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

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Illo for Registered Nurse Journal

New client! My friend's sister is a nurse so she'll be getting this in the mail soon. It's always fun when friends and family see my work some place they recognize -- Makes the whole freelancing gig more real to them!

I enjoyed stuffing lots of nursing-related bits into this one, including a tracheostomy tube, blood pressure cuff, sample jars, RN Journal magazines, IV stand with bag, and a model of the brain (the writer of the article is an advanced practice nursing educator in neuroscience).

This is a kinda-sorta repeat client, in that RN Journal and SOCAN's magazine (here's what I did for SOCAN) are designed by the same firm: Fresh Art & Design Inc.. Repeat clients are my favourite thing ever -- and my second favourite thing ever is new clients :).

Sketch:

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Happy Birthday Mom!

I painted a watercolour scene of some of the birds my mom has seen in the backyard. From left to right: cardinal (female), junco, cardinal (male), tree sparrow, song sparrow, red poll, and goldfinch. The red poll was a particularly interesting find (he's the one with the red cap!). Missing from the illustration is the Cooper's Hawk that's been hunting in our area. When he's around, these little birdies make themselves scarce!

The green thing at the top centre of the picture is the bottom part of a squirrel-proof bird feeder. The birds perch on the bar and eat out of the holes, but the perch won't take the weight of a squirrel and will make all the feeder holes close. Pretty ingenious! Of course, there's more than enough seed on the ground for the squirrels to feast -- but still, kinda cool.

I was very pleased that my mom could identify all the birds from my drawings. I'm no Audubon :P.

Here are some of the other cards I've made!

-- Julia
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Latest Macleans on newsstands

Here's my latest for Macleans. The previous one I did for them also involved twins but this time only one of the pair was killed. Adrian Oliver's dad was an RCMP officer and he and his brother Ben followed in dad's footsteps after a youth spent playing sports and fashion modelling in Greece. 

Because the family has such strong ties with the RCMP I decided to model the whole frame to look somewhat like the RCMP crest. Instead of a crown at the top I put clouds and mountain ranges that have the same approximate shape. Around the frame are the maple leaves that border the crest. 

The twins were born early and had to spend their first months in neo-natal incubators. They'd been flown to the hospital in an air ambulance, which is a pretty dramatic start to life!

The long building in the top right corner is the RCMP detachment their father worked during their childhood. The jerseys below that indicate their participation in hockey, particularly Adrian's time spent playing for the Rockland Nationals. The numbers on the jersey are his birth year.

The tall building opposite the jerseys is a building and river that suggest Carleton University, where they both studied criminology. Below the jerseys is a Greek building and polaroids to symbolize their time spent modelling. The building to the left of the townhouses in the middle is the RCMP training academy in Regina, and the townhouses are the ones they dreamed of living in, side by side. About half a year after they made this dream a reality, Adrian was killed in a traffic accident.

Spot illustration for the iPad version:

Sketch:

-- Julia

Portfolio site

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