Awesome Like A Possum

Did you miss me? I am sorry. It has been a long time. Let's get this started. I have lots to share.

First: We've been published! Thanks to Matter Deep Publishing, The Electric Keychain Collective has published their first children's book!

What's it about? This:   

"A well spoken alligator (drawn by me!) contemplates whether it would be more fun to be someone else. A pharaoh sparrow, or a steampunk skunk perhaps? Possums are awesome, moose are footloose, but as our alligator decides, it’s always better to be your magnificent self. Awesome like a Possum is drawn by the seven different artists that make up The Electric Keychain Collective."

Yes, ONE picture book, SEVEN different illustrators! With the initative, art direction and general awesomeness of Carly Strickland, and the elegant prose of Will Rankeillor, of course.

Did you want to see it? Check out the book's video, awesomely read by Carly, with fun background music:

SWEET, right? Treat yourself or the children in your family by picking up a copy on Amazon!

These are my illustrations: 

"If I could be someone other than me, who in the world would I choose to be?"

"But am I graceful and elegant, like a squirrel with curls?"

"It's fun to pretend all the things I could be, but I just want to be magnificent me!"

"See you later, Alligator!"

Did you notice the birds? Richard Scarry was one of my favourite illustrators when I was a little Tati, and if you pay close attention, you'll find semi-hidden cute little jokes in his drawings. That was my inspiration for the birds, which imitate the alligator at the beginning, and wear his costumes in the end.

Did the birds learn anything? I don't know, maybe that's just the way they are.

SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival 2012

Every year, SCAD hosts the Sidewalk Arts Festival in Forsyth Park. Every artist gets a square and a box of chalk. It is one of my favourite events at SCAD, since the whole community comes out to view the art. People come by your square and talk to you, comment on your art, share stories, etc. They also bring out all their cute dogs, and this year there was even a tortoise (it was huge)!

This is the square I drew, now in the alumni section:

I loved my toucan design. I'll certainly draw him again for a full-fledged illustration.

For the background I just went with freestyle whatever. Now I wish I had done something exclusively green and vibrant. I had an original plan for the background that I ended up scrapping because it was going to take too long and I wouldn't be done by judging time. I didn't win anyway, but I still really like my toucan.

Either way, I always intended to leave some of the sidewalk showing since I love the contrast of the dull gray of the sidewalk, which makes the chalk stand out.

The "Pura Vida Costa Rica" I added on a whim. We do have lots of beautiful tropical birds there, and who knows? Maybe some of the festival goers have visited CR too. So it was me saying: "I'm Costa Rican, come say hi."

Secadora Seahorse

This is for Electric Keychain's "Mustachioed Machina." We had to illustrate: "Objects turned into living things, with moustaches."

I love projects where I can grab unrelated objects and join them to form a cohesive shape.

At first this project seemed too easy. I could've drawn anything and just slapped a moustache on it. "Heeey! It's a computer! But it has a moustache! Ha-ha! ...."  But I didn't want to just stop there because that's too easy. So I went through a mental list of everyday objects that I see and/or use around the house, and of what else do they resemble. Eventually I figured that a hair dryer with a diffuser looks kind of like a seahorse's head, and then I just took it from there.

This was a nice goofy break from the seriousness of the last project.

Cigarette Butts

This piece is part of Just Cause at Electric Keychain. This time we chose to illustrate subjects that we feel strongly about, or that we feel need to be addressed.

There is an abundance of comments I could make about this topic, and the feelings that inspired me to draw this. But at the same time, I drew this to show you how I feel, not to tell you. So I won't.

Instead, I will recount how this piece came to be.

The Tyger by William Blake

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" 

-William Blake, 1794

Electric Keychain's last project of the year is a Calendar inspired by books. Every artist had a month to illustrate and mine was April, which is National Poetry month. I illustrated my favourite poem, William Blake's "The Tyger." Blake was also an artist, so this illustration is also a tribute to one of my favourite pieces of his, "The Ancient of Days."

