Wedding invite for a friend

I was happy to get the chance to do a dual-portrait wedding invitation for an old high school friend. The idea was to have them look like they were riding on top of a double-decker bus with a favourite landmark behind them.

Best wishes to them!

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Two new rooms. Introducing wallpaper!

The art for my adventure game is going full steam ahead. Here's a tea room / book nook I did! I looked it up and they indeed had hot plates in the early-ish 1900s :P.

When I was back in Toronto I was marvelling at the wallpaper in my parents' house. They first put it up when they moved into that house almost forty years ago and I've loved it for as long as I can remember. Not many people use wallpaper any more and I think that's a shame! This inspired me to add wallpaper to some of the rooms I've been creating. 

And here's the poster in the tea room I reproduced with glorious pixels. I get a real kick out of doing that!

Check out this fairly garish bathroom I've done. Again, another Art Nouveau poster on the wall:

 

The hair was pretty challenging...

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Pet memorial stones

 My uncle's dog died suddenly and my mom wanted me to paint a memorial stone for him like ones I've done before. After I'd completed this stone (for Mei, who died in July)  my mom wanted me to restore Leo's stone, which looked like this:

I painted this just four years ago! Poor thing :(. It hadn't occurred to me to spray these things with a coat of clear acrylic. I got the idea while painting Mei's stone, so now I had to do the others!


Here's Leo's stone all nice and restored. After I took this photo I sprayed the stone with the clear acrylic so hopefully it'll last a little longer this time.

Here are all the cats that have come before! Poor Sparky died first, seven years old or so. She had heart problems. The unnamed cat we called Shiro, he was a feral cat that hung around. He had the loveliest colouring. We managed to capture a couple of his siblings while they were still young and take them to an animal shelter. While we like cats, huge feral colonies aren't that great if you love birdwatching! 

None of the other stones were as worn away as Leo's. But now with the protective coat on top, none of them will be!

-- Julia

Portfolio site

A lady's shoe in fourteen pixels

Here's a lovely walk-in closet to accompany the boudoir I made! Everything's a work in progress but it feels really good to be slowly developing the entire house. The first rooms took ages to create but I think I'm finally getting a handle on the process.

The matching boudoir:

Today I found out about an awesome artist who's been using Microsoft Paint to create works of art. Hal Lasko is 97 years old and used to be a graphic designer (he specialized in creating letterforms by hand). He's long been retired but still uses his discerning eye to produce terrifically pixellicious work. His family showed him how to use Paint a few years ago but he really took to it! The program's ability to magnify segments of an image for him to work on help tremendously because his vision is failing. Here's a video of this inspiring fellow!

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Macleans latest on newsstands!

The subject of this week's illo had a newly discovered talent for baking, beloved pet bearded dragons, and always smelled like campfires. He worked at a restaurant called Gracie Joe's -- I managed to find their logo so I could put it on the bass drum. Drumming was his first passion and baking was his second, so I wanted to combine the two. 

Here's the iPad version:

As you can see, the sketch was pretty different from the final piece :P. Not much room left in the centre first of all, and I decided not to include the building on the lower right, which is a landmark in Thailand. I was planning on contrasting the lighthouse (a local landmark) with the Thai building, but the whole thing ended up being too cluttered.

I kinda like it, too bad it didn't make the cut!

-- Julia

Portfolio site

Father's Day and Mother's Day 2013

Finally getting around to posting these! Since my parents have become such keen birders I have no shortage of ideas for my painted cards. Dido-cat is always looking to make new friends :). 

 Other bird-related cards from this year:

-- Julia
Portfolio site

Wraparound Squid

My first wrap-around illustration! I submitted this to Liberty Bottleworks, which makes some pretty sweet looking metal water bottles. The background colour may be just about anything or may be the metal colour. Fingers crossed that they'll end up producing it :).

I have a fondness for gigantic squid. Same goes for that swooshing Hiroshige-style wave! My Umami-hime piece also features those two loves.

-- Julia
Portfolio site