New Tumblr Account: Pure imput

My first two Tumblr posts.

Kim's gorgeous orange tulips in her wonderful black + white kitchen. Kim follows Apt Therapy's belief that fresh flowers = a happy home.


The photography of stylist and photographer Pia Jane Bijerk.
Simply stunning.

I started a Tumblr account yesterday. Despite the fact that I feel there are far too many social media doo-hickys going on these days I decided that Tumblr might be a very handy way for me to keep a running inspiration board in digital form. I constantly find images that rock my world but they often hang out on my desk top and never make it to the blog due to lack of time. (Can you relate?) Am hoping Tumblr will solve this problem and result in a juicy stream of images representing the visual imput entering my brain on a daily basis.
Enjoy!

Nerd out!

Yesterday I started to take a course on the History of Furniture at George Brown College.
My professor Rachel Finer is fantastic.

"Where we blog from" on Ill seen Ill said

My livingroom

My Frieda Kahlo action figure by artist Suzie Smith

Today Jane Flanagan of ill seen ill said featured a few pics of my livingroom as part of her 'Where we blog from' series. You can take a look here.

Press: Canadian Originals

Writer Joyce Mcfarlane interviewed me last week for Canadian originals: a blog which celebrates Canadian artists + designers. You can read it here.

New Work: Birdcage pattern

New Birdcage pattern Lime + blue colourway

A peek behind the process

I first do lots of sketches by hand
The first few are always too stiff + perfect
It takes a while (+ music + coffee) to loosen up



Loosening up



Bird sketches which I had on file.

Then I scan my fave sketches into the computer and put the drawing together in Photoshop

Next step is to choose colour

For inspiration I go into my ongoing colour file that I keep on my desktop.
In this case I chose a fabric that I had photographed while at Anthropologie last week.
(Yes secret revealed!)
I thought the combo of lime, blue + taupe was just gorgeous plus it had a real retro look which I was after.



I make up a swatch of the colours

And then used them to colour my illustrations.
* Note: I slighty altered my technique today by opaquely colouring in over the linework of the birds and some of the cage. This gives the illustration a more vintage look as this technique was often used in the 1950s.

After completing 5 birds this way I used the cut + paste keys in Photshop to create a repeat pattern. I then added a light tan colour underneath.


Here are 2 more colourways.


Girly pink and red.


Retro orange + blue.