Daily Draw: Because the Sea Monkeys just don't cut it anymore

Prattling on and colouring at the breakfast table this morning. I recorded details should hell freeze over:

"I'm drawing a dog... We go to the store to get a dog.. Yes. Okay? I want a dog in the house. My dog. Not a big dog. No... Not big like silly. He little and nice. He can't grow up big. His name Manok (man-ook). White dog.... Nice hairs. Poofy hairs. I will care him good. I'm gonna give him the dog bone cookies and water... So his tummy doesn't hurt and he not pee on the floor. He pees outside. We go for walks down there on the street where I buy some things... I buy dog food and toys. He do the poops outside.. And he runs really fast because I tell him. He sleeps anywheres he wants and he comes with me for Halloween to trick-or-treat. I get the candies and he get cookies. Then he licks like kiss on my nose. He's cool and really nice. He's happy. Not angry, no... He bark talks and is happy to me."

Crap. The boy wants a Bichon Frise.

Illustration Friday Topic: "Skinny"

Illustration Friday participation. This week's topic "skinny". Here too.

Daily Draw: Costume recap

I'm not so crafty. Creativity without the skills. Can't really sew or bake etc. to save my life... Martha Stewart I am not. You have the point a couple times over by now. But like Martha, It'd be cool to have an army of minions with the skills. For a while, at least.

Homemade costumes are the best - when they are unsuccessful, they still have charm. So much better than the overpriced, mass-market stuff.
Still, my son's costume was bought at the supermarket. There was no need for a conversation about what he wanted to dress up as. Optimus Prime(Transformer). Duh. Optimus Prime and NOT Mommy's take on Optimus Prime. Which I admit, would be a compromised and last-minute effort. He has his official, licensed, crappy suit and he is a very happy boy.

I did at least try a little bit though...

My daughter wanted to be Dora. I hate Dora. But thankfully Dora has an episode where Dora dresses up as a cat for Hallowe'en. And whatever Dora does is good enough for my girl. Black leggings and turtle neck for the body. I bought the tail and ear-headband set from Zeller's and tacked the tail onto the back of the leggings. This felt incomplete. So I grabbed a pair of stretch mittens in the closet and the thrift store in town, by sheer luck, had a pair of black dress boots in her size, for like, a buck. Score. Now to the part that took longer to assemble than all the rest: the claws. Because it all still felt incomplete.
I painted watercolour paper with silver acrylic paint and cut out a few triangles and glued them to the boots and sewed some to the mittens. An hour late, pleased with my craftiness, I wanted the ultimate approval from the cat herself. She put on her mitts and boots and ran off to growl at herself in the mirror and came back a moment later with all the claws torn off. After the why-do-I-botherness wore off. I set to work cutting a ton of claws out and reattached them with plain, old white glue and put the costume out of reach 'til the preschool party. Only thing left was to blacken the nose and draw on whiskers with eyeliner.

This effort was of course incomparible to the two brothers dressed up as Elvis at the preschool, complete with bedazzled jumpsuit. Their Grandma is a fangirl. Big time.

Daily Draw: Wooing truffles

I read truffles emit some pheremone that sows can sniff out. I guess the males just have to work a bit harder.

Daily Draw: Sasquatch + jackrabbit ski

Daily Draw: Free Twitter badges

Twitter this. Feel free to use these sketchy badges on your blog or website to link to your twitter page. Click to expand, then drag to your desktop. Resize as needed. Send me a link to your page, if you are so inclined.

Daily Draw: Telephone doodles

Mindless doodling is second nature when on the phone.. Like when on hold or waiting to politely refuse offers on "courtesy" calls while the tedious details are being spilled.

Daily Draw: Makings of a disco cat

A collaborative effort - painted by my 2 year-old. With age- par tyranny.
Because getting angry wasn't going to stop her from messing in my paint to reach over and add her own flourishes to whatever I had started to draw.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?
Well, I do at least have to pick my battles.

She was poised behind me on the chair, paint brush in hand, about to pounce on my next attempt...
"What should we draw?"
"Ummmmmm. A cat."
"Ok.."
"DWAW!"
"Alright. Jeez..."
And already she is pushing my hands out of the way to paint over the lines before they are made.
"NO. I paint NOW."

Daily Draw: October part 2

Post-turkey and pie and country fair hoopla. Now turning to Halloween.

