Social Gifting for the Weekly Alibi

Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other social networking sites can help gifters suss out what giftees may desire! Perhaps a little benign cyber-stalking is in order this holiday season :). Link to the Weekly Alibi article. 

And here's some more hand-drawn type I did for the same issue:

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Latest Macleans on Newsstands

I've done a number of these back page illustrations for Macleans, but this one was the first time I've done a "The End" piece that's featured twins. Paul and Morris Longmire were inseparable in life. They played together, worked together, bought twin houses next to each other, vacationed together, and tragically died together in a car accident. 

One of their favourite pastimes (apparently that's how it's spelled, I checked! I could've sworn it would be "passtimes" or "pass-times") was cribbage, so I came up with an illustrated frame that incorporated a cribbage board with two tracks. In cribbage the pieces race each other around the track, but in this frame I put the playing pieces in step with each other (as the twins were in life), with details from the brothers' lives along the way. 

They were fishermen who bought a scallop boat together, so I drew a scallop shell containing two scallops to indicate their closeness. The pawns at the top centre show how they were the middle children of six, or could symbolise how they had three children each. I made their twin bungalows Monopoly houses to go along with the board game idea.

And here's the spot illustration that is used in Macleans' iPad app:

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Sad Republican Elephant for the Weekly Alibi

The 2012 US Elections are long over (well, a long time in this super-fast modern world we inhabit) and the results are in. The GOP's wept some tears and nursed a few glasses of chocolate milk. I've heard that phoenixes (phoenices?) rise from the ashes and I wonder if the same applies to pachyderms :P. 

The Weekly Alibi wanted an illustration of the aftermath and suggested the idea of a sad elephant at a bar, but wondered if it would be too cheesy. No way, I thought! Let's make this happen!

Sketch:

Best wishes to my American friends -- Hope the next four years are good to you. 

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Booksellers Fight the Good Fight: For the Weekly Alibi

A fun one for the Weekly Alibi (here's the article). It's about the battle that independent booksellers have been fighting since the creation of e-book technology -- How to be relevant and appeal to customers who in large part have turned to Kindles and Kobos to satisfy their literary needs. 

In a way, it's a companion piece to this illustration I did for Alternatives Journal. That article discussed how the new technologies are innovating the publishing industry. This latest article for the Alibi recounts how booksellers are fighting to retain a piece of that publishing pie. 

 Sketch:

-- 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