Jeopopolis

257: What Tangled Webs We Weave

2012-02-02T21:16:00.000-06:00

It's been a strange winter here. Jinxes be damned, there's only been a single week of legitimately cold weather. There's been so little snow that all the energy I typically expend on shoveling has been transferred largely to sitting on my duff. Our days out skiing have been limited to areas with enough forest cover to nab what snow has accumulated.

And, quite miraculously, the past two days have seen wadges of thick-as-borscht fog descend on the city and – to a much greater extent – out where I work, in the country.

So after the news crews out to see Manitoba Merv prognosticate an early spring (as if winter ever really arrived – again, jinx) wrapped up their on-site reports, I took a short walk.

I went over to the clubhouse, a locked-up out-building on the premises used by school groups in warmer seasons. Under its eaves is a network of cobwebs and barn swallow nests. Because of the fog and damp, the webs were all coated with a thick beading of hoarfrost.

256: Grounded Down

2012-01-12T21:58:00.000-06:00

In a concerted effort to prove to myself that any drawing can be fruitful drawing, I'm posting this doodle. Doodled among other doodles during a department meeting at work yesterday afternoon, I scanned and brought these fellows home, where I proceeded to meticulously transform them into an ever-so-slightly more interesting doodle. And then, respectfully submitted to Illustration Friday to also exemplify their ~~theme-du-jour~~ theme-de-la-semaine of "grounded" – showcasing the unfortunate reality that some people are genetically more, um, grounded than others.

255: Show And Tell

2012-01-02T12:57:00.000-06:00

How am I feeling? It's a new year, and my eighth year running this site. And while I abandoned the place for a great wadge of time, it was by no means indicative of what type of year it's been.

2011 started off on a high. Literally. On January 1, 2011, I attained a higher altitude than on any other day in the calendar year.

There were other notable highs. I gazed at high art. And hoisted my own art fairly high, at my first (co-hosted) photography exhibit. I started getting my name out there. I spread my creative wings more, and began getting paid for it more.

I witnessed high returns attained in our brand new backyard garden, which in itself was a highlight. Despite laying claim to some of the worst corn grown by man, it was a veggie season like no other.

I got to see things of great beauty.

I got to see my family.

I got to see some amazing things…

Head-scratchingly amazing things…

And other amazing things.

I saw an inordinate amount of sheep and goats in 2011. Definitely an anomoly.

Traveled to places of great bustle and hustle…

And to places devoid of bustle and hustle.

Also to places so devoid of bustle and hustle, it was spooky.

But like in most years, there were also a great many days where nothing of note happened. And that's OK. I've never been one to stuff the calendar.

Where is all this leading? Unsure. Technically it leads to 2012, and there will be much to speak of this year. I know that I still get a little high from coming to this place, showing and telling you about these types of things. I hope that you do as well.

Merry Animated GIF-mas

2011-12-13T23:07:00.002-06:00

A snippet of decorating, as Kerry and I got ornamental Sunday night before getting our nog on. This year's star is a Fraser fir, a fine piece of coniferous-ness procured once more from the good chaps at Scouts Canada 66/67th Winnipeg A Troop in River Heights.

254: Felt Love

2011-12-12T22:03:00.000-06:00

Kerry recently needle-felted these four birds.

I have no idea where they're headed next.

But I'm sure they'll land in the hands of loving recipients.

I'm just happy I had the chance to photograph them; give myself something constructive to do other than stare slack-jawed in amazement.

253: Vanity In Purple

2011-11-21T20:56:00.001-06:00

I sketched this portrait of my now-seven-year-old niece (holy crap, it seems like only yesterday) in fits and starts over the last few days.

I am rusty. It took me more than a few do-overs to arrive at the basis of something I could continue with. The source material was never in doubt: an incredibly brief moment I captured earlier this past summer at the beach. The reason for this epic pout long since forgotten, it's still a universal expression all kids learn to master – whether it works or not in getting what they want.

The layerings of purple, added digitally, come from an altogether different source of inspiration: my friend's three-year-old daughter who, like three-year-old daughters across this earth, is enamoured with all things purple and pink (despite her parents' consternation). But as the pinky-purply wash continued to accumulate, the more it began to take on overtones of summer storms around these parts – some of which even come close to matching the power of a little-girl tantrum.

Midway through creating this thing, Illustration Friday – that one-time bastion of inspiration for me in keeping this blog running – dropped in my Friday inbox their current theme of "vanity". I haven't dropped in on Illustration Friday in a year and a half, but am including it here since the whole creation would not have happened were it not for the brief moment of pouty vanity that inspired what you see here… which, you can click here, to see even bigger.

252: Hybridized

2011-11-06T17:04:00.000-06:00

In an attempt to even draw a little bit these days, I signed up to make an appearance with my friend Mary's Doodle Swap Project, which previously I'd only done once before... wait, no – twice.

So yes, I joined in, tasked with producing seven small cards to be sent out across the universe, in exchange for seven in return, from various locations within the same universe (one keener had already arrived before mine even hit the post office).

I realize I'm cheating a bit by resorting to found art for half the concept, but during our trip in Chicago we popped into a paper/craft store and I stumbled on a whole bucket of 90-cent old-timey bird identification flashcards. And I knew then what I had to do.

I had to draw fish heads on them.

Shown here are six of the seven. I'd show the seventh one, but really, the gist is here. You'll have to trust me in that the seventh was of a bird, with a fish head.

I believe it was a rainbow trout.

251: What Happened To October

2011-11-03T22:12:00.001-05:00

In October, we went to Minneapolis. Went on an artsy outing to the Walker, and saw a man dressed as a frog in a canoe on the way there. I have a photo, but I'm still coming to grips with it actually having happened. We witnessed the splendour of Nye's Polonaise Room. Buried our feet in beautiful fall leaves.

We went to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where my friend Erin took us under her wing. Arranged a reading for Kerry at the bookstore. Took us behind the behind-the-scenes at Frank Lloyd Wright's summer home, Taliesin. Sang Mazzy Star for us on karaoke night, and, a week later, displayed her own band's bad-assery at the Sh*tty Barn.

We went to Circus World, in nearby Baraboo. Off-season, the place was a shell of its bombastic summer self, I'm sure. But also, it was quiet and curious and serene, with the exception of a plays-for-25-cents monster calliope wagon. I bought a cap there. It says "Circus World" on it, and it's awesome.

…and later that same day, we saw whooping cranes.

We went to Madison, where my friends Tracy and Nate treated us like kings of all Wisconsin (or whatever they have there… governors, I guess, but they sure didn't treat us like the governor of Wisconsin). We drank local beers, ate some incredible extremely-local pancakes. Good, good people. Their cats were kind of meh about our visit.

Taking nowhere near our fill of Wisconsin, we also went to Chicago. In October, Americans do not celebrate Thanksgiving. But there's this thing called Columbus Day, and in Chicago it brings out enough pomp and lobster costumes for me to forget about turkey. Although later, I found a turkey sandwich for lunch.

In Chicago, we craned our necks for five days. Everything is tall in Chicago. And if it's not, it's probably big in some other way.

And in Chicago, at its absolute tallest, I had this fancypants glass of beer. And we watched the sun set, and Kerry and I rested our foreheads together and watched all the lights turn on.

In Chicago, we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. For eight hours on a rainy day. And for a rainy day, it was one hell of a rainy day. Maybe the most fantastic I've ever been a part of.

I celebrated my 36th birthday in Chicago. Kerry surprised us with a sunny-day jaunt on some Segways. And presented to me this needle-felted Chicago-style (no ketchup) hot dog.

Vile Bean

2011-09-29T21:36:00.003-05:00

I wouldn't dare blame my mom for anything that's gone awry in my life – except my deep-seeded distaste for coffee.

My noob travels on Twitter this week informed me today is National Coffee Day. As a bespectacled, black-long-sleeved-shirt-wearing graphic designer, I should be elated. In fact, I should have known this weeks in advance. I should have sensed it, anticipated its arrival like a caffeinated Christmas. But no. I hate the stuff. I make no apologies. And it's all because of my mom.

When I was a tot I loved going places – as tots tend to do. Always wanted to be going. But like the ball-and-chain on an old-timey criminal, so to was my mom's slurgle of coffee.

Can we go now? Not until I have my slurgle of coffee.

Can we open our presents yet? Wait until I finish this slurgle of coffee.

It was excrutiating. First I'd wait all summer for it to get cool enough to go hiking in the Whiteshell on Saturdays. Then I'd wait for the Saturdays to come. Then I'd wait out the drive at the crack of dawn to get to the trailhead. Then all I'd want to do was find a piece of deadfall wood that looked like a Star Destroyer so I could run full-tilt down the path with the wood in front of me as it got pelted by X-wing fighter fire. And then bam! The slurgle strikes back.

Fast-forward to present day and I guess I'm still not over it. Mornings at my job with a cup of water, I head-scratch at the masses who. Can't. Work/Think/Talk/Blink. Until. They. Have. Their. Coffee. I visit coffee shops to meet about freelance and enjoy a delectable hot chocolate. Roll my eyes and gnash teeth at the stream of mindless Tim Hortons zombies in cars piled into the diamond lane. The coffee-lovers. The slurglers. They're everywhere. At work. On the streets. In my house. But they'll never get me.

Happy National Coffee Day? Humbug.

250: Don't Do What Donny Don't Does

2011-09-28T22:18:00.003-05:00

I squeezed in a recent fun bit of freelance illustration for a poster concept, and while I hesitate showing the whole thing, these two excerpts were the best part – and an opportunity for me to get in some much-needed drawing time. The task was to illustrate four basic rules supplied by Parks Canada for tourists to abide by while riding the giant Tundra Buggies out of Churchill. I had nowhere to go but up; current "posters" plastered about the buggies are laminated letter-sized sheets simply listing the four rules aided by a bear silhouette.

Pretty straightforward: don't litter. Don't harass the bears, or lure the bears. The fourth rule, though – no using devices that enable cameras to be placed under or beside vehicles – seems oddly particular. I was told this happens; enough obviously, for a rule. The buggies are high, I know that. High enough to keep juicy tourists out of reach from Earth's largest land carnivores. Remembering that ultimately this required sign-off from government, I shelved concepts involving a fishing pole or elaborate steampunk contraption, and rolled with my big-schnozzed fella simply dangling a camera tied to his scarf.

249: Sweet One Hundred

2011-09-06T22:10:00.001-05:00

Our house – as well as a huge swath of the neighbourhood – is turning 100 years old this summer. When we bought the place and moved in, it was a sprightly ninety-four. The ensuing half-dozen years have seen one burst pipe (show me a centenarian who doesn't um, dribble, once in awhile), one replaced rotten window (dental work) and one backyard overhaul (a little cosmetic surgery). Other than that, the odd crack here, the odd squeak there, we've little indication this place has even attained a state of mid-life crisis; the house is a solid, slightly uneven, solid, creaking, solid piece of craftsmanship.

Anyone who has sat in their house and contemplated all the goings-on since its inception can attest to the daydreaming I've done of late. Somebody lived here during the Great Depression. Through WWII. A family perhaps, with a giant tail-finned behemoth parked in the back, set up an aluminum Christmas tree. Someone taped shows on their VCR. A spry young couple married under its roof. I have a hard time even considering the street as a shadeless suburbia, complete with spindly, evenly-planted elms and the occasional awoooooga-tooting Model T. But what I wouldn't give for even just a glimpse.

Kerry and I are celebrating the grand palace's 100th birthday. Ordered a cake, even. I spent time yesterday concocting this designerly ode to the house, having much fun in the process. Two weeks from now we'll do our darnedest to tear the roof off… without tearing the roof off.

248: Backyard 2.0

2011-08-31T21:41:00.003-05:00

If I'm at loose ends, I no longer want to be sitting around the house. I want to be in our backyard with my camera, taking pictures of the beautiful things that weren't there before.

As much as we fell in love with our perfect house, it came with baggage: a not-so-secret shame, in a weed-patch backyard fit for the dogs – which our neighbour reported, was previously the case – surrounded by rotting scraps of mismatched fences. Four summers we tolerated it, an uneasy truce with the green menace out the window (sometimes, you know, it looked kinda OK after a mow, with dandelions evened out nicely with the patches of sharp grass).

Nightcrawlers bored canyons, neighbourhood cats pooped, ants erected sandy temples. A tentacled mystery shrub that took a hole two feet deep to uproot and ultimately halt. We eventually carved a happy patch of dirt for a few summers of happy tomatoes. We found a hotspot where they were foolproof.

At the end of our fourth year we hid our secret shame from the outside world, erecting a fence – a wedding present from my brother. The ensuing winter, we could stand no more. Our hired landscaping crew brought in a digger-ma-jig one rainy day last June and scraped the whole damned thing clean. At work while the deed was done, I would love to have watched; I would have danced on the muck and gumbo left in its wake.

A few short weeks later the crew left, leaving behind a blank slate – a squeaky-clean mat of grass, patio and dirt beds waiting for a purpose. Already well into July, we stuffed the soil with garden-centre scraps and seeds. Things grew. The year was not a total gardening write-off.

Neither was this year, not by the longest of long-shots. Raised veggie beds were stuffed – mebbe too stuffed (our bad) – with chard, lettuce, eggplants, beets, peas, beans, corn, basil, carrots, peppers, sunflowers and high, high holy mounds of atomic tomato plants. A spindly rogue of yellow Sweet 100s shot up between the beets and carrots, uninvited but wholly welcome. Yard beds were packed with raspberry canes, a start-up rhubarb, ferns, wild strawberries, lupins and a native plant community of prairie grasses, coneflowers, asters, false sunflowers and a purplish jobbie the bumblebees go ape-shit for.

And in and amidst all of this, we sit, drink wine and have dinners. Or read newspapers with beers, and look out on all of the beautiful things that weren't there before.

247: Sweet Nothing

2011-08-15T22:50:00.005-05:00

Kerry and I were at a backyard dinner party tonight with friends, all of us in solid agreement: it's been the greatest summer in years. An unending spell of mosquito-dashing dryness, sunshine and heat has rolled into its eighth resplendent week. Glorious. This was no more evident than during a sublime week of pure vacation-based bliss the two of us spent at her sister's cabin up north near Flin Flon.

Sunday highlight: scurrying, panicky loons as Peter and I zip over smooth-as-glass Lake Athapapuskow scouring for Fishing Derby contestants – marking their good-luck spots on a map. Special highlight: epic nap.

Monday highlight: shootin' cans with the Gamo (it's fun to shoot things!), paddlin' the canoe.

Tuesday highlight: Cranberry Lakes boat excursion, lunch in the bush and more wild blueberries to pick than you can bait a bear with.

Wednesday highlight: dusty gravel road with Duncan, biking to the creek and back with two stops – one, check out the Goose River dam and throw stuff off of it; two, poke at a dead snake with a stick.

Thursday highlight: endless bouts of Scrabble, Qwirkle, drinking, reading, side jaunt to Wekusko Falls (when you drive 1500 kilometres to get away from it all, 250 more seems a drop in the boreal bucket) and hotdog cookout.

Friday highlight: hopping in the kayak, wondering what took me so long (to hop in said kayak) – followed by neck-craning Northern Lights gawkery.

