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A quickie. This week Illustration Friday offers the theme word reflection, which will undoubtedly score a hit as the word's malleability is pretty inviting. As such, I took the word for a spin on its most basic route, that being the notion that art is a reflection of an artist's reality.I have not yet perused the stack of submissions to the site, but I foresee quite a few of images being reflected and transposed. The image above however, is based directly on a very real photograph I took while huffing along the Hunt Lake Hiking Trail with Kerry in Whiteshell Provincial Park. The trail, a favourite of Kerry and myself, takes seasoned hikers by several beautiful vistas and across the most rugged terrain Manitoba can offer (which isn't saying too much). We head there in the fall every year. We've been practically nose-to-beak with loons, eagles and grouse, seen brilliant displays of yellow-leaved aspens and bright red sumac bushes and once caught a rare glimpse of a river otter.The bottom half of the image was selected and run through a variety of Photoshop filters, curves, brushes and saturation adjustments. Posted below is the original photograph, taken early on a calm Saturday morning in the fall of 2003, during one of our hikes. Also posted (at bottom) is another, solely photographic take on the same idea, using an abstract shot of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, taken along the way to our spring fling at Mardi Gras.
Side note: I may well be the millionth designer to realize, but the word reflection almost reflects itself when rotated 180 degrees. That's the concept behind the word form here. Some kerning, employing a geometric font (Helvetica Neue 85 Black) – substituting the lowercase R with a custom-chopped lowercase N – and slicing the word along the center of the word's x-height was all it took.
August 18 is one of my favourite dates of the year. It marks the day in 1998 when Kerry and I officially became a couple. And I mean officially – I asked her out with a customized resumé, handed to her in my tumbledown bachelor apartment on Evanson Street. Seven years later we have a home together, and on this day I couldn't possibly be a happier person.
Happy seven years, Kerry. I love you very much.
– Jeope
Skim through this week's list of Illustration Friday submissions for the word wisdom and you're sure to find more than a fair share of owls – which also happen to be one of my most long-standing objects of interest. I've been fascinated by owls since I was eight years old, when I first saw an Inuit ookpik toy at Robinson's department store in Portage-la-Prairie while visiting my grandparents. An unhealthy chunk of my childhood imagination and play revolved around owls, and they were one of the first things I learned how to draw well. When I was 11, my mom had to console me when I saw a fatally injured great horned owl on the roadside in Whiteshell Provincial Park. Visits from snowy owls are one of my comforts working at a building surrounded by desolate, frozen marshland in winter. And the past four years I've volunteered for the annual spring Nocturnal Owl Survey in eastern Manitoba's boreal forest.So the word wisdom merely offers an excuse for me to drag out my obsession once more. But rather than attempt a sketch, I combined the subject matter with another interest of mine since college: typography. Working with the bare elements of typographic form was a fun exercise, inspired by graphic designer Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich's clever creation Bembo's Zoo: An Animal ABC Book. I opted for a similar feel, using the equally timeless serif family Caslon to pay homage by creating an owl using only the letters O, W and L. The illustration was built in the soon-to-be-defunct FreeHand.Click here for a larger view.
Addendum! Last year our friends Cheryl and Jeff were married (on Halloween, how cool is that?), and for a gift Kerry and I made them a poster (design by me, poem by Kerry). This image was scrapped as part of the final design, but this week's post reminded me that it never saw the light of day – and was my first attempt at trying this sort of thing. Cheryl was drawn using the Adobe multiple-master font Ex Ponto, while Jeff was done up in Bembo. A little stiff, and eventually ditched because it ended up being mostly made of brackets.
The word empty is a far-reaching term, elastic enough to cover just about any illustration concept on the planet. Which is healthy. Case in point, my drawing here. This was a discarded sketch from about a month ago when the posted Illustration Friday theme was nourishment. I was basing this piece on a premise of "nourishment for the brain", but then grew weary of it and drew a sandwich instead (click on the "Draw!" button and select nourishment to see).But it also represents this week's theme in its concept of empty-headedness. Thus, behold the couch potato, so buried in his inertness that his brain has split in search of alternative entertainment out the window. I picked up the half-finished pencil rendering from a month ago and completed it in pen. It was then scanned and opened into Photoshop for colouring. The angle and style of the sketch were inspired by comic strip artist Wiley Miller, the genius behind the daily one-panel series Non Sequitur – and a man who adores his perspective drawing.
