Drawings for our parents

Over the past month, I spent some time making illustrations for my mother and M's parents, for no particular reason (see below).

I have more free time these days, so I thought that they would be nice gifts for our parents, since they're easy for me to make but personalized enough that they might enjoy them. I always feel a bit awkward that M's parents are always so nice to me and I never really do anything for them in return (except show up at their house). Hopefully these small contributions can act as a form of appreciation, as I know that it's difficult to accommodate a finicky vegan city girl at the best of times. 

In other news, next week is Ran (the dog)'s first birthday! Yay! He is the light of my mother's life and such a wonderful companion that we decided to buy him a cake and celebrate in the park. Awwww.....dogs are such amazing creatures. 

M's parents with Shelby the dog

Drawing of my mother and Ran the dog

More drawings from 2013

Here are two more drawings from 2013, February and April respectively.

Celebrating Matt's birthday at the Rhino, Feb 2013.

Our visit to Homossassa in Florida, April 2013.

The original idea for these drawings was to create a calendar for 2014. However, the cold winter and sheer laziness made it difficult for Matt and I to be organized enough to make it happen in time, so we decided to just draw one image a month for the rest of the year. This weekend, we will be working on May!

Another great thing that happened this week is that spring is finally here, hurray! The days are getting longer and the trees are budding. Such a great thing to see after so long a winter.

So this coming weekend will be my last weekend in Montreal--next Friday I am driving a car (with all of my stuff) back to Toronto. It's a bittersweet return, and one with which I have mixed feelings. In the first place, I wasn't planning on staying in Montreal longer than my contract of 8 months, but since I've been here I've come to realize what an amazing city it really is. Montrealers seem more relaxed and friendly than in Toronto, and there is so much more history and pride with Quebecers than there ever seems to be with Ontarians. It's nice to live in a city where people are excited about being who they are, and where they still partake in historical customs from the past. While living here, I never felt like I was missing out on anything, and I totally understand why Quebecers choose to stay here. 

Honestly, if there was any chance for me to find a permanent job here, I would have considered staying. I suppose Quebec is like a cool secret that one can only find out about if you speak the language fluently (which I sadly do not). Big sigh.

On a different note, here is a photo of a cool little depanneur that opened up near my apartment:

What's cool about this shop is that the same shop was drawn in the story of "Paul en appartement"by Michel Rabligiati. His story takes place in the 1980s, but the store looks exactly the same, which is super awesome!

If I have a chance, I will post it later on. 

Hope you have a great week, and happy spring!

.M

A warm Sunday, a birthday, and a painter

This weekend has been super busy. It was E's birthday, so we went out for all you can eat sushi, and then went (again) to Fountain bar afterwards, to hang out and listen to Mr. Furious spin some tunes.

Today was a nice warm day, but I was busy running around looking for a new apartment, and was also hung over. Also, the streets were packed with shoppers! Toronto can get totally nuts as soon as the warm weather starts (:

On a side note, here is a painter who I love: Christer Kaarlstad from Norway, amazing oil on canvas (see images below).

Check out his website to see more of his awesome work: http://christerkarlstad.com.



Have a great Sunday!
xx makiko

new wolf painting

My first painting in almost a year! Time sure flies, even if it's spent not being productive... (read: underlying guilty conscience). Anyway, this is a small mixed media collage/acrylic painting that I started months ago but only finished yesterday.....although I may still go back and work on it more in a couple of days (: I'm planning on doing two more paintings that are similar to this over the next two weeks so stay tuned!

Also, here is the sketch for the painting, which actually looks quite different from the finished product...I always find it cool to see other artists' sketches, so I thought I would post my drawing for the sake of comparison. Van Gogh always did a bunch of sketches before he actually painted, and he was definitely an interesting guy!

Finally, yesterday was my friend Edie's birthday dinner, and Jill made some awesome vegan cupcakes for her, which you can read about on her blog. They were soooo cute!