Illustrator
Every now and then (okay, pretty much every year) family members request a piece of art from me. Aren’t they lucky? A quick and easy way for me to that is to paint studies of birds because guess what? I like birds. Here are a few in watercolour and ink:
Baltimore Oriole
Pileated Woodpecker
Common Kingfisher
These last ones are the last watercolour paintings I’ve done, and it’s mighty ambitious if I do say so myself. The reference for this is a photo of two pieces of ice in Iceland (har har) taken by my mother a few years ago. The challenge was making the ice look translucent but also incorporating all the interesting colours in the ice. I’m not aiming for high realism and like everything I do, it has a graphic element to it. I am quite happy with the result. 
Stewart Park in Perth, ON, one of the most beautiful parks I’ve ever seen with mature willow trees and a creek running through it.
Joel and I like to get out once in a while to do some plein air drawing (translation: drawing outdoors). This summer has been good for that so far because we’re finding lots of things we want to draw in the Westport area. Below are a few of my (Chantal) drawings.
Westport is a hotspot for boats in the summer. This is a funny little “gas station” at the Westport marina.
Here is another scene from Ireland. This turned out more graphic than I had expected; I was going for painterly with lots of texture, but I’m happy with how it turned out.
Watercolour & ink. 8×10.
My favourite book publisher, The Folio Society, holds an annual illustration competition to illustrate one of its upcoming title. This year was Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a gothic retelling of fairytales so I thought, why not. I’ll try my hand at this one, since fairytales are one of my favourite subjects to draw and I’m a bit of a folklore nerd.
Because the retelling was gothic and rather dark, I poured on the black ink with washes of watercolour. I also had a few of my lovely students pose for me. I didn’t win, but I’m very glad I entered and feel very satisfied with these pieces, especially the first two.
Illustration for The Bloody Chamber
Illustration for In The Company of Wolves
Illustration for Puss In Boots
The competition also had us designing the jacket. The Folio Society puts out beautiful hardbound editions so I imagined this design in black linen with gold and red hot foil. Hot!