The blog world is so popular now. I'm so glad that I'm getting to meet fun gals from all over the world! A while ago, I got this Best Blog Friend from Corie and just totally forgot about posting it! Sorry, Corie girl! Of course, a couple days ago, I got this also from Corinne (aka Roxy). You guys are definately Best Blog Friends!! I love you both. I'm sure you all are not strangers to Corie and Corinne's blogs...they are fabulous! If you want inspiration, you gotta check them out! Since this post is long overdue, I want to say that all of you are my best blog friends. Lots of you already were awarded with this cute blogger friend...Thank you to all of you who are supporters of my journal! Hugs!Best Blog Friend
The blog world is so popular now. I'm so glad that I'm getting to meet fun gals from all over the world! A while ago, I got this Best Blog Friend from Corie and just totally forgot about posting it! Sorry, Corie girl! Of course, a couple days ago, I got this also from Corinne (aka Roxy). You guys are definately Best Blog Friends!! I love you both. I'm sure you all are not strangers to Corie and Corinne's blogs...they are fabulous! If you want inspiration, you gotta check them out! Since this post is long overdue, I want to say that all of you are my best blog friends. Lots of you already were awarded with this cute blogger friend...Thank you to all of you who are supporters of my journal! Hugs!I'm so honored!
This past Friday, our Department had our 2007 Annual Incentive & Service Awards Ceremony. I was lucky to be nominated employee of the year. Although I was not the recipient of the award, it was an honor for my co-workers to nominate me. Thank you!! Talk about a double delight day. At the same ceremony, I was awarded a certificate for 10 years of service. Here's a picture of me with our Director and Deputy Director. A funny note, not sure if you can see the name on the certificate, but it's not my name. what????!!!! The guy that was supposed to be called before me didn't show up, so I guess the program went on and they mistakenly gave me the wrong certificate. I received my very own certificate after the ceremony.Show flicks and the hidden basement
Rose sent me some flicks from the opening...here we go. They are mostly crowd shots or shots of me, and I don't think anyone wants to see too many photos of me...
This is me looking really surprised at something... The girl in the back is Patti, one of my best buds... She works across the street from my studio and always brings me coffee or gatorade or company...
This is my friend Rose who took all of the photos, except this one I guess... No, wait, I think I borrowed her camera and took them myself... I can't remember. Oh, Rose and her friend Steph run a company together, you should go to the website and buy things... www.p0isson.com Oh, I see that they have a blog now too...
http://p0isson.blogspot.com/
I'm not good with computers and I don't know how to make hyperlinks...
Hmmm...what happened this week? Oh, Nicolina worked her first shift as a paid studio assistant, except I didn't have any cash to pay her, but I'm good for it...or rather I hope to shit I'll be good for it within the next couple of weeks... uh, sorry Nicolina, you are important to me...
Look how happy she looks:
Then Nicolina cleaned my studio and found a bloody tooth on the floor. My first reaction was to check my mouth, but it was all good. Then I thought maybe it was Andrews from when he got hit by that car, but I saw the teeth he lost and neither looked like this... So Nicolina found a bloody tooth on the floor, and we have no idea where it came from...
A couple of friends from across the hall came over and said they found a hidden basement in the building. This was very exciting news, I've been in the building for about 3 years in total, and I never heard anything about a hidden basement... So we explored it:
So after all that walking we found an old office with rotten cans of coke in the fridge. And there was a desk and in the desk we found 2 big boxes of condoms, and an unopened bottle of chocolate body...stuff. I don't know what its called, that stuff that people put on each other and have sex with it... Chocolate body paste? Lotion?
Beside the desk there was a little hobbit sized door that lead to a scary dark corridor with ladders to climb:
I also drew a bunch, But I haven't finished any of the drawings yet, I have a few on the go at once, getting some small paper drawings ready for the Toronto Internation Art Fair, which is in late October I think...
Oh, I sent 5 pieces to that Strange Brew show in Seatlle that I posted the flyer for. Two of the pieces I sent were small watercolours, 4" x 6"... Its the first time I've really used watercolours, uh, I'm not brilliant, but I wanted to post them in here for some variation... The scans look pretty fucked up, this was from before we calibrated my scanner... They are brother and sister Coral Gnomes...
