I have a show with my as-of-yet-still-nameless illustration collective clique thing, at the Steamwhistle Gallery in Toronto, in January.  That’s still a ways away but it’s meant to be awesome.

Also will be in another show at the Sleeping Giant Gallery in November, By The Pound, which has a hilarious meat-market theme and I think it going to have hilarious visceral visual appeal.

I’m shopping for a gallery for a show with myself and my two cohorts.  Are you someone who’s vaugely familiar with the Toronto gallery scene?  Can you suggest any SMALL galleries that accept illustration work?

A picture: This is the only painting I did while living in my Now Burnt Down apartment, with the exception of some layouts for blekkenhorst.ca I don’t think I’m going to be using.  I got really obsessed with the idea of drawing my tan – I used to be such a pasty-white-basement-dweller! – and it turned into this creature.

I hope you have had a nice summer.

we're not cheeeeeeeeeeap

My boyfriend and I share meals in restaurants and are exceptionally fashionable.  Sometimes this annoys waitresses.

i don't even remember what this was about

Oh, remember when I used to by cynical and self depreciating? Oh, the heady days! I am no longer ever, ever sad, I only love sunshine and therefore have no pity left for the human race. I ran out!

I don’t even know what I’m talking about. It’s very early in the morning.  I have zillions of backlogged drawings, some scanned, some not, none edited but these precious 2, some you’ve seen before but not since they’ve been GLORIOUSLY MODIFIED BY GRATUITOUS WATER DAMAGE, and I am excited to show those off. This painting was co-authored by The Wrath of God!

Practicing with new mechanical pencils on the subway to Body Worlds.  The first time I attended the exhibit I only brought one “colour” and couldn’t make heads nor tails of the drawings later.  That exhibit is so beautiful it feels holy to me.

The ladies upstairs there are a throwback to the picture below, which I drew about five years about. The reason I put off posting this bunch for almost a month is because I could not find the original pig lady picture! And for some reason thought it was really important to include.

Every time I showed this picture to someone back in the day I got “But wouldn’t boys really like her, because she has so many tits?” I didn’t think they would, I was under the impression most stable humans avoid the freakish on principal, even if that freakish might work to their advantage.  Perhaps I was wrong? Despite her whining, I think her sense of style indicates a certain amount of confidence in her appearance.  What, with the no shirt and all.

I drew this while my boyfriend was in India, being all culturally sensitive and calling me up to tell me about all the things he was learning.  I decided I should really take advantage of my time in Canada to luxuriate in my freedom to be culturally INsensitive. I remember learning about Orientalism in college and being totally embarrassed to get that far through my life and not figure out for myself that all those beautiful colonialist paintings of harem girls and boys with snakes were well, wildly inaccurate.  They looked like such a dreamy land!  Also I’d recently had my first experience with shisha, and so every picture I drew for about two weeks had a hooka in it somewhere. Then I just had to cram in a bunch of other stuff I love. (With less guilt, unless it turns out that there are aliens and when they show up they get upset about the objectified stereotype they’ve been getting from my favourite science fiction tv shows.)

Oh, you could have kept it on your sleeve and we could just make fun of you as we would your average everyday bleeding heart. But under these circumstances, mostly you’re just an Ineffectual Slut. (Also hip this season!)

The type says:

“My brain is backed up to the point
of these things getting caught in my throat,
these things I cannot swallow or spit out
& I’ve forgotton how to talk about.

I have lost every language I’ve ever learned.”

Now you can have something more recent (I’ve got a backlog of sketches now…) as a palette cleanser, since it’s not all weepy and uncomfortable.

Yes, I know, Hah hah!  Your groaning only gives me power.  You can take that however you like.

I was practicing drawing myself in preparation for hourly comic day.  These turned out pretty good & very quick, but my hourly comic did not, in my humble opinion.  Oh, well.

I am so bad about updating this thing, lately! I appear to have lost whatever it was in me that shackles me to the computer. Oh, oh, I’ll get back into it because I am going to ANIMATE again. Awesome! More under the cut, beware of NUDITY & ANGSTY. (Right, because this is a new direction for my work. Ah.)