Bonus highlight: this is what a loon jam looks and sounds like at sunset (below). Warning: video contains excessive doses of Canadiana.

246: Making Faces

2011-08-12T20:10:00.005-05:00

Time spent earlier this summer with family was an opportunity for me to witness the amazing ability that kids possess to change emotions on a dime. Presenting Exhibits A (for apprehension) through E (ecstasy):

Avery wants no part of being on camera. Too busy rooting in playground gravel. Hi Avery. Avery, lookit here. Looks up. Snap.

Cadence is grouchy; sufficient attention is not being directed her way. No one else is looking, I stick my tongue out at her. She turns away, even more sullen.

Avery wants a hot dog, plain and simple – that's all this look is about. It was forthcoming. And then instant gratification; he's a happy camper.

If Cadence is ever ready, on a moment's notice, to do anything – it's to make this face.

But of course, sometimes the ideal is when they're not paying attention at all.

Kid Video

2011-07-29T23:50:00.006-05:00

Our past two weeks have been rife with family visits, and visiting. I write this now – as we say goodbye to one crew and prepare to set out with another – with only one evening to spare. So while we take leave for a week up north with more kin, I present my absolutely stunning and cuddly niece and nephew. And I pledge to you, I don't say this while peering through unbiased uncle eyes. At all.

Trying out the hoop, the boy shows his swivel technique. Needs to loosen up a bit, I think.

The boy, shouting it from the rooftops. Or at least from the patio. Loves his own lungs. Until distracted by a nearby carrot on a plate.

The boy, he loves to say no. Did I mention he likes testing out his lungs?

So I waited patiently. But in the end, there was no sneaking anything past this guy.

Meanwhile, the girl and I took the camera out for a spin and a choke-hold in the park.

Finally, my favourite. From our day on the Prairie Dog Central. I turn the volume off on this one, and promptly melt.

Might As Well Jump (On The Bandwagon)

2011-07-27T22:44:00.003-05:00

There's been inevitable discussion among designer circles over the identity of the newly-refueled Winnipeg Jets. And for those equally passionate about both design and hockey, it's placed us in an awkward spot. Who do we pledge allegiance to?

My eyes are admittedly clouded somewhat by fandom. I can’t help it. I grew up watching the Jets, while also learning the skills of an artistic and creative trade. Travel back to the mid-90s, and my gangly 15-year-old self could polish off a pitch-perfect hand-drawn facsimile of the Jets' last active emblem. And before I ultimately pass judgment on the reincarnation, I'm willing to wait out the logo's most crucial test: its application on a uniform. But early on, I also can’t help but appreciate our new logo (asterisk at the ready, I pronounce this knowing full well there’s a little matter of the pro-league passable secondary creation, and that tertiary, wince-inducing script monster – we’ve all seen it, I’m not even going to show it, and you’re welcome).

Where this pleasure derives from, I’m not quite sure. The logo takes some of the basic principles of design and tosses them mercilessly off a cliff – and yet, if I passed it in a dark alley I’d probably smile and say hey, new Jets logo, what’s up, and be merrily on my way. Why can’t I just deride it outright, like a good designer should?

Perhaps because I know the baggage that comes with any union of design and sport.

When it comes to design – unfortunately for most of us – pro sport maddeningly abides by its own set of rules. It's frequently an uncomfortable blend of popular taste and crass commercialism, with a healthy dash of Vegas-style pomp. Team crests deemed classics are precisely so, not because there was any greater affinity for design in the good old days, but that there's been time for an entire culture to surround them. Like the BMW roundel or Coca Cola's loopy script, emblems of the Original Six have existed since before most of us were placed on this Earth – and because of this they are widely deemed iconic. Untouchable. The standard from which others are measured.

Consider the New York Yankees – owners of one of the most valuable and storied franchises in all of professional North American sport – represented through the years by an awkward, imbalanced union of N and Y. Then, hypothetically, consider the Yankees starting fresh in 2011. Would the my-kid-could-draw-that amalgamation of N and Y fly with fans and designers alike? Doubtful. But that's also baseball. In a sport symbolized in recent years with an asterisk, Major League Baseball operates – from a design standpoint – in an altogether separate universe (though tell that to the Blue Jays, whose new-ish script puts the Jets' wordmark to certain shame).

Early indications show generally positive reviews from the only folks that, in the eyes of the NHL and True North, ultimately matter – so I shrug my two shoulders and thank high holy bacon the powers that be didn't deliver unto us the next incarnation of the Mighty Ducks logo. On the surface it looks like I’m settling, but I also suspect that many designers in town who know a puck from a hole in a beautifully minimalistic white wall are thankful we didn’t get saddled with a mark that’s out-and-out embarrassing. Hey, the thing’s symmetrical. It’s got a subtle, understated colour scheme. It’s mascot-free. And it’s not awash in flavour-of-the-day gimmickry.

Are we led to believe then, that the line-ups around the block for a first crack at official merchandise equates to an endorsement of the design? Had the emblem been a Lightning-style travesty or nouveau-New York Islanders laughingstock, would the line-ups have contained flaming pitchforks over cash-fattened wallets? Probably not... too much. Any pessimistic bone in me thinks most folks in that line are giddily blind to any aspect of the design. But the fan in me is appeased for now. And the designer in me is glad we’re not stuck with the Coyotes, or the Canucks, or the Penguins, or the Hurricanes, or the Sharks...

Undoctored Spins

2011-07-11T20:14:00.005-05:00

The Winnipeg Folk Festival once again performed admirably in the department of good times. This year's line-up was not aimed directly at my heart (for that, see Folk Festival, 2009). Nevertheless, it was solid. As it always turns out to be. Speaking of turning, this year I opted to record the experience through my camera's rarely-used video function.

Thursday night, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band had me quite instantly relaxed. Come. Dance with me. Gaze into my eyebrows.

Curses! Before you even get a chance, here's Kerry, stealing me away from you. Together we attempted the Folk Festival four-step. Not the most fluid manœuvre, but the weekend was young. We had plenty of time to hone our skills.

The next night, k.d. lang tore the roof off… were there a roof.

Sunday afternoon. I don't know if it was the heat, or the sun, or the drums, or the brass section, or the masked hula-hoopsters, but I found myself swirling in a whirling vortex of left-leaning, patchouli-soaked crazy madness. I had to be wary.

And then, come Sunday night, we perfected the jitterless double-team spin-o-rama. But at the expense of our very sanity.

245: Incorporating Monsters

2011-07-03T21:32:00.004-05:00

I haven't been drawing a lot lately. And the chief reason for that is, I have been drawing a lot lately.

This spring I've been pumping up my freelancer muscles. That is to say, I am in the process of acquiring freelancer muscles, having, for years, not been very interested in the concept of work outside of work. How things change.

The bonus of it all is, of course, financial – otherwise, none of us would be doing this. But also, in the two-birds-with-one-stone category, I was able to overcome a massive lack of drawing following a year or so of taking photos. (Conversely though, these days I do not take many photos.)

So in the theme of work staying work, and this blog staying primarily about fun, I present a crossover of sorts, taking myself to a rarified place where stars and planets align, work becomes fun, and fun becomes profit. These two close-knit fellows above represent two of three characters I developed and incorporated into a ~~weeks~~ months-long freelance operation – one that was ultimately pretty darned rewarding. Having previously not spent so much time working away from work, I only needed to remind myself – which I did quite often – that here I was, at my desk with my pens and light table, drawing monsters for kids, and getting paid for it (soon).

It had been a long time since I reflected on my career choice, thinking mebbe I am on the correct path. I like to think these critters had something to do with it.

500

2011-06-03T23:35:00.003-05:00

San Francisco | Fun this way! – by Connie Tsang, aka ardenstreet

I have a difficult time expressing just exactly what it is that makes me 'like' something. Take my time whiled away on Flickr since the summer of 2004 – it has taken nearly six and a half years to "favourite" 500 images on this site, a photo hub boasting well over five billion snaps. Now I am not a snoot; much like Ralph Wiggum, I like stuff – but my storehouse of Flickr favourites is a precious place. It's chockablock with now why didn't I think of that. Packed with I am not worthy. Stuffed with f**k that's funny.

Some pics don't make a lick of sense. There are illustrations flat out jaw-dropping or brain-jarringly simple. Most of all, there are 500 visuals that speak to me. Even while I can't describe to you why this is. But if you ever want to know me, check my 500 favourites.

Thanks, Flickr. Click here to view larger.

Parks And Recollection

2011-05-24T23:34:00.003-05:00

In 1985, my mom took us on a vacation – the family road trip, one repeated too many times to count in this country – to the Canadian Rockies. I was nine years old, had never seen the mountains. Although this experience was checked off my kiddie-size bucket list just south of the border in Montana, it was time spent in the five iconic Rocky Mountain national parks (Waterton Lakes, Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho) that set in stone for myself a lifelong fascination with our national parks. An oversized, dog-eared coffee table book on Canada's national parks arrived for my birthday soon after this trip, a gift bought with cash sent from my grandparents. I was hooked.

Our family vacation, taken after Labour Day in place of my first two weeks of Grade 5 – on a shoestring budget outside of peak season (kids don't care, and... ooh! the Lake Louise hostel has a pool!) – opened my eyes to the size of the country. Previously, any personal real-life grasp of Canadian geography extended to Manitoban day-trips and visits to my dad in southern Ontario. To his great credit, he took me to Point Pelee to satisfy my rapidly-developing childhood birdwatching jones, and to Flowerpot Island, to witness incredible quirks of geology.

Some of my greatest stick-with-me moments have happened in these places. My Crayolas, melting on our car's dash while I day-hiked with my family in Waterton (I got in shit for that from mom). A four-hour bike ascent to the base of Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper (and 30-minute comfort cruise back down). Beachcombing with Kerry and my mom – and a few hundred migrating sandpipers – at Kejimkujik's seaside adjunct (after sneaking behind the lines of trail closure signs). Leaping to high heavens as a frightened moose crashed from the bushes metres away in Gros Morne. Watching Kerry on the dock at Riding Mountain's Kinosao Lake, the entire scene quiet as a mouse. Kerry and I dropping from exhaustion after our trek to Crypt Lake. Playing park rangers together on a backcountry hike last summer. We would have gotten engaged on Bruce Peninsula, had a thunderstorm not rolled in and delayed my requirement for the perfect moment (which happened the next day in the unholy sanctity of – gasp! – a provincial park).

I sometimes like to think, as well, that the parks even had a hand in my becoming a designer. I quickly became fascinated with the 1980s-era mini-brochures, that visitors would receive on entering any given park, themselves a take on the Unigrid-and-Helvetica materials of the U.S. Parks Service. I collected them, marveled in their continuity. I could draw the old beaver logo from memory, a symbol, in my mind, as much a part of Canadiana as the CN doodle or CBC burst. I'd wonder why the rest of the world couldn't adopt clean, common signage design like the brown-and-gold world inside a national park.

This year, the Canadian national parks service turns 100 years old. And I'm happy about it. There are not too many things that make me as openly patriotic. Gros Morne, Cape Breton Highlands, Kejimkujik, Fundy, Point Pelee, Georgian Bay Islands, Bruce Peninsula, Riding Mountain, Waterton Lakes, Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho – that's my list. It should be greater, and it will be in time. There's too great a desire in me to watch waves crash in Pacific Rim, scan the expanse (and four trees, total) of Grasslands, or to somehow reach the high Arctic and truly get lost.

244: Going Coastal

2011-05-20T23:33:00.010-05:00

Kerry and I went to Vancouver last week. I had never been (minus the airport), nor had she since she was a kiddo. Kerry was attending a conference, so for a few days we shacked up in a ritzy, gleaming hotel tower. The hallway mirror told you what the weather outside was like...

While she conferenced, I entertained myself. One day, I hoofed the paths at Lynn Canyon Park. The lushness of the place, I will never witness at home – no matter how long I accidentally leave the sprinkler on. If green was my favourite colour, I would have experienced bliss. As it was, I was content with scenic splendour to bask in. But I tore myself away from the place to join Kerry and see Bill Clinton speak – I had never seen a president before.

I rented a twenty-dollar bike and toured the coastline another day. Having recently received my pre-summer buzzcut, I was unprepared for the potential of a sunny day, and toasted my exposed forehead. It was worth it, even as my face peels as I type this. I located the Go Fish seafood stand, and ate the best fish-and-chips of my life. All told, we ate very well: Bin 941, Hapa Izakaya, Latitude, Burgoo, Nuba – no one disappointed. Toss in a Kurobota Terimayo Japadog, and I was a super-happy eating camper.

On another day, I toured the Vancouver Art Gallery – and got lost in Ken Lum's Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression. When Kerry was finally set free we shopped, before striking camp and moving to cheaper digs in Mount Pleasant. I bought four shirts at the H&M.

The rain set in the next day, but never enough to stand in our way. It actually kinda suited our excursion to the UBC campus for the trifecta of the Museum of Anthropology, Nitobe Memorial Garden and a wizzo forest canopy walk at the botanical gardens (with a peek in at Wreck Beach; no nudies). By the end, we itched for a warm, dry place. I had steaming macaroni and cheese for dinner that night. It was decidedly more palatable outside the next day, when we hit up Kitsilano and the Emily Carr University of Art+Design grad show (wow).

Time to come home. One more beautiful morning, in Queen Elizabeth Park surrounded by more tulips than what is probably legal, and afternoon up and down Main Street, peering in windows, visiting with friend Kathy, quaffing final beers in the sun before our airport run.

We had fun. I knew we liked the place because we checked out real estate sites while we were there. But, we are decidedly not rich enough. We think.

I am working on photos. I have these ones and more, here. And there will be more, soon.

The Greatest Works Of Art Mankind Has Ever Known

2011-05-04T21:04:00.004-05:00

Experts of paleontology rarely debate the existence of prehistoric superwaterfowl, whom I believe waddled the earth during the late Jurassic epoch and the early stages of avian lifeforms. These illustrations – on grid paper no less, thus chockablock with scientific merit – depict a savage territorial battle between Aythya valisineria amplus and an unidentified carnivorous theropod.

The small, silhouetted airplane-like shapes are indeed 1920s bi-planes; they have been included in these illustrations only for effect, in that they make the scenes more epic.

A True North Font, Glorious And (Nearly) Free

2011-04-30T00:52:00.005-05:00

I will be the first to admit, I don't dabble in the procuring of typefaces perhaps nearly as much as I should. But when I heard about the promotions surrounding the offering of Gibson, a swish sans-serif set, for dirt-stinking-cheap – and moreso, the reason why – I plonked down for this great cause. And I encourage you to do so as well.

More, on Gibson:

The Gibson font family is a humanist sans serif typeface designed by eminent Canadian type designer Rod McDonald, and produced by Patrick Griffin and Kevin King of Canada Type, to honour John Gibson, one of the original founders of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC).

As well as paying tribute to Mr. Gibson’s productive life and love of the typographic arts, the Gibson family is intended to be a mainstay of the future of Canadian design education. Many Canadian design schools and institutions will be making it part of their larger type piracy education programs. The eight-font family is available at token pricing to make it especially affordable for design students. For less than the price of a design textbook, a student can now have a sturdy and contemporary humanist sans serif family that fits pretty much any design application, and will remain useful long after academic studies and well into a professional career in design.

