Trinidad Trip

Last summer, the bf and I were lucky enough to travel to Trinidad for one of his med school electives. One of our Trini friends and his wife hosted us at their house! 

We were blown away by their hospitality and the hospitality of their families. 

Here are some sketches and photos of our trip. 

That first photo up top shows a couple Trini staples -- Blue Waters bottled water and Odomos mosquito repellent. On the left is my trusty watercolour palette!

I painted the exterior of their house. I later got it printed on a plaque and mailed it to our hosts as a gift. My realistic watercolour skills are a bit rusty but I'm okay with how this turned out!

Sketch:

And here's an interior sketch of their living room. Fans are a common sight!

Before going to Trinidad I had no idea these electric anti-mosquito racquets existed. Now that I know to look for them, I've even seen them in Canadian Tire! They are a fantastic way to murderize mosquitoes and will provide many an evening's worth of entertainment. 

Here is a close-up of the Blue Waters and Odomos. I like how the bottle has palm trees imprinted on it. 

We saw a Trinbago Knight Riders cricket match! It was the shorter version of cricket, not the multiple-day kind.

Nighttime doubles from a street vendor. Delicious curried chickpeas in flatbread.

 Palm tree in our host's parents' yard. And guava from their tree!

 Two Trini snacks: Zoomers and Chennet.

 View from Mount St. Benedict.

A house by the beach in Mayaro.

Beautiful Mayaro beach.

Overall I think it was our best trip ever. We didn't make it over to Tobago -- Maybe next time?

-- Julia

Portfolio site

A bit of paint

I do a lot of my colours digitally but sometimes it's nice to get back to some good ol' real-life painting. The blue-green background I put in digitally (because who wants to waste precious paint putting down a flat colour :P) but everything else is as close to what the original painted piece looks like. 

I had to fight the urge to adjust the colours -- I kind of went all over the place and used too many different ones, I think. Maybe next time I'll practice more restraint!

Process:

-- Julia
Portfolio site

2014 Oscars Fashion and Make-up

Lupita Nyong'o. Click image to enlarge.

I haven't watched the Oscars in ages but I do love to check out the lovely dresses and sparkly bits worn by the celebrities after the fact! I'm a sucker for gorgeous dresses -- Fantasy princesses were the first subject matter I drew obsessively! 

Most of the lovely ladies did a nudey lip with more dramatic eyes and ultra subdued nails. My favourite make-up out of the nominees was probably Lupita Nyong'o's stand-out lip colour. I also loved how Lupita's yellow gold jewellery worked with her baby blue dress and her skin tone. 

Amy Adams. Click image to enlarge.

Amy Adams wore a terrific pair of earrings. The Oscars is usually a cavalcade of ostentatious diamond jewellery. I'm a bigger fan of coloured stones.  

Cate Blanchett. Click image to enlarge.

Speaking of coloured stones, I'm kinda crazy about Cate Blanchett's incredible opal drop earrings. My favourite thing of the entire Oscars. Most of the dresses were fairly muted colours, so I was glad to see a little creativity in the cut and embellishments on Cate's dress. 

Jennifer Lawrence. Click image to enlarge.

Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams both wore rich, saturated colours that suited them well.I really enjoyed Jennifer's pouffed up 'do; that's a tricky one to pull off. I like this shape of dress (including the puffy hip-things... Semi-peplums?) but I can't imagine sitting for hours in something like this. When I sit comfortably it's a very unladylike knees far apart situation :P. 

Which Oscar looks did you love?

-- Julia

Portfolio site

P.S.: Thanks to the good folks at Julep for inviting/inspiring me to take a closer look at the awards! It was fun and I'm glad I did :).

Spring Wishes

It's been hideously cold for the past few weeks so I thought I'd cheer myself up with some pretty Spring colours. After years of resistance I feel like I'm set to give in to this pastel thing -- there's a pastel sea green that I've kinda fallen for!