Ok, thats all I got for now...
This is me looking really surprised at something... The girl in the back is Patti, one of my best buds... She works across the street from my studio and always brings me coffee or gatorade or company...
This is my friend Rose who took all of the photos, except this one I guess... No, wait, I think I borrowed her camera and took them myself... I can't remember. Oh, Rose and her friend Steph run a company together, you should go to the website and buy things... www.p0isson.com Oh, I see that they have a blog now too...
http://p0isson.blogspot.com/
I'm not good with computers and I don't know how to make hyperlinks...
Hmmm...what happened this week? Oh, Nicolina worked her first shift as a paid studio assistant, except I didn't have any cash to pay her, but I'm good for it...or rather I hope to shit I'll be good for it within the next couple of weeks... uh, sorry Nicolina, you are important to me...
Look how happy she looks:
Then Nicolina cleaned my studio and found a bloody tooth on the floor. My first reaction was to check my mouth, but it was all good. Then I thought maybe it was Andrews from when he got hit by that car, but I saw the teeth he lost and neither looked like this... So Nicolina found a bloody tooth on the floor, and we have no idea where it came from...
A couple of friends from across the hall came over and said they found a hidden basement in the building. This was very exciting news, I've been in the building for about 3 years in total, and I never heard anything about a hidden basement... So we explored it:
So after all that walking we found an old office with rotten cans of coke in the fridge. And there was a desk and in the desk we found 2 big boxes of condoms, and an unopened bottle of chocolate body...stuff. I don't know what its called, that stuff that people put on each other and have sex with it... Chocolate body paste? Lotion?
Beside the desk there was a little hobbit sized door that lead to a scary dark corridor with ladders to climb:
I also drew a bunch, But I haven't finished any of the drawings yet, I have a few on the go at once, getting some small paper drawings ready for the Toronto Internation Art Fair, which is in late October I think...
Oh, I sent 5 pieces to that Strange Brew show in Seatlle that I posted the flyer for. Two of the pieces I sent were small watercolours, 4" x 6"... Its the first time I've really used watercolours, uh, I'm not brilliant, but I wanted to post them in here for some variation... The scans look pretty fucked up, this was from before we calibrated my scanner... They are brother and sister Coral Gnomes...
Ok, thats all I got for now...
First Tag class - boy!, I'm exhausted!!
Well, this Sunday was my first 50 Christmas tag class. If any of you are planning to do a class like this, keep the projects simple. My problem is that I create the project, love what I just made and then when it comes time to cut the pieces for kit - eeks! Always have to thank Wini for assisting me on cutting and assembling. This round, also have t thank my family for helping me put all the ribbons in the appropriate bag. Mom and Dad cut all of the hundreds of ribbons for me while I went to work. I had a regular Santa workshop going! This was one of the simpler tags. I wanted something simple to make yet classy. I love this Naughty or Nice stamp set from the Holiday mini catalog. Since I didn't want everyone spending tons of time coloring Santa, I chose to just stamp him in black and then I used dazzling diamonds on his moustache and the ball from his hat. Added a bling (non SU one) in the middle of the bow. The ribbons are SU's 5/8" Old Olive grosgrain ribbon and the 1/4" Bravo Burgandy grosgrain ribbon. We used the ticket punch on all corners and that's it! The other thing that I stressed myself about these making tags is ordering the correct amount of product. I LOVE ribbon and I love to have them nice, long, love the bows to be just perfect. Well, using some of these ribbons can get costly when making the kits, (I made 30 kits) and so I ended up ordering rolls and rolls of ribbons!! We made 5 of this tag and each of these ribbons were 12". 
And here's the holder that we made - it can hold 10 tags (one of each tag that we made). Here we used 30" of the Old Olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon for each kit...yikes!! I also used some Hodge Podge hardware, Dashing DS papers (my fave!), Well worn alphabet set for the word TAGS and jingle bells tied on with the gold elastic cord. I couldn't find any more of the assorted colored bells since I bought this container last Christmas, so for the class, I changed it to gold bells and it turned out just as nice! This holder has a 1/2" gusset in the middle to accommodate the bulkiness of the tags. Will post more tags in the days to follow...still have one more class this Sunday!! P.S. I was so stressed out trying to set up that I totally forgot to take pics of the class in session. Stay tuned for pics from the next class!!