All revenues from its sale will be donated by Canada Type to the GDC, where they will be allocated to a variety of programs aiming to improve the creative arts and elevate design education in Canada. Each of the eight Gibson fonts comes with 370 characters and feature extended Latin-based language support. The Gibson family ships in cross-platform OpenType format.

The face(s) have come in handy for myself with a quickness; I've already used Gibson to craft labels for maple syrup bottles through work, and for a freelance jobbie, an ad for a company organizing high Arctic tours. And cripes I say, what is more Canadian than that? And that? I urge anyone reading this with a designerly bone in their body, to get on that action. It's a great cause and for 48 loonies, a price that can't be beat.

Man, Answer The Phone

2011-04-16T15:47:00.002-05:00

Wrong number messages: my favourite kind of messages.

Turtle and mushroom by Kerry.

Owl-less Survey

2011-04-10T21:18:00.011-05:00

"It's good... just gotta take it slower."

Famous last words, before proceeding a few more metres in the CR-V and getting stuck. Only nine of the 40-kilometre stretch of foggy logging road had melted to a point of navigability. Cue rigourous rocking/pushing sessions, a couple hundred metres in reverse to the nearest turnaround point, and then high-tailing it back to asphalt. The 2011 nocturnal owl survey was over before it began.

243: Preaching To The Converted

2011-04-05T21:26:00.005-05:00

A couple of weekends ago, I opened up my vault of photo-a-day photos to see which ones might best benefit from tinkerings with various black-and-white conversion techniques in Photoshop. During the thick of the project, I had often wished to convert some right then and there, but was adamant in sticking to colour and minimal dickings-around with post-processing. These are my favourite six results from this bout of playtime. You can click on any of the images, to view them larger.

Using Photoshop calculations I played God, and turned a red fox white. I was able to separate the subject from the background, a feat I was hard up to perform on this overcast evening with fading light.

Through greyscale conversion I was able to chase the nasty streetlight hues of this original scene and focus on the sheer dump of snow we received one evening last November. This was before the bleakness of the season really set in, and snow like this was more of an exciting thing.

I appreciate how a good conversion can bring out otherwise muted textures. All beiges and light beiges, this savannah sparrow during a songbird banding session at work, remained still enough for me to focus him right in the eye.

Here's me. So emo, during the golden hour and dog days of last summer. I had a lot on my mind and stuff, you know. Just needed a good sit-and-stare, sort some issues out. You know. Stuff.

Here's another shot of me, by guest photographer Anton Corbijn. Anton and myself had just been dying to do a project together…

But, enough about me. Here is my favourite converted photo from my shufflings through the 365 stacks – and it's not just because of the subject matter. I enjoy everything about this image: the reflective hair strands, the uniquely-sized pupils, and especially the silhouetted outline of the right side of Kerry's head. I think I'm in love.

242: Proudest Moment

2011-03-28T21:17:00.009-05:00

One of the pitfalls of having left this blog sit and stew for so long is that I never got the timely and proper opportunity here to crow about quite possibly my proudest achievement in design in a long, long while – the jacket I concocted for Vs., Kerry's second published book of poetry. The book, whose creation and production zipped along at a rapid clip over the course of 2010, was launched with great fanfare (and a three-city cross-country tour) earlier this winter.

We both had much fun collaborating on her first book, The Sleeping Life, in 2008. Admittedly, it can be dangerous territory when married creatives try and combine forces. But for those who hold steadfast to the belief that the customer/client is always right (a belief, I believe, in many cases is absolute hooey) our two jaunts book-jacket-land serve as a shining example. Kerry the Client art-directed her covers to perfection, knowing precisely what she wanted to best wrap her words in. And myself, as the Hands, served humbly and admirably.

For her second book, the base concept was once again hers (she also located the source photo, from the Library of Congress). I provided more this time around, stylistically, building a faux-tattered piece to portray a battered and time-worn feel. Carefully blending together freebie textural elements located across the Great Wide Internet, and capping with a dominant and weathered Helvetica super-duper-ultra-black for the title, I think it's a proud-looking thing.

I'm tooting my horn here, and I don't usually like to do this with such enthusiasm. But I was a happy, happy cat the day the first samples arrived, printed up in all their 5x7 glory – my all-time favourite dimensions – in a fine and fibrous stock.

And I still am. We still are.

Modern Man

2011-03-21T22:25:00.006-05:00

Exhibit A: the Monday morning meeting doodle.

I read books, and magazines. I unfold, scan, and re-fold highway maps. I look in the phone book. I call Tele-Bus. I record 30 Rock with a VCR. I take photos with a camera. I go outside to play. I sketch first with a pencil, then use a pen. I spend most of my days in InDesign. I've never owned a cell phone. Or smart phone. Or whatever they're called. But so far as I know, I think I nailed the essence of them here, in all of 30 seconds it took me to ink this sucker out...

Without using a pencil first. Oops.

Got Six Minutes And Forty Seconds To Spare?

2011-03-20T10:53:00.015-05:00

Then check out this slice of goings-on at GDC Manitoba's most recent PechaKucha Night at the Park Theatre, featuring myself and 365-photo cohort Karen as we dissect our year of photo-journaling in lightning-fast fashion. I was nervous as a mutha, and had no idea my voice was so high. In hindsight, I would do it again in a snap. It's an absolute rush.

The next event goes down in June. If you have any sort of creative bent whatsoever, and have a story to tell, I strongly advise you to try this event out, as a speaker or spectator.

Meanwhile, Kerry is hands-down, the most creative person in this household. A single Saturday class in needle-felting has resulted in a gush of fuzzy creations popping up around the place like... like...

...well, like something. I just can't think of exactly what.

As such, I decided to take my own creative leanings outside. Facing a rare above-zero Sunday in mid-February, I sculpted this hale fellow in the front yard. But one month later he began to show the onset of spring in these parts, slowly wasting away to an avant-garde piece of modern art that I couldn't create if I tried. But sad news to report: his head was officially offed yesterday afternoon while we were out muchly enjoying Baraka Pita and a matinée screening of The Illusionist (my stars, a beautiful-looking thing).

A Little Pecha, A Little Kucha

2011-03-10T22:07:00.015-06:00

In and amongst flashbacks here to goings-on of the past eight months, there's still plenty enough going on in the present. To wit, last night, when I bit the bullet and hit the stage for PechaKucha Night.

(I should refine that – I bit half the bullet, since my stage-time was shared with friend Karen as we divulged on our respective photo-a-day ordeals.)

But yeah, OK. I said a funny-sounding word without a whole lotta explanation: PechaKucha (pronounced, I believe, puh-CHOCK-chaw) is a movement borne in Tokyo some years ago as a collaborative event for creative types to convene, talk – the word means "chit chat" in Japanese – and share what they're doing, and what's on their mind. Operating under the founding umbrella organization, these events are put on around the globe. Including Winnipeg, where they're organized by the good folks at the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada's (GDC) Manitoba chapter – for which I am in my fourth year of handling communications duties.

GDC Manitoba has now successfully staged five of these events, each featuring roughly a dozen speakers from all manner of creative disciplines (Kerry did one, in August). During an event, each presenter is given six minutes and 40 seconds to talk, while 20 slides run, 20 seconds a pop. This rigid formula can either drive presenters to panic and fluster, or to a fluid, tight schpiel. Either way, the thing moves. And entertains, massively. And that's what matters.

Watching over four previous editions as volunteer, co-organizer – even emcee – I've been eager to edge my way into a line-up, but never had an idea for a presentation. That was solved when Karen and myself joined forces to use PechaKucha V as a form of closure to our photography projects. Bittersweet, sure, but our time on stage in the spotlight was a real kick, lightning-fast as it was. I'd certainly do it again in a flash given the chance.

A compact collection of snaps from the event can be seen here. The next PechaKucha will be in June. I'd heartily recommend it as a thing to do, or see. It's a great display of talent.

241: Winning The Typophile Vote

2011-03-06T19:09:00.008-06:00

This past fall I applied my design skills to a fantastic cocktail of social betterment and blatant nepotism by crafting the visuals for my dad's first crack at public office, a position on city council in my long-long-ago hometown of Kitchener, Ontario.

We risked the handlebar-moustache-by-Sharpie treatment by the graffiti set and rolled out an array of materials featuring his familiar mug, which, previous to his political career, ran in the city paper week in and week out during his many years as reporter, editor and columnist. Thus, the image was a brand not to be trifled with.

To avoid affiliation with major political parties, many colours were nixed from the get-go. In the end, a combination of yellow and dried-nosebleed red – one of my all-time favourites – was incorporated into brochures, leaflets, leave-behinds and lawn signs (above, and below).

Typographically then, which way to go. Hobo? Too hippie-dippy, wavy-gravy. Impact? Too lock-down conservative. Helvetica? Too Swiss. Comic Sans? Too self-destructive.

Clarendon. It works for Jeopopolis – check the banner, see for yourself. The slab-serif face handles dual roles delicately: its serifs keep things personable, while still conveying the strength and doggedness of a long and well-respected journalistic career. Toss in Fontin Sans, crafted wonderfully by Jos Buivenga's exljbris foundry, to support the cause and I safely feel like I've performed my civic and typographic duty.

I'm pleased to announce, the materials were a huge success. Or, in more accurate terms, success enough that he won the council seat by a single vote, 1689 to 1688 – a margin that ultimately stood up despite disputes, recounts and ensuing court battles. It's lesson enough, that the ages-old credo that every vote counts should remain valid.

Good design wins, by a nose-hair.

240: Down, But Not Out

2011-03-04T20:46:00.009-06:00

Welcome to the redesigned, re-purposed – and re-dedicated – Jeopopolis!

(I feel myself saying this as much to you, as I am to myself.)

So, how's tricks? I must say I found that without a blog to kick about, I started to get a lot of shit done. Ventures that took time and some patience, a virtue I was not expressing well in the assembly-line of posts being rung up here week in and out. I started to like not having to think about it; frighteningly, a little too much on some days. Other days, I forgot the site even existed. Sometimes people would ask me about it, but I didn't have answers. I figured the time would either come, or it wouldn't.

The blog, it was becoming an albatross around my neck – a neck neck-deep in a time-sucking, energy-tapping photographic opus and a desire to let this site sit as long as it took to become compelling for me again. Which, I'm happy to report, it now has.

And I've got an awful lot of catching up to do, a lot of work and fun to document. There's been a welcome infusion of freelance work. The launch of Kerry's second book, a major moment in her literary career that I shared, in my own tiny way, by living out my own professional fantasies as book jacket designer. And there was the matter of that photo-a-day project; it's no mystery by now I completed it, officially kicked its ass, displayed it to the world with my friend Karen in a gallery exhibition that closed up shop last weekend.

So for starters, I present a trio of spot illustrations I crafted late in the summer for placement on interior pages of Kerry's new book – titled Vs. – to help indicate chapter breaks. Using old-timey reference photos, I built five illustrations all told, to accompany five short poems detailing the sensations of five different boxing punches.

The illustrations ultimately didn't make it into the final layout. It was a downer at first; I was proud of knocking out pieces of work dabbling in material and a style I was quite unfamiliar with. The sketches gave me a good opportunity to attempt some fluidity in my stiff drawing manner (you can click on any of the three images, to view them larger).

I came to the same realization Kerry's editor/publisher did – that the drawings didn't gel with some of the book's central themes. They would have been window dressing at best, and distracting at worst. It was the right call. And mebbe someday in the future they can be rolled out for another use. You never know with these things.

239: Six-Month Check-In... And Out

2010-08-03T21:47:00.007-05:00

Something is inherently wrong here; I've really let this place go to pot, and I'm feeling bad for it. Typically, in summers past, this is the time of year where I consider a shutdown – usually for good-weather reasons, getting away from the monitor, etc. But this time is different. For the first time in this site's long run I've neglected it to a worrisome point.

So consider this an official check-out notice. I'm essentially saying what has been painfully obvious: I haven't been around here – and I don't plan to, until I decide exactly what it is I need to do next with this site. I've been putting so much effort into my Flickr photo challenge that this place seems like an ugly stepsister.

It's not to say I don't have creative irons in the fire. I do. A few, anyways. And someday down the line they may be worth showing. But the bigger picture dictates I close up shop until further notice. It may result in a retooling. Or a total comeback. Or something else, but it's clear from the overwhelming silence here that it's necessary.

My July batch of photos are above, and my pick of the litter below. It's been a great month for shooting, and just when I think I'm tapped out even taking photos something wonderful presents itself. That's exactly what happened today, with this shot of Maximilian sunflowers at work – and I'm grateful we crossed paths, and the wind blew the way it did, and the sky was as blue as it was.

As always, check the photos daily. Right here.

238: Five Month Check-In

2010-07-05T21:46:00.004-05:00

Nearing the halfway point, which will strike in early August. I can't believe it. For now though, it's summertime and the photo-taking is (relatively) easy. Subject matter is everywhere. In the garden. On the barbecue. At weddings and parades. It's a fun time, and it's been reflected in the past 30 photographs or so during my image-a-day challenge.

Based on the response over on Flickr, the preferred photo from the past fiscal month has been this one, of a ghoulish-looking storm that struck one day during my evening commute from work. And for the first time since I began these monthly updates, I have to agree. It's my favourite, too.

I'd love to hear from you, what you think of the effort to date. If you have a camera, it's a project that I highly encourage embarking on. You can certainly cater it to however busy you happen to be (I let it consume far more time than I wager most do).

Interested in seeing any of these past 30 efforts larger? As always, check the slideshow, or create an RSS feed to the set. New product arrives daily!

237: The Tanager

2010-06-23T20:58:00.003-05:00

So, the other day I was in the cafeteria lineup at work next to our resident naturalist (and all-around bird expert, who also leads Friday morning songbird banding, for which my camera and I are most grateful).

In typical bird-nerd fashion, I asked her where I could go in the area to improve my odds of spotting a scarlet tanager, one of the most vibrant and colourful songbirds around these parts. Since my early childhood days of bird geekdom, I've still only seen them in field guides.

She told me, essentially, what I already knew tanagers like deep forest and high tree canopy, largely away from prying eyes.

But it got me to remembering my apartment-dwelling days. I spent upwards of four years in a fourth-floor suite overlooking a city park through the canopies of huge boulevard elms. And every May for a few short weeks, the treetops outside my windows would be filled with brilliant and wonderful little birds passing though during spring migration. Warblers, thrushes, kinglets and thrashers; from street level I'd have had zero idea they were even up there. Probably, much like that elusive scarlet tanager.

I created this digital illustration in homage of my search. I'm often hard-pressed not to look at a big fat tree and think of what's up there, out of sight in the leaves. But they're obviously there. The field guides say so.

This is almost an entirely digital concoction. The bird and leaves are scanned outlines, vectorized in Illustrator. The tree itself was originally a high-contrast silhouetted photo, inverted and simplified. The background is a tinkered-with scan of faux-wood panel. The leaves were repeated in an analogous array of greens, rotated and bunched for copy-and-paste sessions in Photoshop. For a closer look at the overall piece, you can click here.