Daily Draw: Happy Thanksgiving

Each Thanksgiving my kids are bringing home craftywork of turkeys fashioned from hand prints or tracings. Once seeing a photo of a real, live turkey, I can't much see the resemblance in shapes, but anyway..
I tried it myself. And it's best left to the preschoolers. Cuter that way.

Daily Draw: Smells

There is a noticeable shift in the air come September. It takes the first cool, breezy day to really smell fall. While laid out, it doesn't appear all the enticing, I still think fall smells good.

UTHC Virtual Jam Swap '09

Deadline is Nov.1... for more info and badges handscratched by moi to accompany
your submissions, visit Aimee at Under the High Chair

Daily Draw: Another day under the grass cover

Daily Draw: Billy Goats Gruffly

Sketches for something I'm working on.. The thing with billy goats, at least for me, is that it is suprisingly difficult not to make them look like a satanic altar piece. I thought lederhosen might be endearing. Not really.

Daily Draw: Pattern geek

I keep a growing library of patterns to layer into illustrations. It's a nice exercise, playing with shapes, I think. Doesn't have to turn out well.. Maybe it's a bit freaky-geeky I find it relaxing. Like absent-mindedly building with Lego.

Daily Draw: Not an entophile

Tent caterpillars. Getting freaky all over the tree tops. Everywhere. Dropping out of trees into tshirts.

Daily Draw: Troll

I coloured it, saved it wrong, lost the channels, broke out the swears.

Daily Draw: Ruffed Lemur + Mountain Lion

Sketched at the Brantford Twin Valley Zoo.

Quick sketches of the animals up at the Dutch Mill Market, top of the escarpment from town, done today. The only challenging part was keeping the kids in my visible notice at the same time so as to keep them from feeding their fingers to the animals.

And Summer seems to have came and went... A brief recap

I'll recap Cochonet style.. but all in all the time just,well, passed.

Training for this marathon
Managed to get a bit derailed with this injury and then this one a week later.
Now hoping not to have lost too much momentum for this marathon.
Holding down the fort while Abu Issa spent July working here.
Lots of time watching the wading pool.
Boy turned 5 with much coveted Transformers cake.
The necessary evil of Toyr "R" Us.
Enabling the little one's obsession too .. Bribery is an excellent tool for...
Toilet training. Before corn season too!

A rather theatrical powerline transformer explosion and a large powersurge that melted wiring and burst water pipes - synchronistic with me putting a bagel in the toaster.
Kids grew out absolutely EVERYTHING over the course of last couple of months. Note to self: assemble skeleton wardrobes asap.
Trying to get out to the beach and mostly failing
Grew 2 tomatoes. One got used as a soccer ball and never got a chance to ripen.
Dropping the ball on the blog..


And oh, yeah this field I run past in Millgrove had, like, 30 turkey vultures camped out in it. Wonder what big, dead thing was out there knowing the usual pickings of asphalt fried frogs and a skished racoon or two don't exactly feed a crowd.

Sauce

Showing the chosen logo along with a condensed version of the evolution and alternate concepts developed along the way. In the end after a few stages of development a quick doodle on the side of a worksheet is the design the resonates the most with the client. Funny how often things work out that way.

Sauce Headwear was founded in by two Canadian cross-country ski racers, Shayla Swanson and Rhonda Jewett as a method of raising money to support their Olympic dreams. Their fundraising idea of stylish headwear for winter athletes has since grown into a successful business. You can follow Shayla and Rhonda, on their blog, as they work towards competing at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

XC Ottawa Suits 3.0

Pleased to contribute to their team wardrobe yet again! Suits to be custom produced by Podiumwear/Mt. Borah custom out of St.Paul, MN.

Daily Draw: One rather portly vampire

Daily Draw: Flamborough Safari

Friday: 94 kids kindergarteners, 2 school buses and a safari. The wildest animals being inside the school bus... Only 1 band-aid required = successful controlled chaos.

Daily Draw: More marshmallow fluff and tube socks

I live in Southern Ontario. Where there are not subdivisions and "power centers", there are deer. Co-existence, even. Overpopulated with deer I've read. Must be why they keep building yet more Walmarts and Starbucks.

Daily Draw: Black sheep

Sorta revel in inaccurate perspectives...

Daily Draw: Feelin' foxxy

Just keeping the blog active.. This guy lives near the trailhead.

