My Bloody Valentine.

Wasn't sure how best to word this Valentine, so I thought I'd make it simple and positive to contrast the image. Somehow I didn't see the potential for all the puns that could have been made from the fact that this bird is a Tit until just now. Guess I'm just not that witty.

I truly enjoyed creating this. Why oh why don't I watercolour more often??

Please don't sue me, Roumieu.

I haven't been very drawtastically active this first month of the new year, but I did make this slightly bizarre birthday card for my friend Evan. Phil and I gave him both of Graham Roumieu's Bigfoot Memoirs, which I hope he will enjoy as much as we do!

More art to come soon. It has to.

Message from The Bear et Moi.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season, and The Bear wishes you bonne chance for the new year!

Attached.

I have new ideas marinating in my head for a series of large scale paintings, and I haven't been this excited to create artwork in a long time. Unfortunately I am A. Rusty and B. Very busy this month. I have already requested to have my work hours reduced to 30 a week so that I can have a chance to focus on art too. My first week with reduced hours isn't until the end of October, but it will probably be occupied with Halloween prep. By the beginning of November my goal is to be prepared to seriously begin.

I don't wish to get too much into the ideas behind what I plan to paint, especially since I only just started to get them out of my head today, and plan to do a ton more research. These little watercolours are just a starting point, and are in need of much more evolution and development.

I didn't mean to take such a long break from blogging. I will try to keep this blog more in mind if I have anything relevant to post here this month. I have also been distracted, I suppose, by my Flickr, which I've been updating every day. Heh.

7th Anniversary

Today marks the completion of mine and Philippe's 7th year together. We had a lovely day filled with many fun activities and moments. One, being that we took turns painting on the other. I've painted on nude bodies before, and have been painted on nude as well, but this was different; simultaneously sensual and soothing.

From the get-go our relationship has been so incredibly special and unique. We share so much love, affection, and trust; have inspired and learned from one another; matured and created a home and new family together. It's mind-boggling to look back and see how much we've affected each other, and helped to make the other a better person.

Many people have asked if we will get married. I honestly don't think that marriage -- or in our non-religious situation -- a civil union could possibly make what we share any more significant. We are incredibly affectionate, but we like to keep it to a minimum when we are in the presence of family or friends. I think that a large aspect of a marriage is to be showy, or the nicer term "to celebrate" what we have with others. The mere fact that we are confident enough in our bond to not feel like we have to continually display it and seek validation from others confirms to me that our feelings run true and are deeply rooted. Even if our relationship doesn't last until the end of our days, I will always share something inimitable with this boy.

As Phil and I enter our 8th year together I wish for our hearts to grow impossibly larger, and for us to share in even more experiences and adventures together.

Hun, you are simply explosive. And yes, I know, I am a dear. ;)

Exquisite Creatures

I am finally back from my whirlwind of a trip! After allowing myself a couple of days to bask in being back home, unpacking, and fully recovering from a lingering cold that seized me during my time in NYC, I have decided it's time to begin the daunting task of going through all my photos and videos and editing them. I've arbitrarily decided to do this in reverse order. I won't be posting anything substantial from my trip for a few days, though, as I have literally hundreds of images to go through.

On my last night in Manhattan my cousin Gaby and I made these two exquisite 'creatures', as we don't like to think of them as being corpses, heh. I was shocked by how well our drawing styles matched up, and how they both look like they could have been drawn by the same person. I suppose it also helped that we used the same small pen, too. I really enjoy how they turned out, and we talked about the potential of doing larger exquisite creatures in the future, possibly on canvas. I hope that one day that'll be possible!

Also, I just wanted to put out a big thank you to all the generous advice and opinions on my previous entry about what to wear. In the end I didn't end up wearing any of those exact combinations, but instead took snippets of the advice here and there. I had to dress for travelling on planes three separate times, too, and I found myself gradually growing more and more casual, especially since the last plane was so tiny there wasn't even a first class.

Illustration Friday: Sail

Or, a fantastical topographical view of where I'd like to sail to!

One Door Closes...

Who would have thought that so much time could be taken up by helping yourself and others move homes? Thankfully the moving season seems to be coming to a close. Phew! Now, finally, back to art!

Good Gossip

The little piece to my right was inspired by the architecture one can find in Quebec City. I haven't been yet, but I would really love to someday soon. I only live two hours away, and have a place to stay for free while there. All that is needed is some planning.

