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Ahoy hoy! I’m a little late on the June art roundup but I was taking a deeply needed break after an absolutely bonkers June. Frankly, I’m going to try to spend July taking it as easy as I can afford to, because I’ve been teetering on the edge of actual health issues for a little while now and I think I need to.. not live like that for a month or two before going into the Christmas season guns blazing again.
After clocking a bunch of 10-14 hour days in a row for a little too long and making my toddler clingy with separation anxiety, I’ve stepped back and spent the last week gardening, playing video games, having ciders, doing some light manual labour with some yardwork/renos, and I think that is just what Man(TM) was meant to do. My random weird heartburn has entirely cleared up, I’ve been eating vegetables and cooking real food instead of surviving on frozen fried shit, I’m sleeping, and my creative well is slowly filling up again! Maybe I’ll get back to the gym this week too, just for good measure.
Okay. Art!
I can’t actually share everything I did this month because I’m just not allowed to yet, but here’s some of it!
I’m slowly trying to build a kidlit portfolio, to start submitting to publishers and get my foot in the door as a children’s book illustrator. Hopefully a writer someday too. I want to do it ALL, baby. I’m making headway.
(Also I would like an (literary) agent at some point. LOCAL WOMAN SEEKING REPRESENTATION. HI HELLO please negotiate contracts for me I don’t wanna deal with any of that stuff anymore on my own!)
I also have a ton of sketches and half-finished stuff in my procreate folder. I was just so tired I didn’t end up finishing much beyond stuff I was being paid for last month. But here’s an example of the type of work I really want to do at some point (it’s just Richard Scarry. My favourite kind of book as a kid: drawings of things with educational labels–what a fuckin’ nerd)
Okay finally here are the murals I did!! I retouched the paint splatter mural at the corner of Osborne and Stradbrook in Winnipeg, and also did a little one on the ramp leading up to some daycare doors. They really wanted to cut down on kids sprinting up and down the ramp (there are no stairs) and so we came up with a hopscotch idea!
It was VERY cute–I painted it late into the night after daycare wrapped up for the day and when I went back the next afternoon to take pictures, there was a little girl and her dad both hopping up and down for a good 10 minutes while I waited. It feels SO good to be part of someone’s joy. My body was sore and tired but who cares? It’s my favourite kind of art to make.
It also felt extra good because they hired me to do my first mural EVER, and it’s still up in the yard!!
Okay! PHEW. Once again. More to share than I realized–I thought I was gonna have to scrape the bottom of the barrel but I didn’t even share all of it. Yeehaw.
I have a big market coming up at the end of the month at The Forks on July 27, all day and into the night. If you’re in Winnipeg, I hope to see you there!!
ALSO! It’s my younger brother’s birthday today! Happy birthday Joe!
Bonus lore drop: Years ago when we were kids, I don’t know, like.. 12 and 8 maybe.. I took a recording of him laughing hysterically while I tickled him mercilessly, and then when I worked in radio, I managed to get a clip of it on the air as a happy birthday like 2-3 years in a row. I’m sure everybody sitting in the waiting room at the walk-in clinic or driving home from the grocery store appreciated randomly hearing a hysterical 8 year old laughing like a maniac for 15 seconds straight (the OG recording is like… a minute and a half LOL). Sadly I do not have it handy to share here. You’ll have to imagine it. It’s very funny. I was a terrible announcer. Great story! Okay bye!
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