I'm a major lurker on the Sephora site and here are a few things I'd love to try. The palette's colours are so Spring but I hear the pigmentation of the shadows aren't so good, pastels in particular.

Lip stains are my favourite cosmetics product but I'm wondering if a cheaper alternative couldn't be made of beet root powder. I already use olive oil, honey, and quick oats on my face so some beets wouldn't be much of a stretch!

Here are my other cosmetics illustrations.

Anyone else coveting stuff from the new Spring cosmetics collections?

-- Julia
Portfolio site 

Four favourite fragrances

Just bought this one on clearance at Winner's! Prada L'eau Ambrée is an elegant and versatile perfume. As the name suggests, it's a not-too-heavy amber fragrance.  L'eau Ambrée dries down very close to the skin and is light enough to be good for any season, day or night. I feel like this is the most traditional perfume I own (rose, patchouli, amber, vanilla). 

I've had Marc Jacobs Biscotti for a while. It's the only one I like from this particular collection, which includes other simple eau de toilettes as Ginger and Cranberry. Biscotti doesn't smell like actual biscotti -- no almond smell, which is kind of a shame. Mostly vanilla and orange blossom with a gourmand feel, with a bit of citrus. This one is super light and casual, great right out of a shower. Its immense 10 fl oz bottle encourages liberal usage!

I've written about Tom Ford Black Orchid before and I still love it, but it's too heavy for spring and summer. I don't want to say it's loud, but it does project quite far off of the skin. I have to be very careful when I use this, one spray can feel like more than enough. Patchouli, jasmine, vetiver, ylang-ylang... Not exactly light stuff! This perfume is crazy-go-nuts with fragrance notes (dark chocolate? Incense? Truffle?) but it all works, somehow. Great for fall and winter and for classy nights.

When I first wrote about Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria Flora Nymphea, I didn't actually own it. When I found out recently that Sephora no longer stocked it I panicked and ordered it off Amazon. A perfect spring and summer fragrance. It reminds me of honey (although I hate the way actual honey smells) in that it's sweet but not cloying candy sweet. Flora Nymphea is a simpler fragrance (all of Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria fragrances are) with only a few prominent notes so it's closer to Marc Jacobs Biscotti than the glorious cacophony of Tom Ford Black Orchid. This is a sun-drenched field of flowers in a bottle.


And here's the Best Health Magazine illustration I did a while back, featuring all sorts of new fall fragrances. It was fun to add a watercolour element to my work.

Do you have one signature scent or do you like mixing it up according to season, time of day, or occasion? Any fragrance recommendations?

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Pectin Priestess -- Colour process

I've started dropping colours in this one, part of my Hydrocolloid Pantheon series. The first two were gelatin and agar and all are my way of paying tribute to fun, edible jiggly-wigglies. Pectin is derived from fruits so naturally this one is all fruity and green. Still a work in progress. Might still add texture to the bark.

I feel like with the orange hair she's looking just a bit more like Margaery Tyrell of Highgarden (from Game of Thrones :P) who would naturally be the personification of such a bounty!

Gelatin! (Derived from hooves, horns, hide)

Agar! (Derived from red algae)

Sketch!

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Hydrocolloid Pantheon: Pectin Priestess

Third in the series! Here are the other two (gelatin and agar) and their sketches. I'm thinking of a combination of Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruitfulness, a sort of witchy priestess with a cauldron that's making jam, and perhaps a touch of Margaery Tyrell of Highgarden (go go Game of Thrones!).

Along the left side are the pectin-containing fruit foodstuffs jam, jelly, and marmalade. Along the right are two fruit-derived sources of pectin: dried orange peels and apple pomace (which does look like hamster food). Further down along the right side are some jam-making implements and along the bottom are some delicious foods that feature jams and jellies (thumbprint cookies, jammy dodgers, fruit tarts, jelly roll).

There are other types of fruit preserves such as chutney, confit, fruit butter, and fruit curd, but I don't think any of those require pectin and so aren't included in the illustration.

