to smell the tulips?

IF: Muddy

This is my image for the theme of "Muddy" for Illustration Friday.

I started out with something a bit more literal for muddy (a little girl in rainboots and an umbrella) but didn't like it as I went along. After some brainstorming, I kept thinking that soon it will be spring and it will soon be muddy. When the ice melts, you start to see birds around sometime in March. I specifically thought of crows on power lines. I drew the large crow in the foreground on my computer, and used brushes for the rest. In the back there is an old fashioned astral map, because the constellations rotate as the seasons go by. The blood splatter stems from "a murder of crows". This image wasn't so much a literal interpretation of the theme, but rather a big word association stemming from muddy. Hope you like it!

Illustration Friday - Focus

This is my work for Illustration Friday. The theme was "focus".

When I saw the word "focus", I started thinking about eyes or lenses (weird that I illustrated one last week). I was recently reading a book where a woman was given a drawing from a medicine man where a person was kept rooted with their hands and legs on the ground, and an eye in their heart to the sky. It reminded me of a favourite quote from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." Loosely translated, it means "one sees well with the heart what is invisible to the eye". I simply liked the look of a more fluid heart, which I created with ink from a dropper. I also tried to improve on my previous attempt at an eye.