236: Four Month Check-In

2010-06-12T21:08:00.004-05:00

It's hard to believe I'm now a third of the way through my photo-a-day challenge. And this past month has been exemplary of the highs and lows while conducting such a venture. There's the obligatory days where you want nothing whatsoever to do with the project. Days where an image falls in your lap. Days where there's even too much to choose from when boiling down to a single submission. This past month in particular, saw the arrival of my new camera (and replacement macro lens a week later), spells of brilliant and terrible weather and an extremely photogenic trip away to New York City.

It's ironic then, that in choosing my favourite snap from the past 30 days, I find myself not particularly drawn to any one shot. But in selecting this portrait of a savannah sparrow, I realized one camera-friendly reason why I love this time of year – bird-banding mornings at work. And though I was told the brightly-coloured warblers, ever the stars of these sessions, overflew the area this year, capturing a wonderfully-textured bird in the hand like this chap is still worth the time and effort.

As always, check my 365 progress as the set grows and grows, here – or view it slideshow-style, here.

235: Back To The Windy Apple

2010-06-02T21:49:00.007-05:00

The days leading to, and following our trip last week to New York City (and Philadelphia – thanks, Mel!) have been frenetic for me, so I apologize for my absence here.

And while Manhattan isn't top-of-mind on anyone's lists of most relaxing getaways, it certainly ranks high among the world's great distractions. And that's what I needed right about now.

Kerry and I traveled to New York almost three years ago to the day, and had a fabulous time. This time around was no different, although our approach to the trip subtly seemed to be; I didn't realize myself until we got home and I began to skim through the photos. Images from our first trip together showed scope and grandeur, frame-filling snaps of the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station and the Brooklyn Bridge. We were tourists in the purest sense, and it showed.

This time around, the camera was largely aimed back at us. We have photos of each other. Photos of good food we ate. Photos of small things, quirky sights and unsuspecting people. Photos of us carving out our little niche among one of the world's most frantic places. The pictures don't lie; it was a fun, fun time.

I dressed up a select series of images as panoramic black-and-whites. You can view the set here, or as a slideshow here.

234: Three Month Check-In

2010-05-10T21:01:00.005-05:00

It's been a whirlwind month for my photo-a-day challenge. April saw my trusty Canon Rebel sidekick disappear into the thieving ether, and two scrambled snaps from my PowerShot before an amazing friend of mine stepped forward with a loaner – another Rebel, no less – while I dealt with an insurance claim and the eventual purchase of a new camera. All along though, the photos came – and I consider this at least a small victory.

Amazing April weather was a big help, too (I wish I could say the same thing for May so far). Friendly conditions outside always makes for better material overall.

As has come to be a tradition with these monthly updates, I provide once again my favourite from the past 30 days: a portrait of our friends' kiddo being held my the ankles – simply because I suggested to dad that it would make for a fun shot. Hopefully kiddo doesn't hold a grudge; he seemed to enjoy it.

Be sure to stop by my photo-a-day home base on Flickr – or enjoy this ever-growing slideshow from the very beginning.

233: JeoJeo: Boy Graphic Designer

2010-05-06T21:35:00.010-05:00

I never experienced the glory of a comic-book phase at any point of my childhood (or adulthood, for that matter). I was left awkwardly in the lurch in high school art class when my friends held competitions to see who could draw the best Wolverine. My only comparable obsession came from reading The Adventures of Tintin books, which were stocked as a beat-up, dog-eared collection in my elementary school library, usually alongside a few copies of Asterix.

Now that I'm all grown up – complete with disposable income – I'm slowly piecing together my own collection of the Tintin series. One here, one there – usually procured at Toad Hall Toys whenever I'm searching for presents for my niece or nephew (or for Kerry). I'm finally coming into my own as a full-blown Tintin geek.

This primarily stems from my absolute love of Hergé's artwork (that, and the fact that any scan of Captain Haddock's furious mug usually makes me laugh). But Hergé's graphic, flat-colour, stay-within-the-lines approach has always had an appeal for me as a sensible, structured and detail-oriented graphic designer. I've long wished to make an attempt at placing a character of myself into Tintin's world, seeing how we share similar dimensions, taste in clothes – often, even the same wisp of hair. And this week, I finally pulled it off.

Click here, for a closer look.

One For Bad, Four For Good

2010-04-20T21:41:00.004-05:00

I will be the first to admit this blog is stagnating. Partially because, on the flip-side, my photo-a-day challenge over on Flickr is booming – until today anyways. My trustiest of trusty sidekicks, the Canon Rebel I received as a gift for my 30th birthday five years ago, was stolen this morning along with a lens I gifted myself with funds procured from leasing this photo to the City of Winnipeg, my wallet and Christmas iPod. So while I begin simultaneous grieving/recovery periods, I thought I'd mosey over here and see what's what. See what good things there are that have made me happy recently.

There was this photo shoot, part of Ian McCausland's ingenious Facebook Foto Friday get-together, an open house of sorts at his studio for friends to acquire pro profile pics.

There was this attempt at a self-portrait, which, though didn't pan out exactly accurate, did have me dabbling in the messy soft pencil arts once again. I prefer this picture of the picture more than the picture itself, which I can't show because the scan of it was on a flash drive, also stolen.

There was my friend Jason, who returned from the Big Smoke to once again take part in the spring nocturnal owl survey a couple of weeks ago. We heard four owls and smashed ice blocks like we were nine years old.

There was – and is – Kerry, who joined me on an amazing spring hike and cookout/smorefest on the most glorious day of the year so far. Who took me on a mystery date Friday night to one of our favourite restaurants. And who loaned me two bus tickets, 20 bucks and bought me a brownie on this bad day spent canceling credit cards, acquiring a new drivers license, talking to police, insurance and the ceiling.

232: Two Month Check-In

2010-04-08T19:50:00.003-05:00

With the arrival of spring it has become infinitely easier to add tallies to my photo-a-day challenge. Three days ago marked the two-month benchmark, and even just quickly glancing at the grid above I see more light, more colour and more 'interestingness' (as Flickr calls it) than in the first 30 days spent in snow and too-short daylight hours.

Not so strangely enough, my personal favourite from the second month of shooting is another portrait of Kerry. This was taken a couple weekends ago under exciting circumstances – she had just received sudden notice her second book of poetry had found its way to an interested publisher (and will be on shelves in the fall). Titled Vs., the book will focus on her training and anticipation of her successful boxing debut. A second image from the impromptu portrait session is being used in the publishers' promo materials, and perhaps even on the back cover.

Be sure to view my photo-a-day progress here, in handy-dandy slideshow format.

231: They're Magically Beauticious

2010-03-30T21:53:00.005-05:00

A couple of weekends ago Kerry and I went to Montréal, much like last year; don't ask me why I'm only getting around to this now. But even though the days were drab and grey and nippy and even big-fat-sloppy-flakes-falling-from-the-sky, we found more than our fair share of colour inside the greenhouses at the city's botanical gardens. In particular, on display was a giant room full of flowers and free-roaming butterflies. In the spirit of Lucky Charms, there were...

...blue morphos!

...green caterpillars with creepy false eyes!

...yellow cacti!

...orange monarch-/viceroy-like butterflies (possibly monarchs or viceroys)!

...and red reservoir flowers!

230: Screech

2010-03-17T21:04:00.004-05:00

For the past couple of weeks I have been scoping out a certain tree in the neighbourhood, as it was rumoured to be harbouring a screech owl. Friends of Kerry's had spotted it on more than one occasion in a notch of a grizzled tree about two kilometres from our house, but were reluctant to disclose the exact location. Owl hogs.

Luckily, I was able to recognize the tree from the photo they showed. We found it during our frosty walk a couple of weekends ago, but the owl wasn't included. Two more visits by bike this past weekend were equally fruitless, though the ride – my first of the season – was muddy, filthy and tons of fun. Yesterday though, I struck paydirt, and the owl and I had a decent 10-minute shoot before direct sunlight disappeared. It seemed half-asleep, but tracked me with a mean stinkeye (below) as I navigated around with the camera.

I am hoping this is the little fellow's home and not just a hangout; it looks more than suitable. It would be great if I could track its progress over the summer.

229: Subterranean Homesick Owls

2010-03-16T21:25:00.004-05:00

Illustration Friday's current theme of subterranean – very specific, which I like – allows an opportunity to display wares from a weekend spree of woodcut-based monoprints.

In January, a friend offered me a couple of small blocks of particle-board and some cutting tools to try my hand at carving, something I hadn't really done since high school (on linoleum, I think we all did this in high school). After a few sessions of trial and error, I carved myself a nice little cut of a burrowing owl (above).

Actual printing went down on Sunday; about a dozen or so decent copies (above) run off on a small but effective homemade press at my friend's place. These I am quite proud of.

For Illustration Friday's purposes I scanned one of the black-ink prints (above) to further the piece digitally, though I hoped to retain the print's sense of hand-craftedness. Burrowing owls are unique among the owl set for nesting in abandoned prairie-dog dens, among other subterranean abodes, and the stark, confined nature of these prints suited an idea I had in mind. Where the concept – and this write-up – takes an odd turn is in the piece's source of inspiration. Subterranean, for some reason or another, made me recall the mining sequence about midway through Dance, a two-minute animated National Film Board vignette that used to fill space on CBC when I was a kid (any Canadian worth his toque should recognize this tune).

Click here, to view the illustration larger (and on black).

228: One Month Check-In

2010-03-10T21:50:00.005-06:00

Just over one month of my photo-a-day project has lapsed, and I don't know if I could be more pleased with the outcome. The camera – and my brain – have been getting a workout, the results by and large have been decent, even the usual stark and mind-numbingly cold of February was held at bay. I really can't wait for this thing to inch into the colour and daylight of spring and summer. For now, as seen in the grid above, vibrance isn't a word that comes to mind (with a few exceptions). But I am having fun, and my schedule has been mostly kind.

This is my favourite so far. It was taken in the brilliant late afternoon Saturday sunshine in our living room a couple of weeks ago. I stood on a chair, and Kerry stood very, very still.

Take a look through my Flickr slideshow of the 34 entries to date. And I'll try not to think that I'm only 9.3 percent complete.

227: A Frosty Reception

2010-03-08T21:08:00.003-06:00

It has been – and I'll say this now because it's a week into March – an amazing winter. And if it really is drawing to a close (jinx!), then yesterday was truly its crowning moment. Kerry and I went for a walk in the neighbourhood, and on the river, and witnessed the frost of frosts – and there have been some real treats this season in the frost department.

At the end of Dominion Street where we scaled the banks and hopped onto the Assiniboine, we saw this branch…

…and this branch…

…oh, and then this evergreen. It was all around; I was basically pivoting with my camera.

We got off the river at Omand's Creek Park, where it was laid on even thicker. We watched kids on the toboggan hill for a little while, then went to look for a tree that's rumoured to be harbouring a screech owl. We found the tree, but not its denizen.

But we did see more frost.

226: Portrait Of A Metal Duck

2010-02-22T21:34:00.003-06:00

A culmination of the past two Monday night Creative Nights – last week: drawing, this week: colouring/styling – this drawing enabled me to get the pens out and work on some hatch-based texturing. This is a roughly one-foot-high welded metal duck sculpture sent to Kerry and I as a gift some time ago, which I situated at my new drawing desk last week and treated as a still life sketching subject; the sketch itself ended up almost actual size, resulting in a pair of stitched-together scans to make the final image in preparation for finishing up tonight. No theme, no reason, just drawn for quacks and giggles. A larger version, with a look at some of the detail, can be viewed here.

225: My Funny Valentine

2010-02-14T19:02:00.004-06:00

Kerry bought this vintage Sunshine tricycle at an antique shop near her work a number of years ago. Since then it's been a fixture in our apartment, and now the living room of our house. Every now and then I hop on and wheel around the main floor – which, to date, has yet to fail to test my knees, strain my butt and amuse her greatly. So, in this fancypants digital age, I am now able to wait for her to leave the house for a hot yoga class, set up the tripod and Canon PowerShot, giddy-up/do my thing, import into iMovie, add effects and a soundtrack of The Sadies' "Sixteen Mile Creek" and craftily pop this video onto her laptop. It amused her greatly; a happy Valentine.

224: 365

2010-02-11T20:38:00.004-06:00

I'm one week into a new venture, of taking a photo a day for an entire calendar year. The concept is simple and entirely unoriginal – there's thousands of people on Flickr right now in the midst of their own 365-photo campaigns – but one that I hope will result in at least some photographic paydirt. I've thought about doing it for some time, but there was just something entirely random and pleasing about the eventual timing of my dive.

I didn't want to crush under the weight of cheese in starting on my birthday, or New Years, or what-have-you. And there's not enormous pressure behind the concept, but it may certainly force me to realize how many days slipped by in the past where I didn't give the camera even a second glance – especially in the thick of winter. In one week it has already kept me awake and thinking more about ideas, concepts and composition than I can recall.

I'll post the occasional shot from this little project here, but the glut will be housed in this Flickr photo set. Keep checking in. The images shown here are from February 6, 9 and 10.

223: Moom

2010-02-03T21:56:00.005-06:00

My friend Kal Barteski – she of Love Life fame – invited me to join herself and a few others in a spontaneous creative bout this past week. Operating in the vein of Illustration Friday and other creative of-the-week themed concepts, the GO/venture is far more open to interpretation, offering participants the option of providing output ranging from sketches to photos to written word submissions. The theme of the edition I took part in was permanent. I was initially excited at coupling a piece with Illustration Friday's theme of clumsy – but clumsiness prevailed in the end; turns out that was last week's theme.

This piece was drawn quickly over the weekend, then dressed in Photoshop on Monday evening as part of Creative Night. You can click here, to view the illustration larger, and here, to see the Flickr-based GO/venture home base, stuffed with other folks' entries covering a whole wadge of past themes.

222: Falcon And The Snowman

2010-01-25T21:33:00.003-06:00

Knowing I'd be spending Monday night Creative Night knocking off the tandem workload of my after-hours Dreamweaver class assignment and a noon-hour presentation for my workplace's winter Wednesday travel slideshow series (I'm presenting on Portugal), I took time out yesterday to work on my sculpting skills. I often state my clumsiness in any artistic dealings in the third dimension. Fortunately, my childhood excitement for wintertime "packing" snow takes precedent. Warm winter days of this past weekend's calibre are so rare in these parts – proven quite effectively by today's harsh, blizzardy contrast.

So, given the material at hand, I sculpted this homage to warmer days. I call it Snowman No. 1, with Frisbee, Beer Bottle and Lawn-Chair. It's a mixed media piece, utilizing snow, a frisbee, a beer bottle, and a lawn-chair (the ballcap was a temporary add-on). Today's sudden temperature plummet has nicely solidified the piece, which will now be on display in my front yard/gallery for the remainder of the winter – global warming, territorial dogs and punk kids permitting. Cost is suggested donation. Plan your visit soon; come April the gallery will be installing a new exhibit, titled Rotting Springtime Detritus.

And yes, that is a Falcon Beach frisbee. I don't mind if that gets swiped.

221: Small Wilderness

2010-01-18T22:51:00.004-06:00

This is my submission for Illustration Friday's theme of wilderness. The word conjures up images of vastness and scope. True, the wilderness is big. But step inside it, and you'll see it can also be quite small.