I'm not an immortal hand or eye but I dared frame his fearful symmetry...in the clouds!

I love calendars and every year I have a couple decorating my wall. I'm picky with the April image since it's my birth month. Usually I look for something calm and spring-themed (rain is fine too as long as it's happy puddles rain and not dreary sadness clouds rain.) So a fierce "Tyger" in a tempestuous environment is really out of the norm for me in terms of what I'd like to see in an April image. Also figured this was a piece in which I absolutely could not lean towards my usual cutesy look.

I first read "The Tyger" in Tracy Chevalier's book "Burning Bright." She writes a lot of historical fiction aimed at the arts, which is right up my alley. I highly recommend her "Girl With a Pearl Earring."

I realized after I was done that I have been using a lot of blue-orange complementary colour schemes lately but it's been mostly coincidental. I just used colours I found worked and they happened to be blue and orange!

Today, I am featuring some lovely EK people since I was especially excited about this project. Everybody got to nerd around about books and literature and I loved seeing what everybody found close to heart from what they've read. Here's a few pieces I especially liked for particular reasons: 

Jennifer Ely's "Winter Is Coming"

©Jennifer Ely 2011

You are always in for a treat when it comes to Jenn's portraits. This summer I started reading George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice & Fire" series and was therefore really excited when I saw her initial sketch. She has HOW MANY characters in this piece? Eight! From the wolf silhouette, to the likenesses, to the sword, to the tree, she absolutely nailed this and I can't imagine how any Game of Thrones fan would NOT love this.

Find more of Jennifer's awesome portraits at jenniferely.com

Carly Strickland's Sherlock Holmes

©Carly Strickland 2011

This is definitely my favourite piece that Carly has ever made. There was so much care put into  picking all the details and arranging them in the image. All of these items serve to portray a more accurate portrait of Holmes than just his face would do, and that is why this piece works so well.

Find more of Carly's vectors at carlystricklandart.com

Francis Anderson's Cat's Cradle, Ice-ix

©Francis Anderson 2011

Francis's piece is so effective because you make a double take. "Oh it's a gentle little snowflake, look how gingerly the hazmat guy is handling... the ice-ix that could obliterate life on Earth?!" Also, nice touch with the reflection on the helmet.

Definitely check out Francis's animations at callmefrancis.com/

Last but not least, a honorable mention for Elizabeth Allen!

©Elizabeth Allen 2011

She agreed to make a piece on extremely short notice and I was surprised to find out it was a 3D illustration. I don't often come across people who make 3D illus but I'm always intrigued by them. You're using an entirely different skill set and way of thinking, while still having to be conscious of how it will turn out as a 2D image and composition. She certainly captured the serene nature of Wordsworth's poem.

Find more of Elizabeth at lizexists.carbonmade.com/

Finally, here is a glimpse into my process work:

Offbeat Alphabet Q Ñ I

The latest project for Electric Keychain was alphabet letters. You can find them all here (link was broken but is now fixed.)

Letters were given out randomly, though I personally took Ñ since I wanted to do Spanish words for my letters. They were supposed to be humorous or offbeat in some way (not your standard A for Apple) and to me, Spanish sounds more phonetically humorous than English.

Q is for Quiquiriquí (key-key-ree-KEY) = Cockadoodledoo

Ñ is for Ñau (gnyow) = meow

I is for Imán (ee-MAhn) = magnet. I wanted onomatopoeias for all of my words but there wasn't much I could figure with I except for "EY, MAN!"

This project became a venue for colour experimentation. I've worked with limited palettes before but I don't think I've ever done it quite this way and I really enjoyed the results. Definitely want to do more of this from now on.

I started out knowing EXACTLY the colours I wanted for the cat... and nothing else. And then I said hey, let's just use the same colours on all the letters. It may not seem like it but the rooster was the hardest of them all to figure out in terms of colour and I'm happy his worked so well in the end.

These are the original sketches: