dreamylabs

Life drawing

2009-03-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

My regular life drawing class, organized and taught by the talented Brian Hladin, ended last night and won't resume until autumn. I thought I'd share a selection of my Thursday night drawings from the past couple months, as a small retrospective.

I don't think I've posted life drawing since college. One of the things I've really come to enjoy about life drawing outside of a school environment is the complete freedom to explore. With no portfolio looming down the road I've been a lot more comfortable exploring in ways I wouldn't have been, back in school.

A Man Called...

2009-02-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

This painting is actually from sometime last year. There's quite a bit more finished work attached to this project, but this is all I can share for now.

Total drama what?

2009-01-08T20:42:00.000-08:00

I don't normally post about work, but I'm pretty excited about what I've been up to lately. For the past six months I've been working at Elliott Animation as a location designer, on a show called Total Drama Action - the second season of Total Drama Island. The designs for season one were great, so I was more than excited to pick up the style. I'm pretty thankful for having an exceptionally talented crew to be a part of. Mark Thornton and Todd Kauffman have been amazing directors. Martin Smith's art direction constantly leaves me humbled. Designing locations day to day with Ed Lee and Pete Ventura has been one of the best work experiences I've had. I could go on and on.

As well as the individual episodes, I had a hand in designing a bunch of the locations for the opening sequence. It's exciting to see what happens with my art further down the pipeline. Have a quick look at the opening sequence on youtube:

The show premiered on Sunday Jan 11th, and is currently airing on Teletoon here in Canada. Keep an eye out for it! After a few episodes have aired I'll try to share some more of my designs.

Anniversary

2008-12-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

Today my girlfriend I have been together a year. She's pretty cute. Here's some art she showed up in. Oil, digital, graphite.

Hope everyone has a happy holidays!

The White Whale

2008-11-27T05:32:00.000-08:00

Vast and Venerable

2008-10-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Lost at Sea

2008-10-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

Leslieville

2008-08-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

I recently settled into a new place. In an effort to familiarize myself with our new neighborhood I've been going out and painting location studies. These are painted en plein air like most of the watercolor work I've posted previously. Life's been pretty hectic between moving, switching jobs, and picking up quite a bit of freelance, but I'm hoping I'll find enough time to finish a series of these before the weather gets too cold to sit outside for an hour or two.

The Lighthouse online!

2008-07-25T08:07:00.001-07:00

EDIT: added a quicktime for easy viewing here on the blog. Might switch it to a youtube version to conserve bandwidth, but i prefer the quicktime quality so I'll leave it up a little while. Definitely make sure to check out the festival website and watch some of the other films though!

So, a little over a year ago I finished my thesis film at Sheridan. I held off posting it on my blog since I was submitting it to festivals. Recently it got accepted into a festival which also has an online component though, so it's available on the web for the first time!

http://www.hdfest.com/

It's currently featured on the front page, but it'll continue to be accessible through the animation section as they update the main page with new animated films. I've browsed some of the other films on the site as well, and there's some pretty cool work! You can also see The Terrible Error of the Replacement Mayor, directed by my good friend Nick Thornborrow, which I worked on previous to my thesis film.

It's nice to be able to look back at my film in an objective manner. Having spent so much time on it during school, I always felt that was the hardest part. In retrospect, I see a whole lot of things I would do differently if I were to approach a similar concept today. Most everyone reviewing their past films probably feel this way, so I'm sure a lot of this blog's audience can relate. That said, I wouldn't change anything given the opportunity. There are issues with the structure of the film, but it's very much a polaroid of my life during my last year of college. More than anything, it makes me want to get a new film officially started. I feel like I learned so much both from making The Lighthouse, and all the work I've done since. I'd love to apply all that to a fresh concept.

Anyway, long story short, go to hdfest.com and check it out!

Souvenirs from the Maritimes

2008-06-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

I recently took my first trip to eastern Canada, and had a great time. I must say, it's one of the nicest and most accommodating places I've been to for just sitting down with my sketchbook, and doing a bit of painting.

Sarah, driving the two of us down. We ended up driving over 3300km total!

The back of a small autoshop over the St. John river in Perth-Andover, NB.

George's Island, over the water, from the harbour in Halifax.

This is Spook. He was uncharacteristically friendly while we were visiting. I think he liked the idea of being painted.

Peggy's Cove, NS. I'd love to go back for a week or two with the intent of painting the whole village. Every little cottage was so picturesque. I eventually decided on painting the lighthouse, somewhat predictably. It's also pretty iconic of the location, so I didn't feel too guilty.

All in all, a great trip. I wish I had more opportunities to sit down with my paints and get my hands a bit dirty. Maybe I'll try to set aside some time to do some little location studies around Toronto, while the weather is still nice.

back alley

2008-06-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

detail:

If you're curious about the finer points of my colors at all, reopen these .jpg's with photoshop and the palette should display a bit more accurately. Seems like browsers are always a little off.

Hoping to share more art from this project eventually, but it'll be a little while before I have some quality photoshop time again... so I thought I'd share this now!

The salty smell of the high seas!

2008-05-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine whom I work with, Colin, has a group of students he helps with design on his spare time. He asked me if I wouldn't mind guest critiquing occasionally. Sounded like a good time to me, so I put together a character for the topic they're working on right now. Pirates! Looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with. Hopefully I'll have some other designs to share later on, from future topics.

