Dawn

Hello, 2009.

Matrioshkas for the New Year

I’m researching Russian images for my new comic and fancied painting some matrioshka dolls.

Also, there’s an interview with me over at The Comics Reporter today re: Ojingogo. Tom Spurgeon’s blog is a daily visit for me, so it was a pleasure to answer his very thoughtful questions.

Here’s to 2009… Happy new year.

Three Gators

alligator illustration

I was home for the holidays and I brought my Montreal sleep-schedule with me. I was doing a lot of painting after everyone else went to sleep. Watercolours. Acrylics. Paints my niece had lying around.

I have big plans for these little gators (or crocs; whichever you like).

Printable Holiday Cards

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while. Giving away a printable hi-res template for a card or something.

So here you go:

Download the PDF here

The cards are about 4″ x 4″ once folded. So you can fit two of them on a standard piece of paper.

Instructions:
1) Download
2) Print them on a colour printer on some kind of rough stock or watercolour paper for the nicest effect.
3) Trim to your preference
4) Give them to someone you like

Happy holidays.

Creative Commons License

Holiday Heads

Awesome tarsier videos

And now for something completely different:

A tarsier chewing…


Petting a tarsier

And now the best one…

Dramatic tarsier!

Accolades and Fish

A couple cool things:

Ojingogo was featured today in Salon.com’s Books We Love feature. Recommended by author, Kelly Link. Thanks, Kelly.

Quill & Quire has posted it’s Ojingogo review online.

The literary magazine also named Ojingogo in this month’s Books of the Year issue. Chris Oliveros posted a little summary on the Drawn & Quarterly blog.

And another fish…

Snakefight

A new strip over at Ojingogo.com. Hope you like it.

Playing a lot with watercolours, paints and inks this weekend and having a lot of fun.

Expozine 2008

I’ll be at Expozine all weekend in Montreal. I’ll be beside the Drawn & Quarterly table selling my Ojingogo books, sketchbooks, silkscreen prints, prints and (maybe?) original art.

See you there, hopefully.

If you can’t make it, most of the stuff is available in my shop anyway.

Signed Ojingogo books in the Shop

ojingogo books for saleSigned copies of the Ojingogo books are now available in the store. Every copy is premium-priced at $20 and comes with a personalized illustration.

Online sales are limited to 80 copies.

Destination

(North American orders made before December 7 will arrive in time for the holidays).

And you can still get perfectly good unsigned copies from the Drawn & Quarterly store.

Vancouver

Just got back from the Ojingogo book launch in Vancouver. Which was loads of fun. Here are a few sketches from that great city.

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Restrictions


Working only in red, black and white ink. Forces me to think about contrast and composition a lot more. Another reason why restrictions are good - they simplify for the creator and the viewer. And now when I walk down the street all I see are the different contrasts, patterns and striations in the houses and the trees.

Suddenly feels like the only thing that matters in illustration now is clarity, code and purpose. And then as if on cue, Jillian gets back to the basics today with an article about tonal studies, saying:

It’s one of those exercises, much like colour theory studies, that seem kind of stupid at the time but, as you get a little older and a little wiser, you eventually see the value in.

Also, I’ve been taken by the beautiful patterns in the handmade Indian book, The Nightlife of Trees.

Vancouver Ojingogo Book Launch

5pm Saturday November 22
Lucky’s Comics
3972 Main St

Here’s the Facebook event - if you know anyone in Vancouver who you think would be interested, please invite them.

Red Fish, Black Fish

My friend asked me to do a small piece for a fundraiser for a local theatre group. So I drew a bunch of fish with red ink.

Then white ink.

I drank a lot of whiskey.

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Arctic Puzzle

I did a 2-page puzzle for the November issue of ChickaDEE magazine on the theme of a northern community.

I strayed from reality a bit on this one and had some fun with the colours. Here’s a snap of the printed version all decked out with text… (Art director: Trinh Truong)