I was briefly considering being in this dirty sex show, You Know What Love Is, but it didn’t work out for various reasons.  These were drawn with the show in mind, I guess.  I think I’m going to collect a friend and have a sex show of my own.  Because drawing dirty pictures is the awesomest perk of drawing in general.

Check out Trevors stuff form the show because I think it is AMAZING and I am in love with it. Also comment there and tell him to add descriptions of his pieces, because the disturbing origin stories of these pieces really drive them into your brain.  There were a lot of other really great people and peices in the show, but none I’ve seen uploaded on the internet.  If you’re in Toronto the next week, please go check the show out at the Sleeping Giant Gallery, 789 Dundas St West Toronto.

That first image of the ugly woman was a result of me sitting around with my roommates whining about “Oh what am i supposed to draw when i suck too much to draw anything ever, boo hoo poor me” and they suggested I try drawing one of the zombies from my Nemesis, Left 4 Dead.  God I hate that game, but drawing this Spitter was fun so I guess I can forgive it for existing for a little bit. Apparently this is actuate in spirit although not in detail.

Hourly Comic Day!

You can see my previous  years here. This year is my 5th year!

(The only one that’s anywhere near good or even legible is 2008.  Maybe it’s because that’s the only year I’ve had the day off, and didn’t end up trying to illustrate myself at work?)

Anyway, more after the cut!

To answer your question: the guy with the imaginary truck took our $15 and we never got any beer. Oh well.

But, now, you kids who don’t live in Toronto or just didn’t make it, can see my pieces for the show!

I hope that was worth the wait.

Me and some cool kids all picked different types of villains to illustrate. Mine art villains from early 90’s and late 80’s point and click adventure games. Even MYST. Jesus Christ I love Myst. I have been waiting my whole life.

the poster is by Laura Harte. I should have put this up like 2 weeks ago. I’ll post photos from the show next week!

This is sort of off topic, but I looked up the wiki page to check the spelling of “venn”, which is just a disability I need to work around. If you check it out and scroll down, there’s some really beautiful diagrams down there. I dream of the day when my brain is smart enough to need to illustrate concepts that would require the use of this:

Just thought I would share.  Also thought I’d mention that I went through a “flow charts as poetry” phase you all missed. Only one was any good but it was a bit of a downer, so it didn’t seem socially or morally responsible to share and spread the infection. You know me: I am all about the sunshine and the butterflies.

And after the cut: Some houses I would like to live in. Now in addition to an architect I’ll need and engineer AND a botanist.  As if life weren’t  expensive enough already, what with me dropping a hundred bucks on underwear every time I loose weight. Do you understand how many safety pins I’ve murdered, pulling off skirts I’ve pinned shut and forgetting about how my sheer strength will mangle their little bodies? If only I could build myself a house out of safety pin corpses and shredded fabric, I would be set in this life.

feeling:  weird

This post is very quantity > quality, so I have stacked the remaining two deep for your viewing pleasure.

Type type type.  As soon as you write down any phrase with any amount of dignity it becomes a form of prayer! I can say that because I am a pretentious artist type/flake, do not even try to judge me.  It only makes me stronger. . The one on the bottom is from a matt good song i hear about three hundred times a day. The one on the top left is something you can print off and carry around with you in your pocket for protection. In any situation, if it whipped out with enough venom, it will cut down all opponents, even if they won’t admit it.  I don’t suggest walleting the first one, because a talisman phrased so pathetically can only bring you more bad luck and strife.
These are both self portraits! It doesn’t matter if my drawings are of myself or of anyone else, they’re all supposed to be applied universally like an over-the-counter ointment.  I only point out that they are both me to illustrate what i look like at work verses what i look like at out-about-town. (maybe someday i will draw myself at home, which is another sloppy nightmare in an of itself!) I love that a uniform can make you a different person.
	2
I don’t have anything to say about these last three, and I am unsure exactly what help they may be on a trek across dangerous landscape, but they are small and don’t take up much space in a knapsack. Even if you don’t encounter trees, worms, and oceans on your pilgrimage, they can still be used for kindling in an emergency.

feeling:  accomplished