Watch the Teak…

One of the perks of living in Victoria is that it’s really easy to fill your home with mid-century modern furniture (used of course). If you’re not familiar with the style, think Don Draper’s new condo… The stuff’s everywhere out here. Beautiful design, great quality and cheap. Unlike most furniture on the market today, if properly cared for it lasts for many many years. If properly cared for…

I designed these handy little signs for a friend who has lots of teak and lots of cocktail parties. Anyone who owns anything made out of this wood will know what I’m talking about. Having to throw coasters at your dinner guests to save them putting a—gasp—hot plate or drippy glass down directly on your precious wood gets tedious. I don’t know how Don does it. Cheers from the Victoria Teak Preservation Society.

It’s Super 8 time.

I haven’t made a Super 8 film in about five years (woah), and the reason these two lovely ladies are on my desk is that I’ll be using them for a new short animation project I’m about to start work on very soon.

Digging them out got me all excited. I used to be a regular participant in the Montreal Super 8 Film Festival, where I made this film amongst others. Super 8 film cartridges are three minutes long and festival rules meant all editing was done in-camera, ie. figure out your shit, shoot it and screen it no matter what. Once I got in a bike accident while shooting but that’s another story…

For this project I’ll be filming backgrounds for my animation. I look forward to the touch of “real film” aesthetic it will give my piece. Speaking of which, is it ironic to take a photo of Super 8 cameras with a cell phone set on fake “old” photo mode? If so it wasn’t intentional, but appreciated in hindsight.

Bird Count 2011

We were having a little party last month and my brother gave my friend’s sons the crazy idea of counting all the birds in our place. It took them a looooong time, and I thought I should post their OFFICIAL results:

In case you can’t count, that’s 75! And I even think they missed some.

Qualifying bird imagery included but was not limited to:

a drumskin…

a tray…

a penguin…

that eagle again…

and images from my animation…

Great job guys. Now, who can top it?!? Bird count 2012 is ON.

Pickle Pride

First time making pickles + they are from cukes that I grew in my own garden. Very proud mother over here. The chalkboard in our kitchen appears to agree…

Work for the wall

One of the fun things about moving into a new place is decorating, and we’ve been busy since we arrived in Victoria making our living and working space look nice. We’ve got this huge wall that I needed to fill before having people over on the weekend, so I gave myself a “free Friday” afternoon of drawing with the hopes that I’d come out of it with something suitable.

Here are the resulting images, a triptych that wasn’t at all planned except for the colour-scheme, which I wanted to make sure complimented the gorgeous Jack Shadbolt owl print on the right (found in my grandmother’s basement this winter). Now I’ve got to find something for the left-hand side of the wall…