Digital Galleries

Today, I posted some of my work on Behance, an online applied arts gallery. Follow the link to view and click on "appreciate" to show your support here.

Click to view on Behance.

Cafe Sketches

Montreal is great for having a variety of choices when it comes to cafe environments. Still, it can be difficult sometimes to find a good atmosphere that will allow some time and space to sketch or draw. Although sketching or drawing can be done in most places, I'm always on the search for a place that is in tune as a creative space. Besides that, this place has tons of character on its own and it made for a great (humid) afternoon sketching (before the eventual downpour).

a wooden table and floral wallpaper to set the mood

a figure emerges from the white space as I am immersed in coffee.

ink pens and a sketch in progress

Desolate Sign

rain falls amidst a desolate sign standing beside the highway in the Montreal / Laval industrial park

I guess it was the sad day following the death of our cat, Jaja, after she jumped from the balcony of our apartment (suicide?). It was so unexpected and definitely shocking. Although she was a cat, the impression dawned on me just as horrificly: as I didn't see her as I neared the balcony ( thinking she hopped down from the tree or safely some other way - worrying how I would retrieve her ) only to find, peering over the final side-railing, to discover a lifeless body sprawled on the pavement. That familiar form, the familiar colours, that had somehow gone all wrong through its familiarity. A dead body is something you never equate to someone or something. At least I hadn't. Even though she was a cat, the tragedy still clings to me. Rest in peace, Jaja.

Sketchbook Entry

áthas / joy (king) sketch

skeleton / flowers, pencil sketch.

With the coming of Spring from the gray frozen winter, my inspirational aspiration this season is joy.

Website Crash

Well, it happened - and soon. The story goes that I was having a nice cafe session with my laptop, editing and uploading a small update to the website (an attempt to edit the scrollbars for Windows browsers - something I've neglected). It must have been the cafe's particular internet connection that uploaded ( "successfully" ) the pages with the updates as empty files. Instead of uploading the files with changes, it uploaded only the files without any of the data. Anyhow, I had only given this update to the most important pages, therefore realizing a day later that I had just wiped my website from the face of the Internet. Bravo.
Luckily, I'm not so bad at backing up my work. Although the amount of changes I had made recently was enough to have needed to spend another week re-working my last backups, sometimes just re-creating some pages that were in development anyway. Lesson : back up the files after EVERY session. It's not a waste of time. But I don't have to mention that. I'm sure most people know this story.
More specifically, I had really wanted to dig out some old sketch concepts to work on that I had started the year before, which turned instead into more coding sessions ( which can become addicting for me ).

former homepage, click to see the update

Sketch Journal

architecturish sketching - ink on paper

Character & Feather Study

Ethauet - ink on paper

feather study - ink on paper

Eskene III

Eskene III - ink on paper

Eskene III - ink on paper

Mi'kmaq Girl

Mi'kmaq Girl (portrait) - ink and pencil on paper

Photo Inspiration

snow outside my living-window (Montreal)

Duluth Avenue, Montreal

Mountain Pass

Mountain Pass - ink on paper

Laundry Day means different things to some...

Laundry Day means different things to some... ink, pencil & marker on paper

The Guardian Sketch

The Guardian, sketch, The Sylvan Song

Work resumes for a while on The Sylvan Song project, by Sean Picard as I make some adjustments to one of the illustrations.

Vernissage Poster Printed

my desk, Dawson College, Montreal, QC.

One of the final poster projects, printed and mounted. Even my desk-mannequin is dancing for joy (never mind the fumes from the glue).

Cafe Sketching

Nina a la lune . ink on paper with digital media

Another get-away to a Montreal cafe with my sketchbook, pencils and pens (and a Starbucks Christmas coffee cup).

Children's Hospital Illustrations

Today, I got to see my illustrations printed large for the Children's Hospital presentation on their phonetics book, on 8.5 x 11 card stock. I think that it came out well, considering the current workload. I've been able to collect many of the files of the other contributors as well, which has been even more interesting. I think that knowing the other concepts has made seeing their various outcomes insightful as most people portrayed their views nicely.

Nina a la lune . ink on paper with digital media

This illustration is for the sound /n/ ( 'Nina a la lune - French for 'Nina Has The Moon' ), which shows a young girl reaching for the moon, which is seen as a reflection in the glass (as well as her eyes... which was a mistake...). I attempted to use colours that were vibrant yet dark and calming. 

L'agneau aime l'onion . ink on paper with digital media

This picture was fun to draw. This illustration is for the sound /ng/ ('L'agneau aime l'onion' translates from French to 'The lamb likes the Onion' ). I attempted to incorporate onion skins to make the typography in the drawing without using any techniques of measurement, which is something I'll need to incorporate into my freehand drawing-style... I'm happy with the way that the colours came out and they appeared more or less the same on the cardstock, which was pleasant.

The heaviest part of the project finished, I can't wait until the other submissions appear from the white-space...

Nina

Nina a la lune. pencil sketch

Nina reaches up from the page as I take the photo : I'm nearly finished my work for the Children's Hospital illustration, "Nina a la lune" ( Nina has the moon ). The next step is into a digital dimension...

Back to the Drawing Table

...various projects on my drawing table

The cold creates clutter, when's Spring cleaning again? It's fortunate I prefer small-scale formats for my illustrations. Basking in the warmth of my desk lamp.

Drawing the Moon

moon pencil drawing/sketch

Continuing work on the Children's Hospital Illustration, for the piece, "Nina a la lune" (Nina Has the Moon), phonetics book illustration. Today, I got away to a cafe to sketch out the moon element that I plan to transpose over the figure of "Nina" digitally. Let's see how it goes...

The Well

The Well. Ink on paper by Jeremiah LeBlanc. 2009.