Quiet

I remember my mom saying "children should be seen and not heard". While I accepted the premise behind that I still thought it was funny. And of course, my sisters and my brother and I WERE heard. And in reading Amy Vanderbilt's rules (in the background of this illo) I see that we were darned well behaved children - something I knew anyway after seeing the crap my friends got away with - I do my best to have my children be the same - autism is a blessing in this case - rules are meant to be followed - so quite often my autistic son is the best mannered child at gatherings because he knows how to follow rules. Last night I attended a focus group for parents of older children with autism with regards to future programming - the meeting was great, the bed at the hotel they booked me was AMAZING and talk about - quiet OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, this "button-your-lip" illo is for Illustration Friday "Quiet".

Thanks to all who stop by and comment - much appreciated.

Phobia

I combined my phobias for this week's Illustration Friday - mice and heights. I have a fear of wallpaper too but I left that out! Right now my 9 year-old is petrified of birds. He hates walking down the path to school because they fly in and out of the hedges that line it. So we're trying all sorts of things to make him tolerant and so he doesn't freak out when a seagull is casing the grocery store parking lot looking for goodies. Any suggestions are welcome!

Talk about a change

Two days ago relaxing in the sun with a 3 euro litre and a half bottle of Greek wine and now shivering away back home with a mug of coffee! Our vacation in Greece was FANTASTIC and it is quite a change to return to the old routine. I'm having a heck of a time getting back into working... hopefully doing this little illo will jumpstart me.

The good ol days

My brother had a matchbook collection. It was an old suitcase full. I used to love going through them. The coolest ones were from cocktail lounges. I must ask him if he still has them.

Coasters

I think I'd go braindead if I didn't have at least 4-5 projects on the go. And that's in addition to juggling client work and two kids. I'm not sure if I will survive the trip to Greece! I am not good at relaxing. So when we get back I am definitely starting a Cafe Press shop in addition to the secret project we are working on.

PLAY

Great topic this week for Illustration Friday. I did this a week weeks ago to put on the ugly grey brick wall in our family room. Unfortunately it makes the wall even duller looking in comparison! It's on wood with letters, jacks, monkeys, and other bits attached. I hope it doesn't make my kids afraid of clowns!

Thanks for stopping by.

Sorry Jen, couldn't resist!

More

Ooooh, I'm on a roll now!

That was fun!

I LOVE Claudine Hellmuth's work so I decided to give collage a whirl. I think I've got the bug now. Like I need another project - Yikes!!!!

Capture

Boy where did the week go? I just dashed off this quickie for "capture". I have a good marriage - this was just the first thing I thought of doing!

Clean?

Well right now the Ontario government is telling me not to clean because it uses energy so I'm not! I think everyone has their own cleaning style–I can't stand dirty counters, clutter (unless I've "arranged" it thus making it a "collection"!)–basically I like clean and tidy surfaces but I can live with only cleaning my fridge when my mother-in-law is coming once a year, ditto the freezer. I HATE dusting but I like vaccuuming, and I'll sweep because if I don't it's revolting but I can't stand mopping. Hmmm, thank god for cleaning ladies.

I also have one child who is super clean with his person not his room and one who could care less. Lesser than less really. Bathtime is a HUGE struggle. Sitting in the water is great but actually washing? We have to make it a game, a bribe, a threat. Fun stuff!

Anyway, enough about me, suffice it to say, it is not me in this illustration although I do have a swiffer...

Oh boy

Talk about crazy days lately. My hard drive died. Just up and died with not much warning so I managed to back-up current client work but nothing else. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. So I've missed some Illustration Friday but I'm back now! This week is "Opposites" and for some reason I was having an awful time coming up with anything I wanted to do. So I went to my trusty old retro cookbooks (I collect them - fun stuff!) and found some cool ice cream recipes and that was it.The background is a scan of the recipes and this is the yummy photo!

Sticky

What could be stickier than candy? This is for my son's birthday party this week. His idea - the boy takes after his mom. So party guests will receive a t-shirt with this on it and a bag of sticky goodies! Thankfully there are only 5 kids coming, I'm not THAT crazy.