Catching up...
Birds are Terrifying Creatures comes down next week, thanks to everyone who came out. The opening went well, art was seen, booze was drank...Here are some images of the work in the show... I didn't take any photos at the opening, but my buddy Rose did and I'll post them once she sends them over...
It was a crazy summer. Carolyn and I went our seperate ways somewhere along the way, Andrew and I crashed in the studio almost every night, I eventually moved in with my buddies Team Macho and I'm just getting settled in now... When I'm working hard on a show I tend to neglect every other element in my life, so now I'm done, but my phone has been shut off, I missed the last 5 months rent on my studio, and I've got 2 collection agencies calling me up. Well, they were calling me up before my phone got cut off, now they are mailing me letters. The letters are getting kind of scary, the latest one just says this:
WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY WE HAVE NOT HEARD FROM YOU.
PLEASE ADVISE YOUR INTENTIONS.
I don't even know what that means! When you call the phone company, the music that they play when you are on hold is really relaxing love song type stuff. When you call the collection agency, they play terrifying German horror music. But yeah, this is the fourth summer in a row that I have had a solo at the end, and the fourth time this sort of thing has happened. But once some payments come in from work things sort themselves out usually...
First off I want to thank my co-op student Nicolina Cloutier, shes an illustration student from Sheridan College. She worked really hard this summer helping Andrew and I in the studio, and did all of the shitty jobs that we didn't want to do and barely even complained about them. I'm hiring her on as an assistant starting this week, so now she gets to do a whole bunch of shitty jobs around the studio but she gets paid... But yeah, she was awesome to be around and pretty funny and I'm really excited that she'll still be around the studio this fall...
Here is a photo of her buying me socks and underwear from Winners:
I'll spare you the boredom of a million random studio photos, but heres a good one... A week before the show had to be finished Andrew got hit by a car. And not just a little hit, but face-smashes-the-windshield-missing-teeth sort of hit. I'm not sure if "hit" is the proper word, I think "smoked" is more accurate.
So he gets knocked out and when he comes to, he finds his teeth, puts them in his pocket, and immediately calls me and says: "um...I'm not sure if I'll be able to come into work today. I just got hit by a car. I'm about to go into emergency, but I'll give you a call as soon as I get out. Depending on what time it is maybe I can still come in and get some work done." What a selfish guy, he should have came into the studio FIRST, finished his work for the day, and THEN gone into emergency...
What a beautiful face...
okok, so here is a bunch of images of the work from the show...
The piece that looks like a grey scale doesn't translate very well, its actually a grid of 7780 bird portraits. I've posted the last image of the grids before, we released limited edition offset lithos of them at the show...
After the show I relaxed a bit, drew a bit, and went "up north" to chop some firewood...here are a few random photos of "up north":
As soon as I got back from the cabin, I got an email that my friend Crystal Yin ( www.flapflapfly.com ) and her sister Michelle was in town. I use the term friend loosely, we like each others work and have been emailing each other off and on for a few years, but had never met, but get along pretty well over the world wide inter web. What I wasn't prepared for however was her being the prettiest girl in the world and I had just spent 7 days in the woods and i was totally thrown off... I tried to show them the city but I was really nervous and tripped a lot and made long rambling sentences that made very little sense. Worst tourguide ever. But yeah, check out her site, her and Michelle make Sweet Toofs, they are really quite cool...
I didn't really get any photos, except for photos of their backs of them looking up at the CN Tower. Since 1976, it has been the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, though it will most likely lose this title to the still under construction Burj Dubai, which surpassed the CN Tower's height on September 12, 2007. The tower is the signature icon of the city, attracting more than two million international visitors annually. I took that whole last part from Wikipedia...
Ok, so that catches everything up to yesterday... So this time for sure, I'm going to update once a week! Except a drawing takes more than a week to complete so I don't know what I'll write about...I guess not every post will be art related...