I love the wilderness, and I'm most grateful that I live in a place where true wilderness is a stone's throw away. I realize a great many people in the world don't have the ability to say that. The wilderness – and all that is in it – continues to be my number one source of inspiration; anyone skimming through this blog will notice this. I couldn't have come up with a more inviting theme for Illustration Friday.

I'm still dickering around with my woodblock carving, and I don't want it to seem that I have nothing to show for Monday night Creative Night. I hope to display my wares someday very soon. For now, you can click here to see this sketch in greater detail.

220: The Return Of Creative Night

2010-01-11T22:39:00.002-06:00

It's been too long since I did anything, so Kerry and I have reinstated our mid-winter Creative Night, delegated – like last year – to Monday evenings for the foreseeable future. But this evening I do not have much to show, and that's because I spent the evening working off the grid for once, with a block of wood and some loaner carving tools pretending to know what I'm doing. And at some point soon I'll be finessing my little wood-block, preparing it for my very first press session at a friend's place (I promise to show off the results, no matter how clumsy it winds up looking – I have to work on the deftness of my carving touch). Fun times.

I spent the latter part of tonight tinkering with some photographic elements, off-loading images from a post-Christmas trip to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. That's where this fossil (above) comes from, merged with abstract wallpaper textures and a textbook cover from a summertime trip to an old-timey one-room Mennonite schoolhouse. Also, fun times.

Congratulations!

2010-01-06T18:35:00.003-06:00

First off, apologies if I took too long in announcing it – but congratulations are in order to Sean, from Kingston NY, and Steph, from right here in the 'Peg, for winning their bad selves a free print of their choice from all the artwork ever displayed on this site. Their comments were selected at random from all the bloody aresome responses I received in recognition of Jeopopolis' five-year anniversary.

Many thanks again, to all who responded. It was an absolute treat to read through them one and all.

Ought Nine In Music

2010-01-02T11:40:00.003-06:00

2009 was a fantastic year for music in our house, our town and in our country. K. and I attended some fine shows passing through the city, culminating with my favourite Folk Festival – check that, far and away favourite – since I started attending in 1993. Seven of my favourite albums (and four of ten favourite singles, below) this year hail from the homeland. Canada, take a bow.

1) Patrick Watson // Wooden Arms – I picked this up in advance of their appearance at the FolkFest and haven't put it down since. Spooky, ethereal, inventive, like nothing else I've heard in a long time.

2) The Deep Dark Woods // Winter Hours – a selection of K.'s from the Folk Fest, the perfect prairie album with great storytelling.

3) Metric // Fantasies – mebbe not as airtight and rock-hard as Live It Out, but solid nonetheless. Just try not and sing along to "Stadium Love" at the end.

4) Neko Case // Middle Cyclone – following the footsteps of "Ghost Wiring" and "The Needle Has Landed", "Red Tide" continues an odd streak for myself of finding the final track my runaway favourite from Neko's albums.

5) JBM // Not Even In July – who is this guy? A gorgeous piece of work.

6) Bahamas // Pink Strat – a FolkFest discovery and absolute wiz on the guitar, Afie Jurvanen's album is desceptively sweeter than the goofy/gruff rock-star exterior he exhibits on stage.

7) Marie-Pierre Arthur // Marie-Pierre Arthur – I have no idea what she's singing about beyond the titles "Elle" and "Pourquoi", but I'm hooked – a tribute to her amazing voice (and her band's sound).

8) Clem Snide // Hungry Bird – a quiet and heartfelt little thing.

9) Yeah Yeah Yeahs // It's Blitz! – the one-two punch of "Zero" and "Heads Will Roll" is as balls-out as anything put out in a long time, making up for a mellower back end than I would have liked.

10) Great Lake Swimmers // Lost Channels – a solid addition to their œuvre, even if a step down from the beginning-to-end awesomeness of Ongiara.

I also pilfered a number of singles off of albums I wasn't keen on as a whole. They're ranked here, and this list does not include singles from purchased albums:

1) Radiohead // "These Are My Twisted Words"
2) Handsome Furs // "I'm Confused"
3) Laura Gibson // "Spirited"
4) A.C. Newman // "All Of My Days And All Of My Days Off"
5) Charlotte Gainsbourg // "Heaven Can Wait"
6) Leeroy Stagger // "Everything Is Real"
7) Basia Bulat // "Gold Rush"
8) Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros // "Home"
9) Florence + The Machine // "Kiss With A Fist"
10) Franz Ferdinand // "Ulysses" & "Katherine Kiss Me"

"It Came Without Packages, Boxes Or Tags..."

2009-12-24T11:56:00.003-06:00

In what's become a Jeopopolis tradition, it's come time to show off the tree. When we bought our house in 2005 – after 11 years of apartment living for me – I was especially eager for two things: kids on Halloween and a tree at Christmas. Five Christmases later, the novelty has yet to wear off. If anything, the anticipation of a sweet-smelling conifer in the living room is getting stronger; this year we procured ours earlier than ever.

After the out-and-out fresh, local red pine monsters of 2007 (shunted to yard duty to accommodate New Year's wedding guests) and 2008 (so big, Kerry found it intimidating), we went smaller and more traditional, opting for a pre-triangularized balsam fir from the timeless Boy Scouts tree lot in River Heights.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

219: I've Come Undone

2009-12-19T16:24:00.004-06:00

It took my friend Amy's Illustration Friday theme suggestion of undone to pop up in my email yesterday to realize a) I haven't completed an IF assignment in weeks, and b) I still have a whole wadge of incomplete MayDay illustrations from last spring that I never expounded on. Combined, this is the reason for the tubes-unclogging stream of sketchery you just scrolled through to at last reach this paragraph of explanation.

These are all unfinished (undone) works from the once-a-day creativity marathon my wife and I went through earlier this year (me, drawing; she, writing) – sketches dating from the first to final day of May. A select handful of other pieces from this adventure passed lovingly and thoughtfully through digital post-production to show up here since then (click here to see the results). But not this undone crew, who, once June arrived, did not see the light of day again – until now. The year is almost through, and, nuts to Photoshop, they need airing out.

Click on these links to see any of them larger. They are, from top to bottom: cowboy singer/troubador Pop Wagner, a vulturine guineafowl from the Assiniboine Park Zoo, my sister's dog Kayla, an unexplainable pen-and-watercolour skeletal bird of some sort, a big fat prairiedog and a toucanet (both from the zoo as well).

Jeopopolis Celebrates Five Years: A Blog Giveaway And Momentous Opportunity To Kick My Butt

2009-11-26T21:32:00.010-06:00

It was five years ago today, that I sat and sat and stared at the biggest personal creative doldrums I've ever faced. I punched the clock at work. I sat on the couch and watched Battlebots. I had a tiny point-and-shoot camera I rarely stocked with film. I had for all intents and purposes forgotten how to draw, not having done it for a years. The phrase "use it or lose it" comes readily to mind, and it had become entirely applicable to me.

So since the end of December 2004 I've devoted myself to 218 pseudo-weekly artistic endeavours, and by fits and starts have rediscovered a creative spark I had previously allowed to fizzle through a rut of daily routine.

But that is not to say I'm cured. Perhaps far from it. Each time I sketch it's a struggle. The Rebel I received a year into my blogging life for my 30th birthday sometimes sits for days and days. I still need kicks in the butt. All. The. Time.

But now and then I enjoy scrolling the oodles and wadges of output and see what I've made. Or read what visitors have written in response. And even though the responses have dropped muchly over the past year, what I'd like to do – to honour my great big fat five years of doing things – is offer up a dose of gratitude to those who have stopped by, to those who still belly up to the comments bar, and to all those who silently look but don't touch. I thank you all so, so much for what you've contributed to this site.

In the form of the ever-popular blog giveaway, I invite all poppers-in and stoppers-by to drop a comment. All you need do is – in the form of the written word – kick my butt to keep me going. Be creative; phrase it however you want. A randomly-drawn winner will then receive a 6X8(ish, depending on dimensions) plaque-mounted print of their choice from this pre-determined selection of the 50 all-time most popular Jeopopolis entries (as deemed by favourited status on my Flickr site). And if the comments overwhelm me, I'll make a second print available for grabs.

Remember to leave me a means of contacting you with your comment. An email address (or if you know I know how to reach you, just say so).

December 31, 2009, at the stroke of midnight – that's the deadline, and when the bell officially tolls five years for Jeopopolis. You've got plenty of time, so think hard about how you're going to kick my butt. And I thank you, in advance, for doing so.

Big Pancake

2009-11-21T12:26:00.004-06:00

I've never been much of an activist. But when Big Pancake came to me with their sights set square on this humble photo of Kerry's family-recipe miniature pancakes* – I saw it as a call to arms.

I talked here once about people trolling Flickr for free imagery in exchange for exposure and a photo credit. To Big Pancake's credit, it was not how they approached me earlier in the fall (to be honest, they didn't approach me at all; rather, it was an agency out of the U.S.). The ask was up-front and professional in nature – stating their interest, the end use and asking straight-up what it would cost.

Through some research and negotiation – and with the cook's permission (hesitant, but she did appreciate their tag line: pancake lovers unite) – I ultimately caved in to Big Pancake, and accepted their big pancakey cheque in the mail last week. You can now find an agency-modified version of the photo serving as the current background image for Bisquick's online kingdom (the best view can be had at the very bottom of the page). And I can safely say this is the strangest thing to have happened to me in a long time.

* I would like to stress that no Bisquick was involved in the making of the above miniature pancakes.

218: The Brown Owl

2009-11-15T12:47:00.002-06:00

This owl I drew in the spring as part of my May sketching spell, but I spent some time tinkering this past week to add colour and texture (and also performing bits of digital surgery, moving the bird's right foot inwards and adjusting a previously-awkward right wing). The original sketch was drawn entirely with a black brush pen. All told, done for hoots and giggles, nothing more.

The verse comes from the poem The Great Brown Owl, by Jane Euphemia Browne.

Photo Of The Day

2009-11-14T15:47:00.004-06:00

I willingly submit my more oddball photos to the CBC Radio 3 Flickr group, which allows the folks at Radio 3 to use them freely for their online ventures. The way I figure, for the amount of new music they've exposed me to over the years I view this as one way of saying thanks. Last week CBC Radio 3 used a photo of mine for the fourth time – this one as part of a blog posting of random recommended website links.

The image, of my friend Jason on our annual spring nocturnal owl survey in 2007, is a 30-second long-exposure at a frozen Shoe Lake in Nopiming Provincial Park. Over the course of the half-minute, I had Jason stand still with a flashlight for eight seconds in three side-by-side locations in the snow, having him turn it towards his face for a couple seconds before quickly jumping to the next position. A nice, Photoshop-free goofaround session just after sunset before we hit the road for the night-time survey.

217: The Skinny

2009-11-01T13:28:00.002-06:00

Illustration Friday's brand-new theme of skinny allows me a chance to show off a brand-new freelance illustration endeavour. It also sends me spouting off about blogs' inabilities to showcase or scroll long and skinny horizontal pieces (like comic strip panels and stitched panoramic photos, which I love to build). But on this matter I digress.

Recently I was afforded the opportunity to craft a unique illustration to support a one-pager article in a new magazine being published by Canada's National History Society (makers of The Beaver, a time-honoured Canuck literary tradition). The magazine, Teaching Canada's History, unveiled last week, is being distributed to educators and will also be available at newsstands.

I, of course, delayed any decision to show the piece until following the launch. But as a freelance assignment it was a fun challenge and a chance to work with tall and skinny pre-set dimensions that I’ve taken advantage of with previous Illustration Friday themes like this, and this.

The article called for a support piece that dealt with themes of history and technology, and connections between the two. Wide open skies for an illustrator, and among presented rough concepts to the client is what you see here, with the connection being shown quite literally (in the blue corner, representing technology, the cur-sorrrrr!... and in the red corner...). Also called upon for divine inspiration were Michelangelo’s doodles in the Sistine Chapel.

The hand, based on the hand of Adam, was drawn using soft pencil and charcoals; the cursor icon was created originally with pens and a ruler, then coloured and tidied up digitally. Amalgamation, background texture elements and distressing were all finalized in Photoshop. The final piece measures roughly 3" by 8" – and I do enjoy drawing skinny, so thanks, Canada’s National History Society! And thanks, Illustration Friday!

Mouse

2009-10-30T21:04:00.002-05:00

I am going to hell for the things I have done to mice.

My favourite items to receive in my loot bag on Halloween were Wagon Wheels. I make no bones about this. I hand them out to the kids who come to our door now, always saving one for myself. My least favourite items – enemies, even – were bulk-bin orange-and-black wrappered toffees doled out by thrifty-pantsed clueless types who obviously had lost touch with their own childhoods. But I digress.

Mice. I suspect they are even searching for cracks in our house as I recant this tale. I know they are after me. A dusting of early fall snow last year revealed tracks around and about our weathered foundation.

Halloween 1985, 10 years old, and I return home from a valiant night of trick-or-treating, an old pillowcase slung over one tired shoulder, straining under the weight of a champion Halloween stockpiling. Within days all chocolate had been purged. By mid-November chips and raisin boxes were consumed. Not long thereafter, Rockets, Sweet-Tarts and suckers were subsequently taken down.

What remained were the toffees. Countless toffees. In said old pillowcase. In my closet, left in spite. It was no coincidence that with winter came the mice. They invaded the confines of our dark unfinished basement and, to no one's surprise but my own, my bedroom closet. My mom scolded me over the abandoned loot bag and set out little stacks of death-bringing poison pellets. And then – no more mice.

I grew older and out of Halloween traditions, and my bedroom evolved into an everyday teenager haunt. Despite my best efforts to keep the place clean, I was teen-aged – and as such did not smell the rotting mouse corpse deep underneath the Billy bookshelf units.

We moved from that house in the summer of '92. As I made disappear long-obscured dust bunnies and dirtpiles with the family's never-quit 1960s-era Hoover, I made a discovery. A tiny, curled, sleeping mouse skeleton inside an orderly ring of brown-grey fur and dried insect shells. The grisly scene rattled into the vacuum hose, and was quickly gone. I did not tell a soul.

-----

Halloween 2002, and the onset of a cruel winter. I was then living in a small but decent apartment in a ramshackle building for four years, but had not seen mice until this time. Watching Battlebots on a late Friday night, I detected a darting form from the corner of my eye.

Mouse. I knew it to be true, and I was on the case instantly. With a can of compressed air I flushed it from hiding time and time again, looking to corner and trap the beastie. It escaped my hockey stick-wielding clutches.

I set about mouse-proofing my pad, but to no avail; the apartment was made of holes. That winter many mice invaded my space, yet none would munch on my munchables nor take bait from the standard traps placed about the suite. They did not even make poop. They seemed interested only in passing through, announcing their skittery presence with a squeak or two, then vanishing – likely to filthier apartments within the building.

I had to strike at them with the last resort of any mouse-hunter: the dread sticky trap. All my resident mice did were walk; I had to strike at them where they walked. Thus began a wintertime opus of 4:00am piercing peals for mercy. What ensued: a quick tipping of the gooey plastic tray and its squirming contents into a Nike shoe-box, a closing of the lid, then a boxer-shorts-and-parka death march to the dumpster outside. One mouse out of the house, the shoe-box cocked and ready for the next transport. Five times this ritual occurred in total before the hordes were extirpated from my home.

