The Old Cottage for Cottage Magazine

My favourite thing in the world is repeat clients. Last April I did a series of illustrations for Cottage Magazine and this is my second job for them!

The accompanying article deals with the dilemma of renovating an older cottage versus building a new one. A lot of older cottages don't comply with modern regulations, so altering the building in any way can result in a seemingly endless battle with red tape. 

It was fun to do a split-screen illustration that contrasts the care-free 50s when one's grandparents may have built their cozy cottage and the more stress-filled 2010s (is there an appropriate abbreviation for this yet?). Coca-cola in glass bottles has been replaced with a grande Starbucks coffee. The straight-forward task of splitting cedar shakes for a cottage roof has now become navigating thick binders of obscure zoning bylaws and environmental impact studies. The cars and clothes have changed while the stunning view remains the same!

 And here's the spot illustration:



Sketches!

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Grand Rights 101 for Words & Music magazine

Words & Music magazine is put out by SOCAN, a Canadian organization that handles the licenses of music for more than 100,000 members. The article I was illustrating was a primer on Grand Rights, which are the rights associated to performing music live onstage (musicals, operas, ballet, etc.)

Fresh Art & Design Inc. is a design firm based in Toronto, and they handle the art direction and design of Words & Music. They've also done design work for the University of Toronto, Rogers, and Opera Canada. It's really nice to get to work for a firm that is right in the mix of Canadian arts and culture!

We've got a happy Wagner totting up his receipts backstage after another successful night at the opera -- Because Grand Rights exist to make sure that the creators are adequately compensated for their works. I was originally going to just draw a jumble of musical notes on the paper in the bottom left corner, but I remembered that musicians and composers and other music industry people would be reading the magazine! So I found a page of sheet music that actually had a bit of Wagner on it and used that. I don't know if anyone will notice... But it was fun to do!

Super rough sketch: 

A more refined version:

-- Julia

Portfolio site

The God of Gelatin on the cover of the Weekly Alibi

Now that this illustration's been published, I suppose that means I ought to stop futzing with it :P. For some reason I get a real kick out of drawing food. This is a self-directed piece I did that showcases that wobbly wonder called gelatin, its origins, and its many uses. 

Here's some text I wrote to accompany the illustration: 

Gelatin is a translucent, colourless, flavour-

less solid substance created when collagen is

hydrolysed. Its most common forms are 

sheets, granules, or powder.

One of the oldest forms of gelatin is hartshorn jelly, 

derived from the antlers of stags. Another ancient

source of gelatin is isinglass, made from the swim 

bladders of sturgeon. Isinglass is used to this day 

in the clarification of beer and wine. Gelatin is 

derived from animal by-products although veg-

etarian alternatives do exist. In modern times the 

majority of the gelatin is extracted from pig skin.

Gelatin is a versatile substance with a multitude 

of uses. It is used most commonly as an addi-

tive to foodstuffs, where it can act as a thickener, 

texturizer, or stabilizer. Gelatin is essential in the 

manufacture of film stock and is used extensively 

as a substrate for cell cultivation, as ballistics 

gelatin, and in pill casings, glue, and confect-

ionery.

             

Here's some more of the process work for the piece. And the preliminary work!  

And here's my Umami: The Fifth Taste piece I did last year, in the same "I love drawing food" vein:

It seems like every year I get a hankering for doing a "food, glorious food!" illustration. Here was 2011's:

-- Julia

Portfolio site

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