Rain rain go away

Imagine, never having to cancel an outdoor event ever again!

Illustration Friday - Dance

Whew, just made it this week. I can't BELIEVE it is Thursday. June is just too flipping busy! This is a little dance we call the Pee Dance. Most frequently performed when the only bathroom in the house is occupied or when not wanting to stop a preferred activity for something as dull as a bathroom break :-)

Illustration Friday - Jungle

I'll admit it, I'm a lazy artist. When I saw this week's topic was "jungle" I thought, "Oh man that is so much work doing foliage; maybe I'll just skip it this week."
But I persevered and came up with a solution involving no leaves! I hope you like it.

Babycakes

This is a greeting card illustration that I'm currently shopping around... just not enough hours in the day.

Sorry kids!

No new shoes for you but check out mommy's new Italian green leather purse!!!!!!!

I have a thing for purses; always have. Could be worse, could be sports cars.

Angels & Devils

I will undoubtedly do more with this one. The whole angel/devil, good/evil clash is just sooooo ripe for interpretation. I of course did my usual trite version. But I did plant some symbolism - the apple? Come on, he so wants to go to the dark side and have fun! Again, my apologies if I offend anyone... And now to figure out the new Illustration Friday format. I am afraid.

Fat - illo friday

ahhh, in this case some fat - marbling - is good. My apologies in advance to the many varieties of people that this image could offend. I realize it's not a "real" illustration, it's just something I put together to make myself a t-shirt because, well, I love steak.

Just made it

This week Illustration Friday topic is Under the Sea. Technically this isn't really under the sea but what the heck!

IlloFriday - Robot

I wasn't even going to do this week's topic because my allergies are driving me insane and on top of that I have strep throat. So with Coronation Street on hiatus during hockey playoffs I exhausted other TV possibilities pretty quickly and turned to drawing while I recover. This is my personal robot racing to me with more kleenex and medicine on top on the health chart thingie that came with my prescription!

Spotted - Illustration Friday

Well that was fun. I haven't done a "real" painting (many would argue that this is hardly a real painting!!!) in a long time. I'd forgotten how long it takes - it was nice and relaxing. I should do more just as stress relief.

Speed

As soon as I drew the sketch for this I couldn't believe how much it reminds me of one of my sisters when she was little. It's the hair,and the grin and the whole I-have-life-by-the-tail attitude. I was her biggest fan growing up and I guess I still am in many ways. Plus it was the method of "speed" that I chose that reminds me of her as well as she is now a scooter bike-riding diva instead of a manual scooter - which BTW we never had, I think they skipped a generation! The original story in the background is by my son, scribed by and illustrated by my niece. If you read it, I am not a princess, his dad has never been in jail nor is he a queen. Happy Easter everyone.

Spring!

Wow, I can't believe I've missed a month of Illustration Friday. I've been too flipping busy. And here I am out doing the spring yard work, hahahahahaha.

Illustration Friday - Tea

I drink coffee and lots of it. My husband keeps buying all these different flavoured teas and the boxes always come flying out of the cupboard when I open it. That has nothing to do with this illustration, I just felt like sharing! Thanks to everyone for their comments on my past entries, much appreciated.

"For fun it's a wonderful toy"

It doesn't get much more simple than a Slinky. A classic "oops" toy. A plain old spring and look at all that fun. Simplicity at its best I'd say. I have a few. My kids can't play with mine; they have their own.

Glamour

Thinking about this Illustration Friday topic I kept going back to the whole starlet idea of glamour. So that's basically what I did. Her dress has some valuable info from Amy Vanderbilt's Everyday Etiquette. Sweet stuff circa 1952.

E is for egads, eek, enough!

Egads, I'm busy right now! No time to make a special Friday contribution. This is Veronica (yes, I name my characters, so what!)and she is for a client who makes posh handmade diaper bags. So the bag needs to stand out. The illustration will go on hangtags, used on web, promo material etc. Which one do you like better?

Flavour

Boy this was a toughie - there are soooooooooooooo many flavours out there! I really did NOT have (still don't) any idea where I was going with this one. It started with just the guy and his magic flavour sauce and somehow the background and the milkshake maker found their way in there. If nothing else it should make somebody smile.