Daily Draw: Peons

Underdeveloped per usual.

The Backpack Foodie

I've noticed over the years my friend Hélène Cormier likes to take pictures of her meals wherever she goes.
I've found this odd...
This practice and enthusiasm for food is shared by her partner Daniel Roy, who, when it comes to food, will try just about anything. And like it.
They are off travelling the world starting September, blogging what they eat along the way here.

They asked me nicely for a logo/header too. Here is the development:






previous option for consideration:

Conceptual sketchs:

Daily Draw: Open post to the house mouse.

Hey Mouse!
You, the one doing all your business under and between my couch cushions! You know who you are... The tide is turning medieval on your ass. Now, maybe I should have left a light on at night so you might have had a better chance at recognizing more appropriate surfaces for defecation, Mouse.. But really, as if your last compaign behind the kitchen appliances wasn't enough. You've crossed the line, Bucko.
Don't believe me, Mouse? Yes, I'm often full of empty threats with the other smaller creatures in this home, but check out the hardware store receipt I dropped on the kitchen floor for you. Hopefully after I finish purging every single crumb from this joint today, you are gonna eat that receipt.

Daily Draw: Alas! Poor Yorick... He had bad teeth

Speaking of Hamlet, I stumbled across this gem on line. Die Brücke-ish coolness.

Daily Draw: The robins benefitted

... From a recent dandelion extermination rampage. Though the yard looks prepped for trench warfare, and the dandelions will be back, a buffet 'o' worms literally turned up for a red tummy hot spot.

Daily Draw: Mosquito season has officially begun

I especially hate getting bitten between my toes. On the ear too.

Daily Draw: Fry whores!

The Canada Goose. Symbol of Canada. Fry whore.
Not unlike your average canuck. Wonder what they think of poutine?
Not so long ago, we fed geese old bread and they migrated south in the Winter. Then certain fast-food establishments set up franchises at the end of the nesting grounds. These overstuffed water turkeys don't migrate anymore. Not in these parts.

Daily Draw: Yet another bird sketch

I have this thing for doodling birds, you may have noticed, I may have mentioned.

Daily Draw: Harpies

I heart the mythological hybrid creatures. Piqued by the physical and even reverse anthropomorphism when the animal parts is, to various degrees, symbolic of the the creature's nature. And it's fun the draw and mess around with on paper too... The doodle to the left, doned first illustrates the mess part...

I also, you may notice, like drawing birds, so bring on the Harpy. Ugly bird women and agents of punishment with a penchant for torture. Residents of the tortured wood in Dante's Inferno.

Daily Draw: Bedtime....YES! (with fist pump)

Today we took Snotty and Naughty to the habour today to terrorize geese and get really excited about looking at water and ducks poop. Who is which? They are both-both, tho, on occassion, not at the same time. Not too soon it was bedtime and I was softened by the serene, dare I say angelic (*snort.), sleeping faces.

Quick gestural of S/N #2, the active sleeper.

Daily Draw: Back with sphinx sketchs

Sheepishly I'm back. Thanks for (still) checking in. Today I present some sphinx sketchs, that I hope to work more on when what that something more flashes through the spaghetti in my head. Also on the theme, I've posted a painting I did in 2003.

Daily Draw: Time for pattern play again

Boring for you. Good-time geekery for me when good, bad and ugly.

Daily Draw: Medusa in progress

My updates have been scanty. Periodically I get stuck. Sometimes a few hours, sometimes for weeks or longer. Usually, atleast for my own work, I just draw whatever comes to me and life frequently gets in the way of that process, (though sometimes I'm an easily distracted lazy ass too). In times of stuckness it helps to a) give in to being stuck and just do all the other stuff if possible. Get it out of the way..b) Plan a full, leisurely day and then have a relaxed sit down at night to draw c) go through photos/postcards and see if any wheels start to turn d) Turn to mythology, classic fables, fairy tales.. Flip through books or scan through memory. Pick a character or scene that pops out in the mind and put your own spin to it.
Today stuckness presents an unfinished Medusa. Will repost when done.

Daily Draw: Pattern play again

Now on Etsy..

The Etsy shop is up! Prints available for sale here. All prints made on archival art paper. Custom orders on different papers and formats available by request. More prints coming soon.

Daily Draw: Quick bird sketch

Haphazardly and quick, no... "Impressionistic". No.