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Work in Progress: Agar

Here's the second of my series commemorating the jiggly-wiggly substances known as hydrocolloids -- aka gelatin and its related substances. (The first of the series: The primal yet proper God of Gelatin.)

Agar is an Asian aquatic hydrocolloid derived from red algae. It makes a great vegetarian substitute for gelatin and thickener for soups and preserves, but is best known for its use in Asian sweets such as anmitsu (sort of a Japanese fruit salad with cubes of agar and red bean paste), yokan (Japanese blocks of sweetened red bean paste), sago gulaman (a Filipino drink), Vietnamese thạch (a layered jelly dessert), various Indian desserts (where it's called China Grass), and even in Russia, where it is used in ptich'ye moloko, a sort of jelly-custard that is often coated in chocolate.

Like gelatin, agar is used extensively in biology as a medium to grow bacteria, fungi, biomolecules, etc. In some ways it is even better at this than gelatin because it's often indigestible to organisms and porous, among other properties.

Lastly, agar is also known as kanten. It's mostly fibre, which makes it a great natural regulator of the digestive system. It expands in the stomach and makes people feel full and has a lot of bulk for relatively few calories. It might become the next big diet fad!

I dressed the agar-lady as a Japanese pearl diver with her goggles and net and wooden barrel. These amazing women dive deep into the sea, holding their breaths for two minutes at a time and coming up for air for only a few seconds before they go back down. Historically this job was performed by women because it was believed that they had greater lung capacity than men. To me, agar offers bounties far greater than pearls!

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Hydrocolloid Pantheon: Gelatin God being inked

Haven't been able to work on this one for a while! I actually inked the whole thing with a tech pen but I thought it looked horrendous. Going back and doing it again with a wee brush and a pot of ink. 

I've also started to consolidate my reserach for the next one in the series... Agar! Derived from red algae with 17th century Japanese origins. Also known as Japanese Isinglass. Used with added nutrients to germinate seeds in a sterile environment. A staple of many Asian desserts. Mmm... 

-- Julia

Portfolio site

My nail polish collection

More make-up sketch stuff! (Here's the rest of it). I thought it'd be handy for me to have all of this in one place so I can see what I've got at a glance. Conclusion? A lot of these look very similar :P. Although the scan can't really show the different shimmery bits and such, and certainly didn't do justice to the fluorescent polishes of the "Outrageous Neons" mini collection I picked up recently. 

I'm still working on that gelatin-themed personal piece -- just thought it might be fun to whip up something quick this week! 

-- Julia

Portfolio site

God of Gelatin: Giant glorious aspic and industrial uses

Click to enlarge -- The pics below, too!

 Nearly done the pencils for this illustration! I've tightened it up in some places and added some of the industrial uses for gelatin: Photographic film, a substrate for cell cultures, and ballistic gelatin. Not to mention the monstrous aspic containing eggs, shrimp, olives, brussel sprouts, and cubes of ham. 

It's been nice to be able to take a leisurely approach to this piece, working in fits and starts and having fun with the little details!

-- Julia

Portfolio site

God of Gelatin -- Work in Progress

(Click images to enlarge.)

Added some gelatin-containing foods to the sketch (counter-clockwise from the far left): Trifle, animal hide glue in a pot, licorice allsorts, gumdrops, jelly beans, and marshmallows. I'm hoping to stick a glorious giant aspic in the back, full of hard boiled eggs and bits of meat. 

And I still have to work in the nymph/fairy/pixie Isinglass. Isinglass is the swim bladders of fish, also used to make gelatin. I kinda think Isinglass is a lovely name for a mystical creature!

Here's my initial post on this sketch, with more details.

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Hydrocolloid Pantheon

I love drawing food. The shapes and colours appeal to me very strongly and I don't really know why. My personal pieces tend to include food, whether it's the mad tea party in Alice in Wonderland or an info graphic  / tribute to umami, the fifth taste.