If nothing more happens with the day it has already been a good one. I received three packs of Polaroid film in the mail this morning, finished a good book, and clean laundry is on the way. If only life could always be this simple. The apartment is gradually getting decorated, though there is still much to be done. The studio is in working order, which makes me immensely happy. But all our kitchen cupboards need new hinges, which the concierge needs to do, and we have been waiting for almost a month. I hope he gets around to it soon, as they don't close properly and the cats can't help but think they are welcoming caves. Phil and I are also thinking of buying new linoleum tiles for the kitchen. The current tiles look rather gross no matter how hard they are scrubbed.

Overall, I am content, though. After all, I have all of August to get everything just so, plus work on personal art projects.

Little houses on the hillside...

Ok, not really houses, more like shacks and garages. From a recent trip to Kazabazua, visiting my friend Rhonda. I wish there were more little 'houses' I could have taken photos of! I need to get myself to the country more often.

Bleekly's Birds - Another First!

For my mass communications course I created a mock children's book! The project was fairly open in terms of the types of media we could use to show awareness about issues like consumerism, advertisement and the effects of industrialization. The printed version looks exceptionally sharp too! My lovely boyfriend, Philippe, helped greatly with that.

Here is the link to the story. It's a little too abrupt, but I had a very limited amount of time to complete this project. I will very likely go back and elaborate once I am finished my summer semester and am settled into the next apartment that Phil and I will be moving into on June 30th.

Up in the Clouds

I was going to sew today, but my sewing machine turned out to be very messed up. I unfortunately don't have the manual, and am not the best at figuring out machine problems, so hopefully it is something easily fixable that I am just not thinking about. In the meantime I will continue arting. I need to bring my oil paints home soon. I miss them!

Assimilation Time

Though colorful and cute, this piece embodies a more significant message. Old traditions, cultures and religions are gradually facing extinction as the modern, industrial world closes in around them. People's values are being forced into a change that better suits this vastly corporate world. We are all gradually entering the same uniform.

My mass communications class is really having an effect on me. I think I am taking it at a very appropriate time in my life, because industrial architecture is beginning to take over my brain.

Prints are available in my Etsy shoppe.

Limbless creatures are your friends!

Not sure if this was appropriate to make for my friend's 30th birthday...but at the time (which was during a 41 hours of no sleep marathon I did to finish essays) I thought it was splendid.

I just burned my index finger. It hurts a lot.

Done for Doughfaced

I have recently got into drawing and watercoloring pig portraits. Last night I made an original to sell on Etsy. I used to sell original artworks that are done on Synonym paper for $25, but I upped it to $30. Not much of a difference, but I think I should start gradually raising the price of my originals. I feel that art should be accessible to everyone, though, so unless my art becomes high demand [which I rather highly doubt] they will never get too pricey. I also think that I sell my artwork at such a low price because I have art related esteem issues, but that's a whole other ball game.

Man...I really do rant a lot for this being an art blog and all.

Hello Handsome

Sort of inspired by Yi Chen and Jenny Saville, though it doesn't appear so (because it sort of sucks). I think I just need to be more extreme with the distortion. Why am I never extreme enough?
Here's the original image I used as a loose reference.
Sleep time!

Lately I've been feeling a little...

...Bird brained.
I want out of this funk.

This just in...

Wow, the way I draw versus the way I paint, in everything from style to content are so incredibly different. This isn't new news, I mean just looking through this blog this statement becomes obvious, but sometimes the gap is just so striking. I feel most joy when drawing the cartoony whereas I get the most satisfaction from painting people or objects in a realistic manner, though I never strive for photo-realism in painting because that's what the camera is for.

Though interestingly enough I can't seem to stop painting or drawing antlers lately. So I suppose some icons do travel between the two forms of art.

Oh, and just to clarify, I use water color as an aid to illustrations more than a form of paint.
The one in the bottom right corner is the laziest. His name is Wilbert.

Jellyfish.

I want to start using sketchbooks on a steady basis.
And I want to started posting those sketches.
We shall see what happens.

Illustration Friday

My submission to Illustration Friday's special theme "Open". I wish I had time to create something brand new, but since I don't I figured submitting something was better than nothing at all!

This is also my very first time submitting to Illustration Friday. I really like how the site works, how navigating through submissions brings one to the artist's blog. Very neat. I think I will definitely be a more active participant in the future!