Five celestial rodents now await me in the afterlife. Six, I guess – with one giant plastic tray of gooey spread toffee for my own personal Han Solo carbonite treatment. But they are waiting.

216: WYUTAZCO, Part Four

2009-10-29T15:15:00.006-05:00

Top row (left to right): Ranger Dan shows us the Mesa Verde ropes; Cliff Palace; early morning and Delicate Arch. Middle row (left to right): Kerry, in Mother Nature’s stockade; petroglyphs! Bottom row: one last sit-down before the long trip home.

-----

Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park and Utah's famous Arches National Park provided fodder for the remainder of our time, before finally putting our heads and the pedal down for the non-anticipated and arduous trek home. Both locations offered incredible sights and distractions from the looming two-day Interstate marathon.

Mesa Verde was plenty scenic, a towering plateau of rock rising from desert and scrubland. The location is more well-known for its historic content, housing countless restored and untouched Puebloan cliff dwellings and villages. We signed up for guided tours of two such ruins, learning our brains and navigating the jungle-gym network of trails, ladders, ledges and tunnels – then saved time for a solo jaunt on an entertaining trail that led to a wall of petroglyphs. Come late afternoon we took off for the thrill-seeker haven of Moab, Utah, and the base for our final day spent hiking and exploring in Arches.

Arches is the ultimate cartoon landscape, and immensely popular, even on a weekday in the middle of October. We arrived early and beat the tourist onslaught to Delicate Arch, quite possibly one of the most recognizable and photographed pieces of work Nature has cobbled on the continent. But the majority of this final day was spent tackling possibly our most grueling hike in the Devil's Garden, traversing sand, inclines and slippery-smooth swaths of slick-rock, which earned Kerry – and I still chuckle – likely the only booter for hundreds of bone-dry miles. We saved just enough time to witness the sunset, sinking the park's west facades into hues of deep red, coming to a close in the cathedral of Double Arch. Bloody awesome.

I'll tinker with my scads of photos for days and months probably, but a good, solid set of photos is now up and running. Click here for the set, or here for the whiz-bang slideshow treatment.

215: WYUTAZCO, Part Three

2009-10-27T21:40:00.002-05:00

Top row (left to right): the Jerome Gold King and his pet donkey Pedro; my badass birthday Haunted Hamburger; Kerry crosses the line. Middle row (left to right): Monument Valley spire; Grand Canyon with eggplants. Bottom row: grand pano.

-----

A whistle-stop was all we afforded the Grand Canyon; it was our intention all along to take snapshots and move on, figuring the size and scope of America's greatest natural attraction was bigger than our two-week plans to see as much as we could. From Kanab we visited the less-visited North Rim and breathed in a few vantage points. But after being so close and personal with previous stops, the Grand Canyon seemed unapproachable. At least for our schedule, and I will grant it that. It's really a destination unto itself.

But it was on this day, traveling to Sedona, we did witness the true openness of American southwest desert country – there is indeed not much going on between the Canyon and Flagstaff beyond scrub, Harleys and a Navajo-language lite-rock radio station. Sedona, on the other hand, is a comparative oasis of enterprise, traffic and eyebrow-raising New Age craziness. We took a day off from nature and went on a birthday excursion to nearby Jerome, a reinvented hillside mining town now dedicated largely to a lively arts and crafts scene. Despite this, we concocted a visit to the Gold King Mine and Ghost Town – essentially a glorified packrat scrapyard for some red-blooded American kitsch (with donkey!), and a stop-in at the Haunted Hamburger for the most badass of all the world's hamburgers. Shopping was also in order; I procured a sweet Stetson cowboy shirt.

This was to be as far from home as we would go. From here we would turn back north, through the Painted Desert and Tuba City (a most disappointing town, in comparison to its name), past the Coyote-and-Roadrunner-inspired monoliths of Monument Valley and into Colorado for a visit to the ruins of Mesa Verde National Park.

214: WYUTAZCO, Part Two

2009-10-26T21:25:00.004-05:00

Top row (left to right): Bryce Canyon at sunrise; the colours! Middle row (left to right): juniper antlers; our car shall not pass; dwarfed in Zion. Bottom row (left to right): look up, look way up; the rocks are melting.

-----

The drive from Old Faithful to Bryce Canyon, Utah, was longer than I anticipated – near-empty interstates and 80mph speed limits notwithstanding. But the day was encouraging in that we ably ditched the snow of Yellowstone for the sun of the desert in a matter of hours. Regression back to summer kicks an early winter's ass every time.

Warmer weather in tow, we could finally ditch the car and set out on foot – which we did at Bryce, totaling over 2o kilometres of ups and downs in the candyland spires of this fantastic place. The park is comparatively compact, and with one solid day we got a good fill of what the place is about. Starting out at daybreak on the less-traveled Fairyland Loop trail, we walked and gawked at this trippy otherworld. My memory card filled fast with amazing hues of red, yellow and white. Nearer midday we connected with some of the park's more popular routes for those willing to navigate the switchbacks into the canyon floor, made our way out of the park's namesake "ampitheater" through the cavernous formations of Wall Street, and finished with an exhausting return to the car via the Rim Trail from one end to the other. The place never ceased to amaze; some of its geography was near laughter-inducing. And in our combined stupour we both received fine October sunburns.

Bryce is for lovers of good lighting. The next day allowed us time to slowly make our way to nearby Zion National Park and Kanab, our ensuing place to crash for the night – and I used this opportunity to leave pre-dawn to catch one of Bryce's famous sunrises while Kerry slept. It did not disappoint; I camped out in a good spot with other photographers on the same pilgrimage and watched the show.

We would experience Zion in a similar vein (sans vehicle), but a random day of shunts and spurs was laid out in between. The nearby rehabilitated ghost town of Grafton made a fine turnaround point – we checked out its rickety remains and desert cemetery before making a bee-line to Kanab, and failed attempts to locate two other nearby ghost towns before nightfall. Kerry wrote about one such attempt, to find the town of Paria, that I hope to show in the future. She's a great storyteller.

Zion and Bryce are two hours apart, yet on altogether different planets. Where Bryce displays delicacy and curiousity, Zion imparts sheer blunt force. It's the immovable object, with vistas and grandeur to rival any mountain range. Playing one-day tourists, we hopped the park's shuttle service and made an attempt on its most famous hiking excursion, the Angel's Landing trail, a precipitous series of switchbacks and chain-aided clifftop scrambles. But so did every man and his dog (or kids), and midway we opted instead for a palette of lesser-known – and just as thrilling – hikes into hanging valleys, porous, dripping cliff faces and crevasse-like dry canyons.

That night, and the night previous, we stayed in the area hub of Kanab – home of two highly-recommended establishments: the Rocking V Cafe and the wonderfully-eclectic Bob-Bon Motel. I won't do this often, but both of these places were very, very cool.

213: WYUTAZCO, Part One

2009-10-24T13:51:00.007-05:00

Top row (left to right): Kerry, at the northwest entrance; Lower Falls, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone; foyer of the Old Faithful Inn. Middle row (left to right): colours on display at West Thumb; I can't see a damned thing. Bottom row: Mammoth Hot Springs.

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I've decided to break down our epic, 8,000-kilometer road trip into bite-sized pieces – this because I worked my camera(s) overtime and have spent much of the past week culling and processing photos (we returned last Saturday night). I don't want to write a marathon, and for those of you not keen on the written word, there is a newly-posted Flickr photo set of snapshots and stitched panoramic photos now available. I've gotten as far as our time spent in Yellowstone National Park. More will follow.

Yellowstone was our first stop. It would end up being nothing like the remainder of our trip, an anomaly in every sense of the word. It was cold, snowy, blustery. It was also insanely eerie, otherworldly and head-scratching. It's a zoo of a park, encapsulating so many unique landscapes, creatures and bizarre geological oddities it made us sometimes laugh. We saw much more of the park in our three days than we ever intended, hoping to tough out a pair of long day hikes. But the temperatures and constant threat of snow kept us close to Bill, our unsuspecting and prairie-spoiled Honda Civic.

Our first two days were spent making the best of less-than-ideal conditions. Luckily the place was so fascinating; the glut of hot springs, fumaroles, steam vents, hissing puddles, gurgling mud pots, teasing half-geysers and neon pools all did their part to distract and temporarily warm us up. We explored Yellowstone's north end: Mammoth, the Lamar Valley and one of its resident grizzly bears, Tower Fall, Norris and the park's namesake canyon. The weather channel was predicting the worst, snow was falling in the higher altitudes and we feared we'd have to scuttle our last day.

But the next morning, we awoke to sunshine and newly-reopened roads to the south, passing through the bison-clogged Hayden Valley, West Thumb and the famous swath of geysers surrounding the even-more-famous Old Faithful itself, capped with a one-night stay at the grand and rickety Old Faithful Inn (meeting up with online friend and Baltimore-based photographic whiz Janet Little, coincidentally shooting in the area). The sun and patches of fresh snow made for an entirely different day than the previous two; even though it was just as crisp, it was decidedly more pleasant. And the new light provided all manner of great photo opportunities.

Onwards and downwards, we'd had enough of this early winter and headed for the heat. Our next night would be spent in the southern fringes of Utah.

212: Getting The Buck Out

2009-09-29T23:06:00.002-05:00

In a couple of days we're heading out on vacation, a road trip that will take us to Yellowstone National Park and then south to a whole wadge of scenic stops in southern Utah and northern Arizona. When we return, I'll be busy as snot no doubt – not to mention a year older (can I get a woohoo for birthdays on the road) – so hold tight and I'll be back on here and posting in about a month's time.

In the meantime here's a deer for you, another one of my May Day drawing assignments – based from this photo taken on a thick-fog morning in the Whiteshell, the last time we had an October vacation. Hopefully more moments are to come. Stay warm.

211: Bachelor Week

2009-09-21T21:14:00.006-05:00

Kerry was away last week, leaving me with a dozen cobs of corn and a wadge of bachelor time. It was largely uneventful, but on a pair of occasions I took the car out for some evening and late-night photography with the little-used remote control I had bought for my camera. I gathered some CDs and some Muskol and traveled east, to the ruins of the old Pinawa Dam and Tulabi Falls in Nopiming Provincial Park.

On my first trip out, I headed straight for Tulabi Falls (above). With all the rain this summer, they were thundering. This is the first set of gentle rapids before the water really gets going. I love how the falls drain directly from the calm of Tulabi Lake.

The falls connect Tulabi Lake and the larger Bird Lake (above). I watched the sun set here as mosquitoes searched for any cracks in my Muskol coverage. They were absolutely brutal.

With the remote, I took long-exposures of the stars. In the Nopiming there is zero light pollution, and with no moon out I needed my camping headlamp to punch settings into the camera and find a focus. I pointed it straight up for this 100-second shot of the Milky Way. Later I took this portrait of the night-time forest with Jupiter, lighting the ground with the headlamp.

Before I left, I headed to the boat launch at Tulabi Lake thinking I could view some nice reflections off the water. The northern lights were out, but they were weak and fading quickly – this 120-second exposure caught them before they disappeared for keeps. The full image can be viewed, here.

On a second day out I visited the old Pinawa Dam, one of the province's most photogenic spots. There's plenty of exposed shield rock, rapids and the eerieness of the decommissioned dam's ruins, slowly being reclaimed by nature. This shot (above) is a composite; one photo was taken of the water and lower landforms, and a second one was taken to capture tones of the evening sky. They were then merged in Photoshop.

210: Food Porn!

2009-09-13T19:33:00.004-05:00

I dig food. Breads and cereals? I'm there. I love the whole wheat multi-grain loaves at the hippie bakery down the street as much as a jumbo box of Corn Pops™. Dairy? Yes. God yes. You can't mellow a mouth-shredding bowl of Corn Pops™ without milk, and I can't comprehend where I'd be in this world without the cheeses. Meats? Nuts? Eggs? Yes, yes and yes. This wonderful, magical group is responsible for the luscious vendor-cart smokie in my hand, pulled pork that graces my poutine at a recent ballgame (above), the walnuts in my brownie – and the impenetrable density of said quality brownie.

But as much as I do love the fat and the junk, I am equally drawn to the undenying appeal of the home-grown veggie – except beets, because beets suck – so when I witness the array of colour at the farmers' market or a parked pickup truck with cobs of corn spilling off its tailgate, I'm drawn. Our meagre backyard garden had its ups and downs this season. Basil and lettuce produced early and often. A redeeming September, following a cool and wet summer, is giving hope to our eggplants, surging chard and stunted pepper plants. But our normally foolproof prize tomato patch took a big hit this year, suffering from unending rain, eavestrough overflows and mystery ailments that attacked their foliage. We're making hay with what small fruit developed (above) – but our biggies are likely not gonna make it.

So, if you will, a moment – for our dear departed tomatian backyard homies. The Lord of Food took ye too soon.

209: I Doodled...Again

2009-09-08T21:47:00.003-05:00

This past week, I enlisted in another doodle swap, an insider circuit of mostly-American graphic designers partaking in the ever-popular hobby of creating artist trading cards (ATCs, for hipsters in the know) – 2.5"-by-3.5" non-digital artworks mailed back and forth between game participants. My first-ever swap was documented earlier in the year.

This time, I ditched the randomness and stuck to a theme – that of, well, birds with glasses. Six of the even dozen I created are here; the full set can be viewed on my Flickr photostream. These pieces were all sketched lightly in pencil on pre-cut Strathmore watercolour cards, overlaid with light, one-tone washes, then inked up nice with both fine-nib and calligraphic-nib pens. Shadows were then quickly accented with a light grey marker. All told, each entry took between 15-25 minutes to complete.

208: Nice Day For A White Wedding

2009-09-06T15:05:00.003-05:00

A couple of weekends ago I attended the wedding of my friends Jim and Wanda. They were married on the white sands of Victoria Beach, a couple of hours north of the city, followed by an after-party at a nearby cottage. The vibe of the whole event was a nice summertime yin to the yang of our in-house New Year's Eve marriage nearly two years ago. In the spirit of the wedding, I was hired as official pro-bono photographer.

Jim and Wanda each have two young daughters, who, in matching dresses and flowery tiaras, gave the ceremony an added dose of adorability – and their future a decidedly Brady-esque feel.

After the official portion of the ceremony, I switched to the 100mm lens for some candid shots.

Weddings are unofficially 'all about the bride', and Wanda was immensely photogenic. It helped that the couple lucked out with one of the year's rare sunny Saturdays.

I relaxed a bit at the dinner and after-party. Kids were everywhere. As far as weddings go, this was right up my alley. A beautiful day.

207: When Pigs And Logos Fly

2009-09-02T21:58:00.004-05:00

One of the handful of projects that has kept me occupied over the latter half of summer has been a logo design for my good friend's local start-up venture. This assignment simmered slowly and comfortably over much of the summer, and followed a fairly uneventful and standard process for logo development until one fateful night, when it was turned on its ear by a dream. More on that later.

The company – currently being crafted by recent PrairieView School of Photography grad Sarah Hodges-Kolisnyk – is Hodgepodge Creative (site under work, but be sure to check the blog), a one-woman wrecking crew of skills ranging from professional photography to creative and journalistic writing to audio/video production.

