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

Sketches for New Painting

Speaking of new paintings, I've started these sketches almost two months ago but didn't finish them in time for Jill and Terence's wedding (the painting was going to be their wedding present). Soooo....I'm hopefully going to finish it during reading week, and then I can give it to them while I'm back in Toronto. Fingers crossed!

Here is the actual composition sketch for the painting (above)

This is the close up of the second owl (it'll go in the foreground)

And....here are the two little guys who sit on the window ledge in front of my desk. I see them everyday and it's become an inside joke between Tasia and I that they represent the two of us (in a "plasticine friendship" kinda way)!

Have a great weekend!

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!