Toronto illustrations!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!  I am a little bit late, but I would like to share some of my recent Christmas illustrations.  I made these illustrations for Christmas cards to sell and they were successful!  Toronto is so diverse, so that I decided to depict some Toronto neighbourhoods, typical buildings, and Canadian icons.

Here is a little tour of the Toronto features which I utilized: 

Queen Street West is one of the most popular neighbourhoods of Toronto. You can find here coffee shops, restaurants and bars, trendy stores, art galleries, and design, furniture, and antique stores.  Many textile, knitting and bead stores are also located between Bathurst and Spadina Avenues – I love to shop at them sometimes.  Also, my favourite pizzeria, North of Brooklyn, is located at Queen and Palmerston!  

The concentration of art galleries is the result of the artists who worked and lived illegally (due to potential fire hazards) in the industrial buildings on Queen Street in the middle of 20^th century.  Their creative spirits still remain in the neighbourhood!

You can take a streetcar along Queen Street, and pop into all of these cute places. The old red streetcars of Toronto will be replaced by more comfortable newer ones very soon. I will miss the old red streetcars – they hold a lot of history and character. 

The CN Tower can be seen from almost everywhere in Toronto. Built in 1976, the CN Tower remained the tallest building in the world until 2010 (553.33 m)!  I have a special relationship with the CN Tower because I worked there (right at the top) for a half of a year and I enjoyed the view almost everyday.

The many Victorian houses in downtown Toronto were built around the turn of the 20^th century. The semi-detached ones tend to be pretty vertical, narrow, and built of red brick.  Many of them are now rental apartments, and many are still in pretty good shape. 

I would love to own one of these cottage houses some day!  I placed a couple Muskoka chairs in the front.

You can also find a Robin (a red bird), a deer, and a squirrel  in this illustration.  These guys are shared inhabitants of our neighbourhoods and suburbs. Maybe next time, our best ‘friend’ raccoon will appear too! I am really hooked with the idea to make illustrations of other Toronto neighbourhoods, such as The Annex, Kensington Market and Distillery District, so stay tuned for that!

Crustaceans

June is already here! Summer is coming! Though summer in Canada is not very hot, this is my favourite season of the year! 

Last week, I submitted designs of two plates for Home Décor Market for Lilla Rogers Bootcamp. The assignment for May was ‘Marine Mashup’ using crustaceans and some elements of patterns. I made a lobster and a crab using geometric forms – that was really fun! There are a lot of great designs on the class gallery right HERE, which I can look over and over!

Thank you to Kat, who featured me on her wonderful creative blog. You can find her post about her favourite designs right HERE. I love all of these designs too!

June is the last month for our Bootcamp. It is a shame that there is no Summer Bootcamp – I would join it!

Tea party

It is already March and I am just now posting about the February Big Assignment with Lilla Rogers Bootcamp - it has been a busy time! Here are some details:

Assignment: The February Big assignment was a project for the wall art market. For the Mini assignment we had to sketch some plate scenes (yep, the pictures which are painted on plates - which are often vintage or for kids). The final product was supposed to be something different from a plate – a surprise! I didn’t follow the briefing as well as I should have – I skipped the mini (no plates!) and started directly with the big assignment. The task was to paint on a real piece of wood and that piece was supposed to be round – so, a round composition was the task. 

Theme: I have chosen a tea party episode from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I sketched a bunch of rabbits last year for a different project but I didn’t use the sketches. I loved the sketch below, so I decided to draw a bunny in this style.    

Inspiration: I love dishes (not to wash the dishes though). I like to collect, admire, and photograph cups, mugs, teapots and plates! I looked though a bunch of magazines to get some inspiration and to capture the colors and shapes. I liked the teapots from CB2 catalog and I sketched them.

Technique: I used watercolors, white gesso, and a square piece of wooden panel. I didn't find a round piece of wood in the local art supplies stores and decided just to round my composition on a square format. I like to sand and make scratches between the layers - it makes the texture so rich and smooth at the same time. Also, I used some paper cuts off for letters and numbers - it is almost a collage. It was a very nice experience to paint traditionally and to try some new materials.

March is a break - there is no assignment. I am looking forward to the April Big Assignment and for good weather!

My manifesto

Last week, I submitted my work for a competition held my Lilla Rogers Studio. The design goal was a visual manifesto of artistic intentions and views. My original idea was to animate some common inanimate but related to art objects, but only one brush was born as a character. It was a lot of fun to develop the lettering, especially of the quote. I will keep my fingers crossed!

Assignment Bootcamp {The January Mini}

First of all, I would like to wish a happy, healthy, safe, productive, and creative year to everyone! 2015 started for me with the ‘Assignment Bootcamp’, with Lilla Rogers Studio. This is my first online course ever. Last year I participated in the Global Talent Search competition held by Lilla Rogers Studio and I really enjoyed the experience. HERE is my post about GTS 2014. Right now I am very excited about ‘Assignment Bootcamp’! During the next six months, we will receive regular assignments, and we will create some great art work, designs, and illustrations for different products. The first Monday of every month starts with a Mini assignment, and on the second Monday, we will receive a bigger assignment to be completed before the end of the month. And the first week is almost over... Now here are some thoughts about my experience.

Mini Assignment. The theme for this week was very unexpected for me – to draw Edwardian Brooches. As it turned out, it is a very challenging task. First, I researched the brooches, including their shapes, lines, and gems. They are gorgeous, detailed, and rich. I tried to sketch them... but honestly, in fact... I DON’T LIKE Edwardian Brooches. I don’t think this is my thing, my style, or any kind of inspiration for me. This is an awful truth.

Finding inspiration. Eh, finally, I decided to concentrate on brooches based on insects and animals. Also, I like DIAMONDS like many girls do)). I reviewed some geometry this week and really enjoyed building different shapes of diamonds. A major inspiration for me was the community of bootcampers! There are around 400 students from all over the world participating in this course. The co-campers are so enthusiastic, creative, and open to experimentation, that looking at their work and posts brought me more inspiration then the gorgeous brooches themselves. I think, the community is the biggest advantage of the online courses.

Sketches. Probably, the real purpose of the first task is not what I am doing. It is so hard for me just to make sketches of the brooches, especially when the final product is unknown. Lilla keeps the name of the product in secret until Monday. I practiced with the diamonds’ shapes and then I created a couple of characters. That was fun. I am thinking to make more characters with varying levels of detail. Also, I worked a bit with watercolors, to test some textures for the future diamonds and shapes. I am very curious how the project will change when the final product will be announced. I am looking forward to Monday (a favourite day of the week, right?).    

P.S. Here there are a couple of images of Edwardian Brooches, if you are not familiar with them.