The trick then for her logo-designer-in-arms, as per her wishes, was to express this wide-ranging skills set within a single, strong – and simple – all-encompassing visual. And following an initial coffee-house meetup to discuss and peruse her then brand-new portfolio, I sent her on an expedition to gather together visuals that shared common traits with what she had in mind for her own business (not a standard procedure, but between friends one can do this).

Sarah came through in spades; she is a great client (Sarah, if you're reading this, you are a great client). She had a strong built-in sense of what she wanted in terms of look/feel, colour schemes and general aesthetics. And I'm a huge fan of not having to mind-read. Who is?

From her Big List of Inspiring Visuals, I was able to confidently go about building a few options, then submit them for further discussion and refinement. Two concepts (above) played largely on her zeal for the outdoors and knack for nature photography, and utilized compatible tones as such. A third (below) took on a more abstract/typographic form. All were received well and good, and constructive feedback was lent.

“The word ‘hodgepodge’ makes me think of a pig,” Kerry said to me around this point (I’m paraphrasing). “You should do one with a pig.”

And that night, I dreamed of a logo concept – with a pig. The next day, I set to work.

After time, the concept – that of a creative beast of many talents – eventually came to fruition (above). Much tweaking and haranguing was involved, particularly in how the three equal elements would join and/or overlap. It was important that no one element overshadow the other two, and yet a single, blended shape was not achieving the desired outcome. I finally came about with offshoots of red, green and blue – representative of the colour model used in displaying images electronically.

I felt it imperative Sarah remain integral in the development of the final result (below). Throughout the process I included her input on style, colour and typographic decision-making, which eventually resulted in a last handful of tweaks; dropping the bold – yet perhaps overly-industrial – typeface for an earthier, friendlier one, and an automnal colour palette more in tune with her company's character and focus of her work.

206: One Fine Day

2009-09-01T19:55:00.003-05:00

I thought I'd take a break from the grid format to tell the tale of our Saturday just past. It was a glorious day out, so we took off to the Whiteshell for a hike.

The summer's been wet; a near write-off – but apparently excellent for mushrooms. First I saw this high school fire alarm bell jobbie. I wanted to pull it to get out of gym class.

I got a little closer, to view these fan-fugu-tastic spiky Viva Puffs.

And then I shelved my discomfort of fungi altogether for this giant, super gills-flipped-inside-out number.

Our lunch spot we shared with this chipmunk. In rapid succession it shunned my offerings of carrot, a grape, and then a smaller, more chipmunk-suitable grape.

On our return, we took turns on this made-for-dozing tree. It was much more suited to the contours of my back, despite how at peace Kerry seems here.

Over a fire that evening, I grilled some corn cobs and smoked-gouda-topped portobellos. These were inserted into buns – with tomatoes, basil and lettuce from our garden – and chased with s'mores.

205: Magnify This

2009-08-31T19:00:00.003-05:00

This doodle represents my personal take on Illustration Friday's current theme of magnify, as well as a sneak peek of another stress-free artistic venture I took on to see me through the fading days of summer.

Loosely drawn first in pencil, these birdies were afforded the quickest-of-quick rose red watercolour washes before being inked with .01-nib and calligraphic pens.

I'm not sure what all else to add – except I have a lot of material piled up and ready to display in the near future. Please stand by.

¡Incommuñicado!

2009-08-16T22:23:00.004-05:00

It's been a teensy-weensy while since I've posted, and realize it may be some time coming as well. I've recently been the recipient of a wadge of fun and enjoyable freelance and pro bono work/assignments – ranging from illustration to logo design to photography – and need to direct my efforts as such. Some of it I'll be showing off in the weeks and months to come, no doubt, but for the time being Jeopopolis must resort to keeping the back seat warm.

Stay classy. In the meantime, here's a photo to melt hearts; when my four-year-old niece in her pink summer dress snuck up barefoot on a lazing rabbit at the magic hour for photographers – well, I thanked High Holy Bacon.

See you in September.

204: Pimp My Photo

2009-08-04T21:29:00.003-05:00

Illustration Friday's theme of modify had me scouring my photo vault, then interpreting in a purely technical manner. So bear with me here, if you think I'm off my rocker.

Firstly, the quick sketch above, drawn with a fast-fading black brush pen – my new best friend – is of Kerry's brother-in-law and his mega-awesome hat. In Photoshop, I frittered away at the drawing's edges, particularly along the bottom, and performed some minor tweaks to a few detail areas where the brush pen was overly blunt.

Where Illustration Friday's theme enters the picture is in choice of colour scheme and setting. The original photo (shown below), was snapped on a cloudy and blustery day on a northern Manitoba lake, from a boat halted at a barren, wretched colony of nesting gulls. The modified illustration instead inserts our hero into a far warmer climate. And there you have it.

203: Cabin Fever

2009-08-03T18:02:00.005-05:00

This was the scene – according to the eggheads at Environment Canada – awaiting our six-day jet-away to the jungles of southern Ontario last week. My geographically-challenged family unit pitched in together for a lakeside cabin rental in Port Elgin, a resort-and-cottage town on the shores of Lake Huron that I know well from my childhood. And fortunately, the federal government does weather prediction about as well as [fill in the blank].

Rainy overnights and mornings were more the case, but afternoons and evenings were by and large, glorious, and even included a solid sunny day from open to close mixed in. This laid the groundwork for a classic stuffed-to-the-rafters cabin experience, including much wine, six-ton brownies, barbeque, bocce, beers, badminton, biking, Big Bay homemade ice cream and a run-amok midnight bat in the living room.

It was a grand time, to be schooled in bocce by my almost-five-year-old niece, and to giggle with my nephew, a 15-month-old ball of giddiness. To munch on fresh fish and veggies still weeks away from harvest back at home. To hear cheer-uppy cardinals at dawn and see egrets in the marsh, and to escape one of the coldest summers on record at home to be with people I love and a place in the world I will always have fond memories for.

202: Blarg!!!

2009-07-16T21:22:00.004-05:00

Another piece of prodigious May Day output, this was my May 19 sketch – originally drawn with a couple of fine-nib pens, brush pen and light grey marker – of my nephew at two months old. Source material was from a photo shoot I had with him during a visit east last summer; also my last time seeing the chap – fortunately though we have a long-overdue second date coming up next week.

A closer look can be had, here.

201: Festival Banner Crop

2009-07-13T18:26:00.007-05:00

Top row (left to right): Iron & Wine, Okkervil River, Patrick Watson. Middle row (left to right): Great Lake Swimmers, Josh Ritter, Neko Case. Bottom row (left to right): Hey Rosetta!, Serena Ryder, Elvis Costello.

"Alright Winnipeg, check this sh*t out" – Afie Jurvanen (aka Bahamas)

This year's Winnipeg Folk Festival was spectacular, for me, on many levels. But principally two: talent and weather. The latter goes without explanation; for myself, a lousy forecast can dampen even the best show – fortunately I can't think of too many examples where this has happened. So, lucky me.

But the crew behind the scenes, who patch this whole thing together, put forth an incredible lineup for 2009 – in my humble opinion, the best ever. Frankly, somebody there must have read my mind. Some notes from this year's festival:

The continuation of a second night-time stage has been a huge blessing, and this year's was, by leaps and bounds, the best. Between the only scheduled showing by late addition Hey Rosetta! On Friday, a quick pop-in for a screening of The Big Snit on Saturday and back-to-back concerts on Sunday from Patrick Watson and Great Lake Swimmers, the old guard can have their main stage.

Patrick Watson (the man) and Patrick Watson (the band) were lights-out. I hadn't seen them before, and had no clue how they'd manage to put across live what they do on their albums (having a most daring percussionist doesn't hurt). I only wished I'd waded in closer to see his homemade mobile soundsystem, which I could only describe as a backpack/coat-rack of megaphones. Their Sunday workshop with Danny Barnes, human beat-box C.R. Avery and klezmer-rapper Socalled was quite fine in its own right. A ton of improvised fun, anyways.

The Great Lake Swimmers put in an appearance or ten, or so it felt, holding their own against Josh Ritter and Neko Case (Saturday afternoon), and the bombastic Okkervil River (Sunday). Arguably the hardest-working band of the festival, they capped off the weekend with a rousing version of "I Am Part Of A Large Family" with Serena Ryder, complete with a rose-red sunset.

These sideshows almost make me forget my personal highlights of the evening main stage, the specially-added Wednesday marathon from Elvis Costello, the all-eggs-in-one-basket Friday night, capped by Iron & Wine and my lady crush Case (led off with the happiest man in the business, my man-crush Mr. Ritter) and a Saturday bash with the 11-piece British party band Bellowhead – complete with tuba solo.

I had a great time with my camera this year, shoehorning my way up close for some of the daytime shows. Bigger, crisper looks at any of these photos can be had here .

200: Happy Bicentennial, To Me

2009-07-09T21:30:00.003-05:00

This is the 200th artistic/creative diversion I've given myself since I began this blog at the outset of 2005. I am not one who tends to toot one's own horn, but right about now I am finding this pretty f**king amazing.

This is another entry from my May Day drawing series; my May 18th contribution to be precise (I'm telling you, this is one self-started drawing challenge that continues to pay out). A brush pen portrait of my niece, based on a photo I took during a Thanksgiving 2007 visit to my sister's in Nova Scotia, this was dressed up not for Illustration Friday or any other themed assignment. It was done – as athletes sometimes say – simply for the love of the game.

A closer look can be had, here.

199: Daytrippers

2009-07-06T22:48:00.007-05:00

Top row (left to right): adding machine of the beast in Ponemah; Sarah the roadside camel in Glenboro. Middle row (left to right): Kerry styles at the Souris agate pit; explosive words in the Souris caboose. Bottom row (left to right): daisies, yo; Kerry, on the bridge.

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Kerry and I celebrated an odd Canada Day Wednesday off by seeing a bit of the countryside and jet-setting off to Souris, Manitoba. For those outside certain local circles, the town of Souris (population 1,683) is home to the country's longest cable-stayed footbridge, which spans the Souris River at a length of 177 metres (584 feet). Souris is less-known as the hometown of a former coworker of mine, who claims to have punched fomer Philadelphia Flyers' goalie Ron Hextall – who hailed from up the road – in the nose during a childhood hockey game. But I digress.

With local scribe Bartley Kives' tome A Daytripper's Guide to Manitoba, we hit the highway west to see this village first-hand, for the first time. The book came in handy, guiding us through some backwoods directions to find a farm-based reptile exhibit in nearby Shilo. That was cool in its own right; certainly not something one would expect to see on the bald prairie. If you can find it, I'd say it's worth the $5 admission.

In Souris proper, we ate lunch, strolled through the town park and chased the town peacocks. We explored a caboose-turned-museum. Walked the planks of the famous bridge (Kerry noted the shake makes it feel as if you're walking "like a Sweathog"). Rockhounded our heat-stricken butts off at the local agate pit. And then headed home – via Glenboro and its giant roadside camel – to a 9:00 dinner at Headingley's traveler haven Nick's Inn (bacon cheeseburger and fries for this hombre, but sadly out of milkshake). Following, we were so pooped we couldn't stay up for fireworks; instead, we heard them boom as we fell asleep in our bed.

198: Portrait Of Roy, G. And Biv

2009-06-28T15:33:00.003-05:00

I forgot about this one – the first illustration from my May Day drawing binge that I took further, in terms of post-processing, in June. Based from a photo taken of myself and friends Karla and Kirsty at a hotel room party during the GDC National AGM, the original illustration was a two-tone pen and marker number. Once scanned, the brown ink was desaturated in favour of shades of grey, and colour and texture were added to further differentiate the three figures. The paper texture was a freebie download made available at BittBox. A better look at the detail can be had, right here.

197: Worn Out

2009-06-28T00:33:00.002-05:00

Illustration Friday's theme of worn made me think of a lemur. Yes, that's right.

Not just any lemur, but one I photographed during a spring 2007 visit to the local zoo with my zoom lens in tow. I was there to test the lens out on my favourite Big Cage of Snowy Owls and came upon this tired-looking fellow. Granted, I'm not zoological enough to differentiate a healthy, virile lemur from a grizzled old one, but the mannerisms of this guy led me to believe he was pretty aged – and well-worn.

I sketched this lemur based from the photo, using an equally well-worn Pigma brush pen. I'd been using this pen tons lately and it's quite low on ink now – but this gives me a texture I love when I dab the nib on the page (an effect best seen in the muzzle area). The drying pen was also beneficial for the fur, providing delicacy that a healthy, virile brush pen could not achieve.

To follow the theme even moreso, I used an image of weathered wood planks to superimpose the illustration over, placing down Photoshop layers of white paint and muted splashes of colour. I then used a variety of custom brushes to whittle away the spaces between the planks and bring out a few cracks in the surface in an attempt to mimic painting the piece directly on wood.

A closer look at the detail can be had, here.

Zhup Wolf: Quark Superstar

2009-06-24T19:46:00.005-05:00

I like checking where visitors to Jeopopolis come from – the free SiteMeter doodad I hitched up helps me do this. Today it earned its keep. Tom Waits and Alphaville may be big in Japan, but apparently I'm a "trusted" and "significant figure in the industry" in Russia – according to a "Quark consultant" who posted links to my Flickr set of magazine page spreads on a Russian design and printing forum yesterday.

I used Google Translate to find out what the Reds are saying about me; posts to the thread are laid out below. It's somewhat encouraging to see the eternal Quark-versus-InDesign debate crossing borders and spanning oceans (I switched to InDesign four years ago, despite the consultant's glowing review and ventriloquistic ability to put words in my mouth).

The consultant seems to be a Jeopopolitan convert; it's iffy whether others in the thread are – but Google's attempt at turning the conversation into English can be pretty amusing.

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Poster 1: Creative Good Luck: Conservator Magazine

Conservator, natural log Association Ducks Unlimited Canada, published a quarter century. Since 2000, the editors turned to QuarkXPress.

"Starting with the fifth version of QuarkXPress, we keep pace with the progress and to continuously update the product" says art director magazine Zhup Wolf. "'G' pleased us most of all: easy access to all functions, focus on creativity and, most importantly, almost double the reduction of time on layout."

Wolf can be trusted: as significant figures in the industry, he is also a graphic designer and photographer with nearly half of experience. Is your tape on Flikre and blogs Blogspote.

Fifty of his best turn of the journal Conservator, made in QuarkXPress, you can see here and Flikre. They are really good.

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Poster 2: Yes, a good layout. Especially liked the picture 2. It's a good idea.

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Poster 3: It is necessary to clarify what exactly the program moved to the wording of the quark C pajamas? Indesit then and Quark was not.

Imposition of coding. If an opportunity like this make up – the dignity of Quarks. Well, well higher number of ducks on the page still does not measure creativity 4 th in my opinion – terrible porn.

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Poster 4: Indesit then and Quark was not.

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Poster 3: Well, more or less working, he became half of the version. Until then, all vopili "Well what!"

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Poster 5: Mr. Duc really lucky – when the 500 characters in turn and cool photos in such circumstances to make ugly – have to postratsya.

196: Drifting In And Out Of Snow

2009-06-22T21:11:00.004-05:00

It's funny (to me anyways) that at the moment summer finally hits my home town – and hits, big-time – illustrative thoughts turn to such cold imagery. But when you come from a place that can conceivably get snow during parts or all of 10 of 12 months in a calendar year, the white stuff can drift into your consciousness quite easily. To wit, to hoot: this owl – sleeping under a blanket of drifted snow.

