Current Projects

This past Christmas I challenged myself to make all my presents. I started mid-October, and finished the last one Christmas Eve. I've been learning how to knit, and I found a couple gift-able patterns at my skill level. I also made a couple paintings. My plans are to start much earlier this year, and to always have projects I can work on. Below is a portrait painted onto a wooden button, then turned into a Christmas ornament.

I've set a few project goals for myself this year:

1. I want to learn how to cable-knit and knit multi-color. (Ravelry.com has tons of free patterns)

2. I'd like to learn how to program (because a long-term goal of mine is to make a video-game). I'm taking programming lessons from Codeacademy.com

3. Social projects. Friends and I are making the commitment to get together at least once a month to try new crafts/art techniques. So far we've made mounted deer head sculptures and shirt stencils.

4. Photo-a-Day: I'm taking part in a website where the group of us have challenged ourselves to post one photo a day for a year. I've been enjoying this so far this year.http://photoseachday.tumblr.com/

Maps

Maps on the wall in my craft room.

I love maps. To me, they imply adventure, travel, story, history, exploring. Old maps, tourist maps, subway maps...The combination of text, symbol, shape and color create a rich texture that I'm drawn to. I have a big London map on a wall in my house - saved from destruction when the school was tossing out old pull-down teaching maps (pre-projector age). I've got a thermos with a leather map that I use daily at school. I have a metal world necklace I bought when I was at a Guiding camp many years ago.

Wallpaper Map from Vladstudio.com. I'll use this map and others this artist has created throughout the school year. I keep coming back to this on though.

Look at the detail on this Typographic map from Axis Maps; The detail is stunning!

Urban Maps project; embroidered maps onto carpets in Beijing

 Hand-Drawn map of favorite places from The Fox Is Black.

When I was a Teenager

My interests have changed over the years. When I was a teen I loved realistic paintings - Robert Bateman, the animal painter was my favourite. Early on I realized an artists can be activists. I subscribed to Wildlife Arts magazine, and took evening watercolor classes.

Looking back, I think I liked realism because it was impressive; I could amaze my peers and teachers. I had a couple drawing books on how to draw animals and I got good at drawing particular poses. I resisted loosening up my work well into university. 

I remember having an art teacher tell me that in order to draw caricatures of reality, you have to first be able to draw realistically. I may have believed this a little too much, and never thought I was good enough or ready to try simplifying my work. Thankfully, I think I'm over this mind block. While I still like Robert Bateman's work, and I am impressed with his environmentalism efforts, I don't feel the need to try and paint like him anymore.

Featured artist: Kirsten Ulve

I stumbled across Kirsten's website about 10 years ago. It's one of the first sites I show students who need ideas for projects. I love how deceptively simple her work is. At first glance, I find her work familiar. It reminds me of children's books I grew up with. But look closer, and there's so much detail!

I like using her illustrations as examples in class because students can see the simple shapes that make up the complex design.

Welcome 2012!

New year, new semester, new classes. I'll be teaching a Graphic Design 12 class for the first time this semester, and I'm very excited. I'm looking forward to having a couple grade 12 classes. This is the time when they realize they're almost finished school and start planning for "real life". I love these discussions and seeing them mature.

This blog is to be an example for my Graphic Desing 12 students. I want them to discover other artists work, record their progress and create an online portfolio of their work. I want them to be able to identify styles, celebrate their successes and learn from mistakes.

I'd like my students to write at least once a week. The end result would be a website that showcases a students artistic interests, inspirations, ideas and creativity. Id like there to be links to their favorite artists, project ideas and tutorials they'd like to tackle on their own one day. Their blog becomes a self-exploration & future planning project.

I'm hoping that the blogs my students create will not become a chore for them. I would love to see their blogging become a habit they continue into their post-secondary, "real lives".