Be sure to click here for a larger view of the illustration.
Summer equals festivals in Winnipeg. The second weekend in July always brings with it the Winnipeg Folk Festival, which I have been attending since 1993 in one form or another. This year's event coincided with the move into our new house, but priorities being what they are, we still managed a healthy dose of entertainment at the festival. This year marked the debut of new music programmer Chris Frayer, and he came through – in my opinion – with a much-improved lineup over 2004. Highlights for me ranged from the return of California-based blues wonderkid Jackie Greene, back-to-back afternoon concerts from Feist and Buddy Miller (with surprise guest and Sunday night headliner Emmylou Harris), an awesome Friday night show by the New Orleans group Bo Dollis & The Wild Magnolias and a tight Saturday night gospel set by The Campbell Brothers. The best performance of the four-day event came from the one-man-does-everything Aussie didgeridoo-guitar-DJ sensation Xavier Rudd, who delivered the most energetic show I've ever seen at the festival. A hit from last year's alternative evening stage, Rudd arrived this year with huge buzz – and brought along fellow countrymen The Beautiful Girls, who came through with a peppy surf/ska-tinged set on Saturday evening. A ton of fun, energy-sapping heat – and mud, as evident in the photo four posts ago.A week later marked the beginning of the 11-day Winnipeg Fringe Festival, which has become one of the largest alternative theater events in the world. Kerry and I squeezed in eight shows this year – a new record – ranging from good to incredible. This year we took the review-snob route and stuck to performances that garnered top marks (no shots in the dark for us!). We saw a couple of tried-and-true returnees: the latest creations from funnyman Chris Gibbs (Antoine Feval) and monologuist extraordinaire TJ Dawe (A Canadian Bartender At Butlin's), along with festival faves pornStar, The Comment Card, The Cloud Factory and The Pajama Men In 'Stop Not Going'. Also on our hit list were Under The Door and Felix Listens To The World, which Kerry has officially dubbed "the best show she’s ever seen" at the festival. I think I might have to agree. It's brilliant.Our Fringe experience was truncated because of another Winnipeg tradition: the Great American Shopping Trip. This past weekend was of the long variety for Canucks, and we hooked up with newly-wed newlywed friends Christian and Amara for a quick excursion to Minneapolis – a fine town we'd like to visit again. Top props imaginable to Christian for taking care of the big-city freeway driving! Plus, I got to touch a stingray!
I really wanted to get back to my weekly creations, but so much has been going on over the past month or so – festivals, moving, unpacking, weekend trips – that it's been tough. And to get back in the swing of things was harder than I thought it would be. Case in point, this week's Illustration Friday theme: the word aging. I've been chewing on it all week. Originally I wanted to draw pen-and-ink caricatures of the morning mall-walkers at my carpool pickup spot. I was gonna draw them during a recent long car trip to Minneapolis, but the ambition was never there, and when I finally sat down to try it I realized my memory of these folks was hazier than I thought. I then considered sketching a scene from our new "aging" house. Two tries; it wasn't happening. Finally, I noticed the photo of my niece on the fridge. She's totally aging.My niece – Cadence Wolfe Daya – lives in rural Nova Scotia with my dentist sister and her dentist partner. She was born last September. Kerry and I went to visit just before Halloween when she was about six weeks old. Cadence and I had a couple of beautiful photo shoots (see below). Since then, I've watched and listened to her grow through photos in the mail and phone calls. Most recently I received a shot of her sitting in the grass with a ball cap. She looks so different from the baby I met in the fall. And the next time I'll likely see them is next summer, when she'll be a walking, talking wonder-kid. Canada's an enormous place, and it's during times like this when the distance can hurt.This sketch was done over the last couple of days during moments of free time. It's small, honest and simple. I took a quick spin through Photoshop to clean up a few errors.
Right: Kerry's shot of me and Cadence, October 26, 2004. Below: snapshot of Cadence from my black-and-white photo shoot, October 28, 2004.
Check out the links column down the left side for the new listing of my archived Illustration Friday submissions (look for the "Draw!" button). Belated thanks go out to my good friend Allan Lorde for providing me the code to build the new addition. And to Atlanta animator/illustrator Ward Jenkins for providing it to him. And to the fine person who provided it to Mr. Jenkins. And to whomever actually did the work at the bottom of the chain. Hoo-ray for the "forward e-mail" function!