And since it's too hot to go into further detail, I will insist only upon viewing this link where you can see the piece in its more feathery, detailed glory.

The original line-work was drawn with a Pigma brush pen.

195: Panic Shroom

2009-06-16T22:42:00.004-05:00

I have a fear of mould. On food, on dank basement floors, on rotting logs – pretty much on anything. Maybe not a fear, even. More like a disgust bordering on paranoia on the cusp of dread. Case in point, a recent backyard gag-inducing dumping of kitchen compostables, which terrifyingly enough contained as much fuzz as veggie matter.

Depending on an extremely specific and seemingly unidentifiable set of circumstances, this disgust/paranoia/dread can occasionally cross over to the realm of mushrooms. But mushrooms to me are a grey area; I'll eat the cutesy store-bought ones like there's no tomorrow, but come across bad boys like you see above or below and I become equally fascinated and squirmy. I like to think of these photos, taken in the Whiteshell last weekend during a late spring hike, as somewhat of a step towards truce – between myself, and icky, sproingy, intestinal fungi everywhere.

Addendum! Anyone out there who can identify these... things... please, by all means pipe up.

194: What A Squirrel Wants

2009-06-07T15:27:00.003-05:00

Happy worldwide Drawing Day, everyone!

This is my contribution, of sorts – it wasn't drawn exactly today – and also a submission for Illustration Friday's current theme of craving. A pretty straightforward concept; namely, squirrels such as this one consistently crave only one thing... OK, it's spring, so mebbe two things. This red squirrel comes from a photo taken at Flowerpot Island, Ontario, during a 2007 road trip around the Great Lakes. It was frighteningly aggressive, towards a fellow squirrel at this picnic site, as well as to Kerry and myself, us attempting a mild-mannered attempt at a peaceful lunch.

The original drawing, done in brown- and black-ink Pigma Micron brush pens, was my May 8 entry towards a self-directed challenge of sketching once a day in May. All further work crafting it into a submission for Illustration Friday was completed in Photoshop over the weekend.

A closer, more detailed look can be had here.

193: Nothing But Blue Sky

2009-06-04T20:39:00.002-05:00

This very month of June comes with it all the pomp and hullabaloo of a newly-released edition of the GDC's Manitoba chapter e-news, cobbled together by me – your friendly neighbourhood chapter communications chairjobbie – and featuring valuable input from a phalanx of local chapter members (and thank you, whole-heartedly, each and every one). This edition features all the stalwarts of a summertime blockbuster: Intrigue! Exotic locales! Hot young things hitting the streets! And most of all, fantabulous miscellanea!

Read on.

192: Warblers vs. Swallows

2009-06-01T22:01:00.003-05:00

Clockwise, from top left: common yellowthroat, barn swallow, yellow warbler, tree swallow.

When I bought my macro lens last fall, I was excited about the prospect of using it at the weekly spring/summer bird banding sessions where I work. This past Friday they were netting little birds left and right, and were a bit too busy for me to get in too close. Even still, I left with a good collection of photos and reference material for drawings or other work. I'll probably attend a few more times, before summer comes and many of the rarer, more colourful catches move further north to nest.

I have deep respect for pro nature photographers, and their unending patience especially for these tiny songbirds. These birds were all (temporarily) captive, held either by the feet or in harmless (trust me) fist-grips, and yet they still fluttered, juked and shook in and out of focus.

I Am A Real American

2009-05-28T22:44:00.011-05:00

This past weekend I went in search of an early summer, and landed in Philadelphia where there was much of it to be had.

A whole lotta planning and expecting and general patience culminated in an awesome American long weekend in which I played the role of international visitor, dropping in on friends that I otherwise do not get to see very much (or at all; some I was meeting for the first time). Nice Melissa and husband Rob played both hosts to myself and friend Devon at their still-sparkling condo across the river in New Jersey, and guides into the city as we finagled an insider’s tour of anti-tourist-traps like a buzzing Saturday morning Italian street market and a darkened museum of medical oddities.

Primarily though, the weekend was spent doing what good friends do, whether they live next door or 2,000 kilometres apart. We ate ~~Geno’s~~ Pat's cheesesteaks before noon, chased by giant slices from Lorenzo’s. We sleevefaced at a thrift shop. Bumbled through Rock Band. Bowled badly. Talked baseball, babies and bosses.

The weekend served partially as a small reunion of holdovers from the 2006 HOW conference in Las Vegas. Alongside Melissa and myself, we hooked up with my Sin City roommate Dave for a tour of the Mütter Museum, and good friend Keith, who mach-fived right on over – complete with badass skills and attitude – in his custom-painted Mustang.

Devon commented on one of my very first posts to Jeopopolis; this was our first time meeting face-to-face. Patti, matriarch of the venerable zines I’ve taken part in over the years, met me with affection typically afforded to a long-lost pal. Karma, Steph, Nikita, David – all of whom took real estate from a valuable and cherished stateside long weekend – joined us for a Saturday evening roof-raiser. I departed for one day and night to Keith’s place where we yelled at an asteroid-strikes-Kansas-City TV disaster movie, witnessed the gut of America at the Quakertown market and laid down ink and made prints with wife Jenn on a muggy, stormy night.

Good people and good-timery always makes it hard for one to come home. At least there is now a semblance of summer at home though, to help the rest of me catch up to my sunburned neck.

191: True To My Word, Part Two

2009-05-16T12:04:00.002-05:00

I've reached the Ides of May, and have managed to stick to my sketching guns: fifteen drawings in fifteen days. For the most part, I've been able to wake up on any given day and have a pretty good handle on what I might attempt to do for an assignment. Most times I've scoured my photography vault for inspiration. On occasion I've gone through a bird book, Applied Arts or Communication Arts illustration annual for inspiration or a technique to try. A couple came straight from my head; none, to date, have been from direct observation.

This one was an exception to the above. I'd cracked open my watercolours to try a paint/pen combo piece, and had a paper scrap beside for mixing and brush-wiping. When I was done, I looked at this garble and – like puffy clouds in the sky – began to see shapes. I nabbed my chisel-tip pen and, in the space of two minutes tops, fleshed out this bug. Later I scanned it and cleaned up surrounding blobs (and within the eyeball) so it could stand solo. All told, mebbe 10-15 minutes.

190: The Beach Is Back

2009-05-12T22:28:00.007-05:00

Top row (left to right): Kerry pinches the sun; the pincher herself in fading light; curls of beach grass. Middle row (left to right): um, more curls of beach grass; the sun reflected in a rare patch of open water; ice floe. Bottom row (left to right): I kick butt at skipping stones; debut of willow buds.

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In one of those why-didn't-we-think-of-this-before moments, Kerry and I headed for the beach after a particularly hard day at work on Monday. She came from the city, picked me up and we drove to Grand Beach for a between-the-dunes dinner of chicken sandwiches, veggies-and-dip, cookies and local brews. The beach is a signature Manitoba place-to-be during the heights of summer – a destination for thousands upon thousands on a good hot Saturday – but a warm spring Monday along a still entirely-frozen Lake Winnipeg is not quite the draw. And that's just the way we like it.

189: True To My Word, Part One

2009-05-08T23:17:00.006-05:00

It's been eight May days, and I have drawn eight times – tonight, aided by three glasses of red wine, I drew a red squirrel from a photo taken during our 2007 road trip around the Great Lakes. And wine goggles be damned, it's not that bad. But just to prove I've been hard at it, here's a sampling: my May 2 submission, a brown- and black-ink brush pen sketch of Pepper the saw-whet owl, drawn on some graph paper. This took about 20 minutes.

I've been making good use of the brush pens. The black one in particular is beginning to die, and the increasing dryness of it is providing a nice effect.

May Day Sympathy

2009-05-03T12:04:00.004-05:00

Kerry is once again hard at work on The May Day Poetry Project, a blog-based collective of writing that happens on the fifth month of every year. Contributors try their darnedest here to create a piece once a day during this month – last year only Kerry pulled the feat off – but this time around I am taking a stab at the role of May Day sympathizer, and attempting to draw something once a day as well, through to the 31st. Not only will this loosen me and my plodding perfectionist style up, but hopefully also help build a half-decent stockpile of material to revisit and polish over the summer months.

What this means however, in terms of my own bloggery, is an unknown. Some pieces will make it here fairly soon after completion, while others may pop up weeks from now. Some will be decent, some will be quick, while others will quite possibly be crap. That all depends on my daily schedule: May, for me, will see a hectic work schedule, an issue of GDC Manitoba's e-news, the essential Canuck long weekend and a five-day trek to Philadelphia. In short, I'll be in and out.

The good news? I'm two for two so far. Only 29 to go.

188: A Tale Of Theatrics

2009-04-27T21:07:00.006-05:00

There's a long-ish story behind this fellow; and, to be entirely honest, his story began well in advance of this week's Illustration Friday theme of theater. But along the way he struck and overcame obstacles, had a near-death experience and then, earned a shot at redemption. What started as an honest attempt at drawing something – anything, really – without using my fine-nib Pigma Microns, was shunted to the wayside following a misguided stab at adding charcoal to the mix of übersoft pencil shading.

I wrecked it. I was mad. I almost tossed it in a theatrical fit of frustration.

Instead I let the drawing sit for days before eventually deciding to scan it anyways and use it for an attempt at some loose-and-dirty Photoshop colouring. Truthfully I didn't know where it was going to go. I tinkered with various ideas before Illustration Friday came along with its curious theme and I set to work honing this final piece. All told, from start to finish, it simmered for almost three weeks. The final illustration is concocted from a few different soft-lead pencils, charcoal, Photoshop colour layers and washes, an overlay of wood grain and a few other miscellaneous photographic offerings. You can garner a more detailed look right here, in my Flickr stream.

Cross-Country Checkup

2009-04-26T18:51:00.007-05:00

Participants of the 2009 GDC Annual General Meeting (photo courtesy of Adrian)

I spent the larger part of this weekend – plus Friday, plus Thursday evening – partaking in the annual rite of spring that is the (deep breath) Annual General Meeting of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC). I lost out on the 2008 event in Saskatoon, but with the hometown setting there was no missing it this time around. The event took place at the historic – and notoriously haunted – Hotel Fort Garry; no ghosts were on hand at the proceedings however, just some 40-or-so attendees (give or take) and some 39-or-so MacBooks (I was the holdout, it often seemed, opting for a pen-and-Moleskine tandem). I represented as the host chapter's communications chair, a role I've been filling since 2007.

From a personal standpoint, this was a learning experience for me. My work has paid GDC membership dues for years, and only since I joined the local chapter executive did I begin to reconnect with the ~~industry~~ profession I'd chosen, following years practicing in the Manitoba hinterlands (sorta). So the AGM was the next step in branching out, meeting reps from other regional and provincial chapters, the national team, and all the big heads that make this volunteer organization run. Should I be so fortunate to again attend a national AGM – perhaps next year, on the road someplace – I'll have this weekend tucked in my pocket and a stronger taste for bigger-picture thinking and doing.

I wanted to add, one could not meet a nicer, smarter, keener and more dedicated crew of designers and related sympathizers. Even though I was an AGM rookie – on my home soil no less – I was feeling comfortable and included within minutes. Each person in attendance was there on their own clock, away from the comforts of home and the demands of their businesses to partake in the bettering of our profession and its direction in this country. Good on yeh, GDC.

Click here for visual evidence of all the goings-down.

187: The Owling, Part VII

2009-04-13T20:30:00.002-05:00

Top row (left to right): Jenn, the rookie; Jason, the captain; Kerry, by evening light. Middle row (left to right): Kerry stands tall at the Pinawa Dam; Tulabi Falls (and Lake, still frozen). Bottom row (left to right): Kerry's last photo for the day, I swear; me, chaneling my inner Luke Perry.

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April means it's time for my first real getaway opportunity of the year: the annual spring nocturnal owl survey that my friends and I have taken part in for the past seven years. Our route in Nopiming Provincial Park is not remote by any stretch of the imagination – about two hours north of town – but at this time of year (and day) we may as well be the only people in the region for miles and eerily quiet miles. This year was no exception.

This spring has been more disagreeable than most, and I half-expected to be very much encased in winter as the changing of the seasons out there typically lags behind the city by a few weeks. But we caught a rare (so far) glorious early spring Saturday and made a bit more of a day out of it than normal, arriving on the scene early in the afternoon to check out some nearby scenic haunts; the old Pinawa Dam and Nopiming Park's Tulabi Falls, a locale I hadn't been to since the mid-90s. Both places were in fine form, a curious mix of snow, ice, muck and torrential meltwater.

Not surprisingly, our survey route itself – a lumpy logging road – was snowed in; we came to realize this fact about a mile or so in. This resulted in the same mile being driven in reverse on a pair of snowy tracks in the dark at walking speed. Getting stuck would mean a night in the car and who knows how many more hours contacting another person or vehicle. Back on dry land though, on our back-up route – despite the late spring conditions – we did hear four owls, alongside some grouse, geese and mysterious chewing noises coming from the dark.

186: I Doodled

2009-04-05T11:34:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago or so, my Alabamanian friend Mary devised a simple enough scheme to exchange small pieces of art through a small doodle swap. Twenty or so folks joined in, and were divided into a pair of groups who exchanged addresses and were given a send-out deadline in mid-April. And nice for me, since in a few weeks these things will begin randomly dropping in my mailbox – if all goes according to plan – on ten separate occasions.

Some folks, I believe, are theming their cards; me, I went straight to the heart of doodling and created ten individual scribbles with little or no link to one another. Some were über-quick, some I spent more than a handful of minutes on. A couple I even tore up and started over (going against everything the doodle stands for). I used a scrap of brilliant orange posterboard, littered with X-acto scratches from its previous life as a cutting surface for old Howiezines. I used two pens – one ultra-thin and a thick calligraphic nib – and a brown-ink brush pen, with bits of pencil, white watercolour paint and blue ball-point thrown in for good measure. I rubber-banded the lot and let them bang around in my backpack a week or so to erode them a touch. And as a bonus, on the backs of the cards I pasted equally-random photographs.

Shown above are four of the total ten. I'm not divulging who they were sent to, nor for the moment offering a closer look until the swap is complete – keep pants on.

185: Pepper!

2009-03-30T20:12:00.005-05:00

Last week's grouchiness melted immediately at the sight of Pepper, on display at a local birdfeed and supply store as part of a fundraiser for a local owl-related charity.

On a hot tip from friend Steph, Kerry, my dad and I headed to see some hot live owls, originally slated to include a long-eared owl and a burrowing owl, which I was very excited to see up close (rare as they are). Instead of the burrowing owl though, there was Pepper – a one-year-old northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus).

I have never seen a saw-whet owl – common enough as they are here in the wild – though I've heard plenty during my annual volunteer stint as part of a local springtime nocturnal owl survey. But they happen to be my favourite bird. In the whole. Wide. World. As such, Pepper merely had to bat his big Bat-Boy eyes and everything seemed suddenly alright again.

No disrespect to Nemo (above, top left and bottom right), a long-eared owl also in attendance – you were OK, too. But please view some close-ups of Pepper here, and here.