I was thinking of doing a series based on the other four tastes (still might!). But while I was doing my research I started getting really interested in hydrocolloids -- aka gelatin, agar, pectin, gum arabic, etc. Such a versatile substance, and derived from so many sources! Gelatin is made from bones, horns, hooves, and skin. Agar is extracted from seaweed. Pectin is from fruits. Gum arabic is from the acacia tree. Starches count as hydrocolloids too, which means that just about any starchy plant (corn, potato, wheat...) can create the stuff. There's even a kind of gelatin called isinglass which is derived from the dried swim bladders of fish! Basically, you can create this jiggly-wiggly substance from just about anything.

And humans have been using hydrocolloids for ages. The ancient Egyptians used wheat starch as glue, the Romans used it in creams and to thicken sauces, cooks in the Middle Ages knew how to create a meat-based jelly as a foodstuff, and aspic has been used for ages to preserve meat.

Hydrocolloids are used in all types of foods, confectionery, glue, as a substrate for cell cultures,  as wound dressings, in photography... The list goes on and on. And so I've arrived at my next personal series. The first of which is Gelatin.

Two of the oldest sources of gelatin are hartshorn (deer antlers) and isinglass (the fish swim bladders). So my first deity in the Hydrocolloid Pantheon is a pagan god of sorts, with a Regency period flavour. There is such a contrast in  the primal, visceral origins of gelatin (yes, you can use guts to make gelatin too!) and delicate, pretty creations such as trifles and marshmallow peeps that I wanted the Gelatin God to be both animalistic and rather proper. And nothing's more proper than Jane Austen dishing up a heapin' helpin' of aspic!

During the Industrial Revolution (the Regency period happened somewhere in there) gelatin was a by-product of the mass production of animals that factories were now able to accomplish. It didn't take long before enterprising souls went to work marketing this jiggly waste product to consumers to make some extra cash! Here's an interesting article about aspic. From the Guardian. Naturally :P.

Also, I think I went with Regency because when I think of a prim satyr-type figure I think of Mr. Tumnus from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and James McAvoy played Tumnus and he also starred in a Jane Austen movie called "Becoming Jane".

He's holding a beer because isinglass is still used in the production of wine and beer. I'm planning on drawing a little nymph/fairy/pixie called Isinglass somewhere in this illustration. Not to mention mountains of gumdrops, jelly beans, and other delicious things :).

-- Julia
Portfolio site

How to make homemade tomato sauce

Click to enlarge!

Last weekend I helped my brother-in-law make homemade tomato sauce. A very time-consuming process but incredibly rewarding -- Summer in a jar through those diabolically cold winter months. 

Every year my brother-in-law and his brother have struggled with a chintzy red plastic contraption to extract the seeds and skins from the pulp and juices. This year, the brother sprung for a heavy metal motorized beast of a tomato massacre-izer. Game changer! This machine blasted its way through two huge cardboard boxes of roma tomatoes in no time flat. It felt like we were shovelling coal into the firebox of an old-timey steam locomotive. It was actually kinda scary!

After that, it was a mere matter of simmering down the pre-sauce until it was reduced 50% and then canning it with a bit of salt. The best sauce ever.

Sketch: 

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Flora Nymphea: Another favourite fragrance

I've mentioned before that Tom Ford's Black Orchid is my favourite fragrance (here's the sketch I made of it). It's a glorious, unique scent but unfortunately not that suitable for spring and summer. However, I've come upon something that is perfect!

I've gotten quite attached to Aqua Allegoria Flora Nymphea. All of the Aqua Allegoria series are fairly simple fragrances. Flora Nymphea is all about a lovely not-too-sweet honey smell. Which is weird because I hate the smell of actual honey. But this just smells so amazing! Fumehead Katie Puckrik describes it as a happy, natural, real smell. Here's her video review.

