Man. Art Club is kicking my butt into Organization Land. The prep and cleaning on top of family life and the other projects and photos I have is insane but seeing the piles of work that are being created and the great feedback I am getting from both the kids and parents once the madness dissipates has been worth all the effort. Not to mention, my house has been cleaner than ever! Serious bonus points there!

Day 2. We focused on LINE with inspiration drawn from the book ISH! The goal was to break away from creating "perfect" or "correct" renditions of a drawing, but to focus on the "feeling" or the "essence" of the object being drawn. We focused on mark-making: soft vs hard, short vs long, large vs small movements, and round vs jagged lines. We started off with charcoal, closing our eyes and letting our hands "dance" to the beat and swells of a variety of music. I pulled songs from one of my favourite albums, The Royal Tenenbaums, starting of with the slow gentle rhythm of"These Days" by Nico, switching it up to "Jackie is a Punk" by The Ramones, and then taking it down just a little with the playful "Police and Thieves" by The Clash. They loved it, of course. We assessed our drawings and they requested one last song. The girls pleaded for Let It Go and the boys groaned in ___. Luckily, someone piped up with Rock'n'Roll and they all cheered for that. So "I Love Rock'n'Roll" it was... CLICK HERE for the Instagram Video of them in action!

We did a bunch more projects with pastels to integrate what we learned about colour the previous day. The projects required me to be 100% hands on (especially getting these hands decent!) and was unable to document beyond this small bunch of photos!

Stay Tuned for Wednesday's MONSTER COLLAB day...

I've been juggling a variety of projects the last few weeks, including a commissioned illustration for my friend Saara. They will be moving into a new home a few months from now and she wanted to have a family portrait to frame and hang in their entry way. Long before photography and long before children, I had thought to dabble in illustration and had a collection of prints that I would sell at Craft Shows, a few which she had purchased and inspired her idea to have a family portrait done in the same style. My illustration process includes piles of sketches that I often have to trace and retrace and retrace, so a light table is really a godsend. Kevin made me a light table a hundred million years ago which neither of us have any idea on its whereabouts, so he put a quick one together for me the other day.

Clean, lightweight, and portable with a long long cord and a fantastically sleek LED bulb in place of a regular incandescent bulb which would always heat, melt and warp the plastic over time. Out of pocket, it cost $7 (Home Depot) for the bulb with everything else being scraps we had laying around the mudroom. If I wanted to, I would "request" to have these painted in bubblegum pink… or black… or white. And that gold ring (fixture loop) that the cord runs through I would change that to a flat black or something and obvs that brown cord would have to go… but this was for HURRY UP I NEED TO GET THIS JOB DONE! so i'm all smiles.

Here is a Before and After or rather a With and Without the light table. I mean, really, I could make out the image enough to trace it but this speeds up the process so much more. I actually have used my iMac screen as a light table a handful of times, but it's absolutely awkward and uncomfortable.

And another example...

Hoping to have this illustration complete by mid-week… fingers crossed!

ART CLUB | Day 2: ISH Lines

DIY Light Table