Sitting here, typing this entry in the attic of my new house, is a much sweeter experience than I ever could have imagined. It's almost sunset. Light is pouring in. The window is open, the street is quiet and I'm listening to Jack Johnson. Kerry and I have been here for 11 nights and ten days, in one form or another (more on that in a sec). It's very nice.
On July 7, our date of possession, the apartment was a mess. Boxes and packed items everywhere. While I was commuting home from work, Kerry and her friend carted over the futon mattress, some sheets, a clock and a roll of toilet paper. But by the time I was home, it was time to truck out for the first evening of the Winnipeg Folk Festival (priorities!) – an annual July rite for Kerry and myself. The house had to wait a few more hours.We made the decision to "camp out" in the house for the weekend because of our just-moved-in neighbours in the upstairs apartment (single mom plus five, count 'em, five kids). Moving Day was still four days away, but four days of the little terrors running around on top of us was a predicament we wanted no part of.
Camping was fun. During the first night, a thunderstorm roared through. A big, empty house suddenly seemed incredibly intimidating. And the Festival turned into a soup.On Friday July 8, Kerry and I began moving over everything our skinny arms could handle: boxes, suitcases, plug-in-ables, more boxes. That afternoon and evening it was back to the Festival. Repeat for Saturday and Sunday, which was followed by a second frightening storm. Winnipeg is in the midst of one of its all-time wettest summers, so the trickle of water in the unfinished basement that follows these storms has been more of a relief than a concern.The official move came and went quickly over the course of Monday morning. In the afternoon, I rebuilt the IKEA Ottenby bed frame, plopped the mattress down, put on sheets and pillows – and suddenly felt a whole lot better...
Until Tuesday, spending eight hours scrubbing down the empty apartment. I had just about every chemical known to man waft up my nose by the end of that torture. It sucked. But when I finished, and came home – home – to see our new appliances had all arrived and were in working order, the dizziness faded.Since then, it's been a process of settling in. Putting everything in its right place. Buying things we needed: lawnmower, dishwasher soap, bronze garden hippopotamus (Canadian Tire, $14.99). Hanging pictures. Filling the fridge. Doing laundry outside of our previously allotted times. Not scrounging for quarters to do said laundry. Parking the car in our own spot. Seeing how morning and evening light fills each room and thinking it's the most beautiful thing. It's very nice.
Two nights ago a third thunderstorm hit Winnipeg, the most vicious in years. Wind, drenching rain, ceaseless lightning, bed-shaking thunder. Kerry slept soundly, but I was awake the entire time, near terrified of a storm for the first time since I was a little kid. I was scared for the house, as tree limbs split and dropped. In the morning I gingerly inspected the basement. The same tiny trickle of water was there, finding the floor drain.
Photos (top to bottom): Kerry in the single-room attic, made into an office/book nook; our filthy feet and Animal Crackers, Winnipeg Folk Festival; Kerry's antique Sunshine tricycle, the last thing left at the apartment; main floor view, dining/living room looking west; living room viewed from the landing.
The HOWieZine arrived at work while I took a few days off to move into our new house. And figuring that just about every submitter to the zine has received their copy in the mail, I've decided to post my two pages for all to see. The theme of HOWieZine 3 was black and white. Foreseeing a booklet filled with greyscale solutions – accurately, as it turned out – I had decided to pump my submissions full of colour in hopes they'd stand out.
The first page Kerry and I came up with was just a goof-around (above), a game to play for the fortunate folk who get the book. I won't go into detail on account of spilling any beans on how to solve the dealie. It's basically a plain ol' matching game based on the zine's theme. The font, one of my current favourites, is Clarendon. 
Our second page (above) gave Kerry an opportunity to flex her poetic muscles, and me a chance to play around with what I love best: birds. This field-guide-inspired number, crafted in FreeHand from rough sketches, features a black-and-white warbler, broken down to two tones and kept super-simple with Helvetica. Here's Kerry's featured poem. It's very sweet. outside our window nimble warblers tiptoe between twigs, spinning their thin songs into threads fine enough to line their nests my lips creep along the branch of your arm, until i find the best spot to nestle into your chest and listen to the soft beat of wings, like a small bird trapped inside a house