Holiday

I did this for an apron for my sister for Christmas because she IS the Cookie Queen. I swear her cookies are little works of art...makes it real hard to scarf down a box of them but I do my best!

Later...
These are some of the cookies. My food styling leaves A LOT to be desired!

Imagine

I'm going to imagine these helpful dudes coming into my house the next 3 nights and doing everything I haven't got at yet! I did manage to paint my finger nails a festive green colour and get to the liquor store to stock up...priorities!

Blue

Wow, I am so ahead of time for this week's Illustration Friday. The topic is "blue" so welcome to the blue plate special, yum. I've been doing these little spot illustrations for some recipe cards I'm making. They're loads of fun - here are a few more.

IlloFriday - small

I was going to actually draw a background (really!)but I'm just too darned busy with work these days so I didn't.

I'm not a big quote person but I really liked this one:

"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine." Fran Lebowitz

I'm okay with that; I've been called worse!

Free

Ahhhh, free boots. I don't ask for much.

Strength

This week's Illustration Friday topic is Strength. I've had a cold for 2 weeks so frankly - I'm not feeling much strength at all. I think the amazing thing about strength is finding out just how much you have. Is it a limitless capacity or do we finally breakdown at some point as more and more crap is thrown at us? I guess it's all about balance.

Night

I have to say I wasn't too inspired by this week's topic "night". So I decided that at night the dirty dishes on my counter party. Maybe the dish and the spoon will run away together.

Illustration Friday - Broken

I have this great toy my aunt gave my son when he was a babe. He's called "Stand-up Man". Since I have become a bona fide package collecting geek in the past 5 years I am kicking myself for not saving the box he came in!

whoops.

I just reread my post and if you read it a certain way (bad writing on my part; my old professors would be appalled) it sounds like my son came in a box. Which would be very cool. I definitely would have saved the box from that! I may have to design them each a "birth box" now just for fun.

Remote

This is my Illustration Friday pic for remote. When I think of remote I think distant. I have a son with autism and a lot of times he is as remote as remote can possibly be. He loves to jump up and down. And eat popsicles, hence the stains on the shirt :-)

Cold

Just a quickie for this week's topic "cold". The dreaded ice cream headache. Isn't it a bizarre irony that something so good can hurt so much?

Lost

Too late H & G realized that their Guacamole Dorito trail was being stolen away behind them...

Fresh

Well this was fun; Illustration friday topic is Fresh. I must admit I never have been one of those popcorn-for-dinner types, I love food too much!

Dreamy

You know those books. You look up "running up the street away from your parent's house wearing Docs and your wedding dress whilst being chased by birds" and is it there? Of course not. Yet I still have the book. Archetypes are fun aren't they?

Aging

I guess I'm picturing this as "Aging and the battle for your $$$" Just so much consumer stuff these days, gawd I AM old. When I realized I had a sweatshirt older than my kids sitter - that's when I really knew.

Tranquility

I guess I could have used this for last week's Illustration Friday topic "karma". All I could think of last week was the time a seagull crapped on my head while in was in the line-up for Ziggy's fries. While it may have been cathartic to draw and purge myself of the bad karma I just couldn't do it!

This is one in a set of coasters I'm designing.

Heroes

I've missed the last few Illustration Friday's with the move at all but we're settled in now for the most part. I'm going the mushy route this time with the topic. My sister gave a big party yesterday for my 12-year-old nephew (at a vintage 50's decor Bowlerama - it was sooooo cool) to celebrate a full year of being cancer free after 3 1/2 years of treatment for leukemia. WTG Graydon!!!!! And my other hero is my son's aide at school. She's been with him since he started 4 years ago and she is smart, funny, patient and perfect with him. Unfortunately another little guy with autism is starting in our board in the fall and he needs her more than we do :-( So this is the painting I've made for her. The theme of fish-out-of-water applies on a few levels, the letters are because he's a spelling genius (no really!) and the water tower is in the town where she will be commuting to for work now. We'll really miss her. If she doesn't like the painting I also got her a pound of the best chocolates in Canada lol.