I left my heART in San Francisco

2008-05-12T18:42:00.001-07:00

I recently spent a few days in San Francisco. Aside from taking in the sights, looking like a tourist, and seeing some great studios, I managed to squeeze in a little bit of time to paint, too.

Thanks so much to Sarah for pretty much the best birthday present ever. I'm really hoping we'll be back in the bay area sooner rather than later!

Twins!

2008-04-30T08:20:00.001-07:00

Warm up sketch! I saw these gentlemen this morning, on my way to work. I'm now on the lookout for a smaller version of myself.

fox & flame 2

2008-04-14T19:30:00.001-07:00

Here's the last fox & flame painting, for now. Initially, the roughs were based upon a short story outline I'd written. From there I decided to take a few pieces to finish. I like the approach of the talented guys who post on the Draw Force blog, so the themes of the individual paintings are pretty similar to theirs. In the end I wanted to have two character illustrations, a location, a character posed, and then a showdown between two of the characters. I ended up mixing in a couple secondary characters along the way, since they were pretty prominent in the original story.

I feel like the exercise was successful - I'm pretty happy with the results. I might take another short story or fairy tale and create another set of the same five illustrations at some point.

edit: the image in this post was adjusted for browsing in firefox. After seeing it in safari, it looks almost black. If the colors look too dark, click here for the original values. Most of the images I post seem a little off from the .psd, this time especially.

fox & flame

2008-04-01T07:12:00.001-07:00

I've been developing a short story and making some art along the way. Seems like people who read my blog enjoy seeing my process work, so I thought I'd share some rough drawings as well as the development art. Hope you guys like these. The story isn't quite finished, so I'm hoping I can keep making art that will push the designs further. Big thanks to Nick for already giving me some really helpful feedback on each of these pieces along the way. Critiques are always welcome!

Rockstars!

2008-03-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

Lately I've worked on a couple projects that revolve around scraping a band together. Is there intentional resemblance between one of the band members and someone found in my links, you might ask? Quite possibly...

Redhead in argyle!

2008-02-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

Some recent design work! I've got a few other pieces from this project I might post later on. Definitely had fun with this.

Dreamylabs update!

2008-02-14T21:59:00.000-08:00

So, after having www.dreamylabs.com redirect to this blog for the past year or so, it's finally received a much needed overhaul. I put together a new layout, as well as updated it with mostly new content. The layout is similar to the hardcopy portfolio I put together for graduation, for those of you familiar with it. The content is mostly new, however. Plenty of work I've done since last year, most of which I haven't posted here.

As soon as I get some free time I'd like to give this blog a similar treatment. It could use a little refresher. I'd like to define it's purpose a bit better too, for the casual visitor. I have a habit of using the blog to show off work that doesn't necessarily have anywhere else to go, but I'm sure that isn't evident for a first time viewer... or even return visitors for that matter. Now that I've got a "real" portfolio website online again, I'd like to make the blog feel more like the digital sketchbook it was intended to be. In the meantime though, I'll keep updating it as usual. I've got a couple fun projects on the go, which I'll hopefully be able to share sometime down the road.

Anyhow, go check out www.dreamylabs.com and have a look at the galleries on there. Lots of new work that I haven't shown previously!

Tazed and Confused

2008-02-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Recently wrapped up doing some work for Second City. Their new show just premiered last night, and I had the lucky pleasure to do most of the promotional art for it. If you're in the Toronto area, keep an eye out for that, and definitely go check out the show if you get the chance. I've been a couple times myself, and it's hilarious.

Here's a look at the main illustration I made for the show, before being formatted for programs, flyers, posters, etc. Each of the characters are one of the six actors from the show itself. The largest print is 56x34" so some detail gets lost in a web sized .jpg, unfortunately. All of the tonal work is actually done using small halftones. Anyhow, have a look.

Really looking forward to similar opportunities in the future, I had a great time with this project.

Edit: Apparently it's also a cake. Nice!

Sketchbook Dump!

2008-01-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

Been extra busy lately between work, the holidays, and more freelance work. I haven't had much time at all to set aside for my own art over the past month, so I thought I'd share some random sketchbook pages. I'm just about finished the sketchbook I started back in August, so this is a selection from beginning to end. Mostly drawings from the commute, along with a few cleaned up sketches and traveling doodles.

Hopefully I'll be able to share some of the art I'm making for work in the relatively near future. In the mean time, this'll have to do! Hope everybody had a great new years.

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-17T06:46:00.001-08:00

I saw this lady waiting for a train recently. I have no idea how she transported all her packages. Christmas magic, I suppose! I hope everybody has a safe and happy holidays.

High Noon

2007-11-27T06:13:00.001-08:00

Bandit at high noon!

Smile!

2007-11-14T09:56:00.001-08:00

Inspired by the very talened Pascal Campion. Sometimes I forget to smile while I'm drawing.

Check out this interview if you're looking for a bit of motivation to work quicker and happier, which is exactly how I approached this illustration!

foggy morning in toronto

2007-11-12T06:50:00.000-08:00

Morning warmup! Lots of fog today.