Sunday drawing

Sundays are always the best for drawing in cafés. Today was a slightly overcast, mid-temperature spring day, which prompted an americano at our favourite spot and a walk in the park.

Here is a drawing of M, working on a drawing for the Mutek music festival. Happy Sunday!

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

Drawings from 2013

Time flies when you're constantly moving. Last year, I moved 3 times (!) and it has made me never want to pack another box as long as I live. With all the organizing, packing, moving, unpacking, and apartment hunting, there wasn't much time for drawing or painting. I also changed jobs, enrolled in an intensive French language program, and travelled constantly. What a year!

Now that it's April 2014, things are finally setting down. Thus, to commemorate the busiest year of my life, I have started to do drawings for each month in 2013. Below is the first one for January, when my boyfriend and I moved him to Montreal from Toronto (on January 1, in a blizzard!).

Drawing of our move to Montreal in January 2013...

I'll add some others for February and April soon, as well as some photos that I took over the long weekend during our visit to the old Biosphere (leftover from Expo '67).
Sadly, I'll be leaving Montreal soon, so my stay here hasn't been well-documented, but hopefully I can make up for some lost time by posting a few events posthumously.

Happy Easter et Joyeux Paques tout le monde!

Owl Painting!!!

Last weekend I finally finished the owl painting for T and J. It was a present for their wedding, which took place over one and a half years ago (!) Better late than never, but due to being in school, moving every three months, and not having my painting supplies or easel, I wasn't able to work on it properly until now. However, it has been burning a hole in my conscience the entire time, so I'm glad that I can finally hand it over to them and take back the "placeholder"wolf painting, which I gave them to hang in the meantime. (here it is, below)

I was super jealous of Tasia last weekend, as she attended the Osheaga music festival in Montreal! Normally I would have gone too, but I was just in Montreal a few weeks before, and I'm also planning to go to PEI next week to visit Linda, so I had decline due to budgetary constraints. But no fear! I needed to clean up my place because I'm moving again soon (sigh), and I also finished off some projects, such as the owl painting and planning for my first Indie Pop Night at Fountain Bar. If anyone in the Toronto area is free on the 25th, I hope to see you there! (: Can't wait to play my new favourite song from my new favourite band, Little Dragon. So awesome!

Little Dragon

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

May 1st!

Yikes, time flies! 


Been back in Toronto now (officially) for 4 months, with the exception of a few trips to Ottawa and a 2.5-week stint in Montreal in February. It's been crazy, mostly because of my (lack of) secure job situation in January, and the mounting stress of paying for an awesome sublet while trying to organize all the stuff in my mum's storage locker. Who knew I had so much stuff...and why did I even keep it? I soon realized that a good way to purge anything not essential to your life is to move every 3 months.... le sigh.


In the meantime, I've done a bunch of cool things since I've been back. I went to see Grimes with my friend Jen, and Tasia came down to go to the Youth Lagoon concert. A few weeks ago for Andrea's birthday, a bunch of us went to see Azari and iii at the Hoxton. They were great! However, my most recent girl crushes are Grimes, Charlie XCX, and Coeur de Pirate. I listen to the three of them almost every day, as well as the new Sleigh Bells album, which is amazing. 

http://www.chippedhip.com/2012/02/grimes-oblivion/

http://www.nme.com/reviews/charlie-xcx/12772

Each weekend, it seems that someone I know is DJing at Fountain bar, which seems to be the only place I ever go to on Saturdays. Last weekend Dan (DJ Sexhelmet) was spinning, and the week before Andrea, Erin, and Andrew were playing. This Saturday Terence (Mr. Furious) will be there. It's crazy! The main reason that everyone is there, though, is because of our friend and bartender Vince, who happens to also be a music writer for Exclaim magazine. He's one very cool guy (and makes good drinks too!)


Anyway, I hope that I can get my blog and my art stuff back on track, now that I've sorted myself and my stuff out. I am planning to finish one of my paintings this weekend, so fingers crossed! It seems like I went from being very seldomly employed to working 6 days a week and trying to take a french class on the side. Needless to say, mon francais souffre a cause de  ma vie tres occupee. C'est mal. 


I'm also planning to update my blog over the next little while, so stay tuned!


xx makiko

Monteal!

Wow, it's been a veeeeery long time since my last post! I didn't mean to be away so long, but school and then my prolonged internship has meant that I haven't been sketching or painting very much this past year (except for my job of course, but is only "inpainting").

Anyway, a lot has happened to me since January. First, I finished my Master's of Art Conservation program of two years at Queen's University (and just graduated last week!).

Second, I left Kingston, moved to Montreal, and then started my internship at a private paintings' restoration studio. It was pretty tough at first, but I managed to get the hang of working quickly and efficiently. In fact, I did such a good job that I got offered an extension until the end of the year, which is why I'm still here in la Belle Province.

At first, I moved into an apartment in the Plateau with two girls from the West coast. I only knew a few people in Montreal (Marc and Rob, below), and they were kind enough to hang out with me during my "initiation period", which I really appreciated (:

Some of my Toronto pals also came to visit me so all in all the first three months went by quickly (despite the language barrier). I was originally going to England for a month-long internship in August, but since my Montreal contract got extended I had to find a place for August to December, which proved really difficult. In the end, I got a place for just August (near Park la Fontaine), and then a place for September to December after that. Luckily, I became friends with my neighbor, and we've hung out a lot the past few months (below, at Halloween!)

So anyway, since September I've visited Toronto twice, went to England and Scotland for a week, and have been back and forth to Ottawa every two weeks for work on a mosaic site. Hectic! I'm looking forward to returning to Toronto at the end of the year. My pal Emma is now working with me at the studio, so we travelled together to Ottawa yesterday to work on the mural site (photos below of us in Ottawa).

The BIG mission now is to complete Terence's painting in the next couple of weeks. I can't believe this gift will literally be an entire year late! Phew!