It was a crazy summer. Carolyn and I went our seperate ways somewhere along the way, Andrew and I crashed in the studio almost every night, I eventually moved in with my buddies Team Macho and I'm just getting settled in now... When I'm working hard on a show I tend to neglect every other element in my life, so now I'm done, but my phone has been shut off, I missed the last 5 months rent on my studio, and I've got 2 collection agencies calling me up. Well, they were calling me up before my phone got cut off, now they are mailing me letters. The letters are getting kind of scary, the latest one just says this:
WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY WE HAVE NOT HEARD FROM YOU.
PLEASE ADVISE YOUR INTENTIONS.
I don't even know what that means! When you call the phone company, the music that they play when you are on hold is really relaxing love song type stuff. When you call the collection agency, they play terrifying German horror music. But yeah, this is the fourth summer in a row that I have had a solo at the end, and the fourth time this sort of thing has happened. But once some payments come in from work things sort themselves out usually...
First off I want to thank my co-op student Nicolina Cloutier, shes an illustration student from Sheridan College. She worked really hard this summer helping Andrew and I in the studio, and did all of the shitty jobs that we didn't want to do and barely even complained about them. I'm hiring her on as an assistant starting this week, so now she gets to do a whole bunch of shitty jobs around the studio but she gets paid... But yeah, she was awesome to be around and pretty funny and I'm really excited that she'll still be around the studio this fall...
Here is a photo of her buying me socks and underwear from Winners:
I'll spare you the boredom of a million random studio photos, but heres a good one... A week before the show had to be finished Andrew got hit by a car. And not just a little hit, but face-smashes-the-windshield-missing-teeth sort of hit. I'm not sure if "hit" is the proper word, I think "smoked" is more accurate.
So he gets knocked out and when he comes to, he finds his teeth, puts them in his pocket, and immediately calls me and says: "um...I'm not sure if I'll be able to come into work today. I just got hit by a car. I'm about to go into emergency, but I'll give you a call as soon as I get out. Depending on what time it is maybe I can still come in and get some work done." What a selfish guy, he should have came into the studio FIRST, finished his work for the day, and THEN gone into emergency...
What a beautiful face...
okok, so here is a bunch of images of the work from the show...
The piece that looks like a grey scale doesn't translate very well, its actually a grid of 7780 bird portraits. I've posted the last image of the grids before, we released limited edition offset lithos of them at the show...
After the show I relaxed a bit, drew a bit, and went "up north" to chop some firewood...here are a few random photos of "up north":
As soon as I got back from the cabin, I got an email that my friend Crystal Yin ( www.flapflapfly.com ) and her sister Michelle was in town. I use the term friend loosely, we like each others work and have been emailing each other off and on for a few years, but had never met, but get along pretty well over the world wide inter web. What I wasn't prepared for however was her being the prettiest girl in the world and I had just spent 7 days in the woods and i was totally thrown off... I tried to show them the city but I was really nervous and tripped a lot and made long rambling sentences that made very little sense. Worst tourguide ever. But yeah, check out her site, her and Michelle make Sweet Toofs, they are really quite cool...
I didn't really get any photos, except for photos of their backs of them looking up at the CN Tower. Since 1976, it has been the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, though it will most likely lose this title to the still under construction Burj Dubai, which surpassed the CN Tower's height on September 12, 2007. The tower is the signature icon of the city, attracting more than two million international visitors annually. I took that whole last part from Wikipedia...
Ok, so that catches everything up to yesterday... So this time for sure, I'm going to update once a week! Except a drawing takes more than a week to complete so I don't know what I'll write about...I guess not every post will be art related...
A surprise from Allison!
Yipee! Check out the surprise I got in the mail! A card from Allison. I love this Bella! This is a criss cross card turned in a different direction. Too bad you can't really see the glitter on the striped portion of the card, very blingy (is that a word??) Anyway, I love it! Thank you so much, Allison! I don't think there's anyone that doesn't know about Allison's wonderful blog called "Stampin' When I Can" - here, you get the latest scoops on everything!! A wealth of information for bloggers!
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