Daily Draw: Then my attention span wore out

Daily Draw: Sharks to share

Boy wandered over, sat down and decided to own me in the conceptual dept with frog-eating giraffe sharks and a whale with a fire fish as a side-kick.

Daily Draw

Daily Draw: Pirate Merwench

Should try this again, with paper that can handle watercolours better.

Daily Draw: Whale to scale

Daily draw: Random doodling, rambling on stupid

Tired. Sketch pad in lap. Otherwise sitting like a lump watching some documentary talking to people who think Obama = Hitler or the Anti-Christ. Didn't see the beginning to know the film name..
"Ah just look at his face un ah see da nummers 666 " Stuff like that. Some glowing examples of tolerance too:
"Oh look, the neighbours put out an Obama sign on the lawn. Shouldn't say this, but they are lesbians! Can I say that?"
or
"He's an Arab is whut he (Obama) is. An Arab!"
Um, no ... but, so?
All these people watch Fox News. Just sayin'...
..

As for the drawing. Just random doodling watching this go down.

the quotations are paraphrased a tad

Daily Draw: Doodles that end at doodles

Was feeling vacant in for the daily draw, so I just started doodling and was hoping that would lead somewhere. It didn't. I don't know what this is other than some woodlandhybridcreaturethingy. I left my sketch pad out (big no-no) and Eva saw the need for some scribbly embellishments.

Daily Draw: Wet/dry moon

I slipped out into the dark tonight. Q-tips were urgently needed, I decided... Or, I urgently needed to get Q-tips or anything, just to get away from whiney, testy children with pussy, gross ears and the runs. One of the two...

Either way, walking, I was struck by the oddly bottom-lit, very bright, slender crescent moon. I googled when I got home. I learned here it used to be referred to as both a "dry" and a "wet" moon, special to this time of year:

Daily Draw: Pause for self-appreciation

Daily Draw: Sluggish

Daily Draw: "A Red Hippo Bit Me"

"It did!?"
"... In the bath. " My son told us.
Better watch out.

Under The High Chair Header

Under the High Chair is the mouthwatering creative outlet of Ms. Aimée Bourque, who is also appearing as a food columnist at Simple Mom(one of the top 10 emerging influential blogs of ’08).

ps. I highly reccommend her lemon ricotta pancakes, pumpkin bread pudding with toffee sauce, and not just because those are the two recipes I've managed to make, but because it is comfort food amplified.. .A forkful makes everything seem right in the world for a few seconds, at least. But, really, all the food looks amazing.

Daily Draw: Happy belated Groundhog day

Did he even see his shadow? I hope not.. I don't like being cold, only skiing - but what was my winter wonderland has been reduced to ice, greasy freeze-thaw snow, gravel and amazing amounts of dog poop.

Worst. Web design. EVAR!

Offend your senses here.
Turn up your computer's volume for the complete experience.
Courtesy of Daniel Roy

Daily Draw: Matchstick Boys

Daily Draw: Standing deer

I don't know why I was so surprised to see deer do this. It makes total sense, just never thought about it.
Saturday post, a bit late and in the stylings of being in the dark with a child taking up the lap.

Daily Draw: Bunny bits make for slow skis

It's been a great winter for skiing in my local conservation area. Great conditions, aside from a bit of poop and gore. Skiers are proving to be the least offending trail users. The tracks are laid by the first post-snowfall skier and the snow is packed down by the day time users: largely dog-walking pedestrians,horses, and what parcels the animals leave behind. The more nocturnal users, coyotes, add long trails of rabbit components (or other fluffy, woodland creature, it's kind of hard to tell). Avoid getting this on your skis.

Daily Draw: Strange bird

Coveted item #1: Peacock dinnerware

from anthropologie...

Daily Draw: Post-holiday physique

Daily Draw: Perhaps I should be cleaning toys better from now on

Or more often...
And LR post #100. Yay.

Boy had his crow puppet out one day during the holidays. I was online, but paying enough attention to notice a light bulb pop over his head and him quickly run out of the room. He ran back in, and made the crow eat, grabbed the crow's upper and lower beak and started mashing them together.

"Mamma! He's SO hungry."
"mmmhmm..."
"Look! He's EATING! "
"Really?What is he eating?"
Out rolls a dead fly that he had earlier spotted and gathered from a window sill. Pulverized. Former fly residue inside the puppet beak.

Makes me wonder what goes on that I don't see.