On the surface, Black Orchid and Flora Nympha are complete opposites: Complex vs. simple, heavy vs light, warm n' spicy vs light an floral. None of their notes are the same. But both have sweetness to them that isn't sugary or overpowering. And both have earthy qualities that work well on skin.

Here's the illustration job I did that inspired these fragrance sketches.

Other fragrance recommendations:

If I was more into fruity florals, Givenchy's Hot Couture is a good one of that type. It's hard to do a fruity fragrance that doesn't smell cheap or common. Hot Couture's got some nice raspberries that aren't overpowering. And it's got other stuff going on so it's not just fruit. Lancome Tresor Midnight Rose is another raspberry fragrance, but boring and generic in comparison.

Prada L'eau Ambree is gorgeous if you are looking for a sophisticated amber fragrance. And yes, to anyone who isn't big into perfumes: amber is fossilized tree resin and probably doesn't smell at all! Amber in perfumes is a sweet, woody, balmy smell that is created by combining a bunch of different ingredients.

My favourite jasmine fragrance so far is Bvgari Jasmin Noir. It's a little bit strange-- the first note I get off of a spray is something like rubber! But maybe I'm just weird, because when I smell my mom's night blooming jasmine I almost get a cigarette smell. And jasmine, of course! A lot of jasmine perfumes end up being too sweet. Even Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Jasminora seemed too sweet. But maybe I should give it another chance, because Guerlain is usually pretty great when it comes to perfume!

As for men's fragrances, I haven't really looked into those much. Ages ago I bought my boyfriend Burberry Men after spending hours smelling everything in sight at the Bay. He still wears it! It's great in all seasons, dries down nicely, and wears close to the skin. Decently priced, too.

What's your favourite perfume? :)

-- Julia
Portfolio

Garden sketches

Haven't done much sketching lately. Wasn't sure what I wanted to draw, until my mom asked me if I knew what a green bean plant and a cucumber plant look like. Sounds like a challenge -- To the garden!

Hope everyone's having a good summer.

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Nonquon Lagoons Birding Trip

My parents and I took a trip to Nonquon Lagoons in Port Perry, Ontario to see if we could spot any good waterfowl or shorebirds. They added a bird to their lifetime bird count! That's a pretty big deal when you've seen 212 different species and you haven't left Ontario. Here are two sketches I did from photos my dad took: The top is an adult black tern and the bottom is the juvenile version. 

Nonquon Lagoons is some sort of waste water treatment area. It smells like a public restroom. What makes it great (besides the smell :P) is that it's off the beaten path and doesn't get a lot visitors. You need to pony up $10 (per person) for an annual permit to visit the area, which is fenced off and locked. There isn't even any actual parking to speak off and it's at the end of a dead-end road. There are about half a dozen lagoons of varying smelliness and depth, which means there's something for just about any type of bird that likes water!

The town is doing some construction in the area so if you are thinking of visiting, you may want to go on a weekend when it's quieter. In the pic below on the far right you can see a big truck kicking up dust clouds. That guy was driving back and forth all day! He seemed nice and we waved each time he went by. Didn't seem to bother the birds but you never know. But don't forget to grab your permit(s) first! You need to go to the nearby transfer station (which may in fact be closed on the weekends, not sure) to get it, otherwise you can't get in. 

Also, July isn't the greatest time to go see birds. Spring/fall is best!

Here's one of the lagoons (courtesy of my iphone 3 + Instagram):

Plenty of bluets buzzing about. Here's a pic I took with my iphone 3 of a bluet shedding its old skin:

And here the list of what my parents spotted today:

Yellowlegs

Killdeer

Spotted sandpiper

Semipalmated sandpiper

Canada goose

Mallard

Herring Gull

Trumpeter swan

Black tern

Red winged blackbird

Hooded merganser

Red head duck

Ring billed duck

Goldfinch

Kingbird

Turkey vulture

Caspian tern

More of my watercolour stuff

-- Julia

Portfolio site