Drifting in the Current

For the last several days I have been preparing myself for the variety show Nacer Del Agua at the Lyric Theatre here in Hamilton. For the first time in my life I was painting live on a stage during the show in front of a large audience.


The only criteria I was given was to include the theme of water. I went through several ideas over the course of a month, none I was really satisfied with. Then at 3am on Friday, inspiration struck and I quickly sketched out several ideas of a Nyad: a faerie like creature that lives in lake and rivers.


In the end I drew 4 different version and decided on this one. I loved her high arching shoulder, and how she seems to be caught in mid movement, her hair turning into the shape of a gold fish. It seemed the most beautiful and ethereal of all the sketches.

Let the Arting Begin...

It was at the beginning of the month that I moved into my apartment: the first time I have ever had my own space completely to myself, and I must say it is pretty fantastic. I went from living in a student house shared with 8 other kids, all 18 and all living on their own for the first time. I was in a small basement room which made it very difficult to paint, let alone live a sane life. I have only been in my new place for 3 weeks and I have noticed a definite change in my quality of life for the better.


It is wonderful to have space to do art again, and half of my living room is permanently set up as an art nook and I am well on my way to updating my portfolio.


The painting I am working on in the photo is actually a test piece for something quite exciting. Next weekend I will be part of a variety show at a local theatre here in Hamilton, that has many acts including music pieces and arial silks routines to the theme of water. During the whole performance, which will be about an hour and a half long, I will be on the stage painting live from start to finish. Completely nerve-wracking but very thrilling. It will be the first time I have ever done anything like this and I am hopeful it will grant me the attention of the people of Hamilton in the art scene to help me break into it more. And who knows, maybe I will even be able to sell the painting and make a little money!

Folk 'n' Roll

At the beginning of the year, I was commissioned by a band to do the Album artwork for their second Album. The theme was hitchhiking on a desolate road where no one will pick up the hitchhiker. 


I wanted to give the images a grungy, almost crude feeling to them, which the band really enjoyed. All in all, everyone was pretty happy with the results.


The Plain Steel, Front Cover: 2011
- water colour, ink
- 12x12 inches, illustration board

The two pieces in total took a long time to complete, probably over 20 hours, and both pieces each were started once and then restarted after the first attempts weren't coming out the way I wanted them to. I had a very difficult time trying to capture the tail lights of the cars driving past with water colours, and I am still not really satisfied with them, but as of now I am not sure how I can improve on them. It is something I am going to try to figure out some other time.


The Plain Steel, Back Cover: 2011
- water colour, ink
- 12x12 inches, illustration board

Her Roots Run Deep

This is a paid commission piece I did back at the beginning of the year. The man who commissioned it had been flipping through my sketchbook and noticed all of my drawings of women becoming trees, and asked for a large painting in that theme that he could hang next to all the H R Giger prints he had. Thus, this painting came into being. It was rather fun because the piece was entirely experimental as I tried many techniques I never used before, including blowing jets of air on the paint to create the branches. This piece is one of the most  organic paintings I have created to date.
(note: this is not the completed version. Completed version will be added to the blog soon)

Her Roots Run Deep: 2012

- water colour, ink

- 20x32 inches, illustration board

RIP, Uncle Bernie

Sadly, on December 24, 2011, my Uncle Bernie passed away. He had been sick for a long time and was fighting so hard, but in the end succumbed to several infections while his immune system was all but gone. I painted this as a gift for my cousin and aunt to remember him when he was healthy, happy and full of wonderful life. I can only hope that I have done him justice with this portrait.



Bernie: 2012
- water colour
- 20x32 inches, illustration board

Bare and Weeping

December of last year found me finally rooting myself again, moving to a new city to be near new friends and start new adventures. I had just bought a new set of prismacolour markers and to celebrate the new me, I drew this picture of a tree woman shedding the frostbitten leaves of winter, ready for spring to come again and bring on the new growth.

Bare and Weeping: 2011

- prismacolour markers, ink

- 9x12 inches

Hubert, the Angler

In the summer of 2011, I revived my love of drawing monsters. My original idea was to have an alien poorly disguised as a human, but it quickly morphed into "Hubert", an Angler that likes to lure children. It was never intended to be a commentary on child predators, but many people have definitely picked up on that theme while viewing this piece.

Lure: 2011
- ink
- 20x15 inches

My Scumbag

This is a portrait of my family's dog, Hamlet. I painted it as a 2010 Christmas present to my mother and father. It was the first time I had ever done a painting starting with a black canvas, and I really liked the results of the piece. It took about 3 hours in total. The title of this blog is "My Scumbag" because it is a nickname we have for the dog, completely loving! Haha. Mostly we just call him Hammy, which is appropriate because he is a little bit of a porker.

Hamlet: 2010

- acrylic

- 24x36 inches, canvas

Screaming, but No One Hears

Back in early 2011 I was experiencing many new changes to my life, changes I decided to take to try and make myself better. When I first initiated the changes, it was a very hard time for me, and it tested many of the relationships in my life. Some crumbled, some strengthened. I was having a particular bad day of feeling like no one was really hearing what I was saying, when I decided to draw these two pieces to focus my angry energy.

Scream 1: 2011
- ink
- 14x10 inches

These two drawings were conceived and executed very quickly, each only taking 1 hour to do, both drawn back-to-back. This time I cannot choose a favourite, though many people I know like the first one, because there is sometime wonderful about the gentle, flowing hand coming from the mouth while the rest of the piece is hard and tense.


Scream 2: 2011
- ink
- 14x10 inches

Flowers in Her Hair

A self portrait I did in May of 2010. I had recently bought a few sheets of paper with different intricate patterns on them, and I wanted to utilize one for my hair. It was actually more challenging to cut it out to fit the painting than I thought it was going to be in the end, but I really liked the results. In total, I spent about 4 hours on the painting.

Self Portrait: 2010

- water colour, printed paper

- 12x20 inches, illustration board

The Crane and the Swan

These next two pieces I did a month after "Flock of Seagulls" and "School of Fish". I wanted to create illustrations from two fables, the story of the Crane Wife and the Swan Princess, both women who are trapped in the form of birds.


These piece was the first I painted of the two, and like with the drawings I did a month earlier, it is my favourite.

Crane Wife: 2010
- pencil crayon, ink, water colour
- 15x20 inches, illustration board

Since I was mostly working with water colour paints for these pieces, I tried a texture technique by adding large sea salt crystals you use for baths in the paint in the background, giving that interesting texture you can see.


Of the two, the technique, I found, was more successful in the "Swan Princess"



Swan Princess: 2010
- pencil crayon, ink, water colour
- 15x20 inches, illustration board

Of Birds and Fish

These two drawings I did back in 2010 in the late spring. Both individually took about 4 hours. It had been a very long time since I had done any drawings for myself, and I produced these ones shortly after I left school. It was wonderful to get back into drawing and do something like and airy in theme. Simple portraits with animals added to them seemed the way to go.


This particular piece is my favourite of the two. It was the first idea I had and I simply went with it without really planning it in advance. 

Flock of Seagulls: 2010
- pencil crayon, ink, water colour
- 8x11 inches

This piece was the second of the two, completed within the same week as the first. This one took more planning, mostly for the pose and angle of the figure. It took a little more time as well because I added in hands. I really enjoy the pose and composition of the piece, but I feel I executed it poorly when it comes to the proportions of the face. This is a piece I would definitely like to recreate, along with the above one as well.


Overall, however, I am really pleased with the two pieces and my return to the realm of visual arts.

School of Fish: 2010
- pencil crayon, ink, water colour
- 8x11 inches