Nine-part narrative illustration for The New York Times Magazine

As the title of this post says, I just did a nine-part illustration for this past Sunday's issue of The New York Times Magazine. It was for the tenth anniversary special of their 'Year in Ideas' issue, so it was an honour to be included.

The cover was decked out quite festively in hundreds of balloons - the pattern of which formed one of those quick-response codes for a smartphone. If you happen to own a smartphone, you could scan the cover and watch some animations specially commisioned for the issue. Bloody amazing!

I was asked to come up with a nine-part narrative piece that would combine both festive elements and the concept of the idea. Tricky? yes. Fun? very.

The images were to run on the edge margin for nine pages and tell a little story. Odd dimensions to work within, but all in all, I'm very happy with it!

You can click on the above image for an animated GIF of the images. Although, it looks cooler in the actual magazine.

Thanks so much to Leo Jung and Sara Cwynar at The NYTM. They are both super great people and really fun to work with.

Kraft foods Symposium

Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme and I spent two days drawing all over a big room for a Kraft Foods advertising symposium. We were given free reign to come up with whatever we wanted! In addition to the walls, we were each given an 8ft.x4ft. canvas to fill. Everything was improvised and I'm pretty happy with how it all ended up!

Thanks to Neil at Circo de Bakuza!

New York Times Op-Ed illustration

Illustration I did for last Saturday's New York Times Op-Ed page. Read about it here.

The piece concerns the case of Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American with links to Al Qaeda who was recently put on the United State's assassination list. He is currently hiding in Yemen.

The debate is whether or not the government should be allowed to assassinate an American in a country the United States is not at war with.

An interesting article, and a fun and challenging illustration.

Thanks to Aviva Michaelov at the NYT!!!

A couple new illustrations...

Two illustrations I recently did for Montecristo Magazine and NUVO Magazine, respectively.

The first one was for an article about how all the good movies come out in December to catch the Award deadlines, and all the January films are crap.

The second one was for an article about how, based on the reason for the evaluation, the same piece of art can have different values.

Thanks again to Mark Reynolds! Always good to work with him.

Illustration Served!!!

Some of my older work is currently featured on IllustrationServed.com!

It's on the main page and I'm pretty keen on it.

Direct link here.

It's Nice, That!

Just got a nice little posting over on It's Nice That blog.

The UK-based blog posted a few of my images and did a short interview.

Thanks so much Alex for the notice!

cheg it oot here.

Wowee Zonk 3 Booklaunch

Koyama Press and The Beguiling present Wowee Zonk's "Wowee Zonk 3" and Tin Can Forest's "Baba Yaga and The Wolf" BOOK LAUNCH!
Thursday Oct.7th, 7pm-10pm
The Central, 603 Markham St. Toronto
Be there!

Wowee Button!

Design for a button I'm getting made. It will be available (along with original limited edition buttons by Patrick Kyle and Ginette Lapalme) at the Wowee Zonk 3 / Baba Yaga and the Wolf Book Launch!
If you're in Toronto on Oct. 7th, head over to The Central on Markham St. and buy the new books by Wowee Zonk and Tin Can Forest. Both books are published by the amazing Koyama Press!
Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend as I will be at a wedding in Saskatchewan, but everyone else will be there. It should be a laugh!

Poster for Blackflash Magazine/PAVED Arts Halloween Part-ay

Poster just finished for the Blackflash Magazine/PAVED Arts Halloween party.
Blackflash magazine is a great art photography mag edited by my good friend John Shelling. You can pick them up at any fine booksellers across Canada.
Thanks buddy.

Layout for Avenue Magazine

Just got a copy of September's Avenue Magazine in the mail! I said I would post some images, so here they are. In addition to the full-page and the spots, I got a nice feature on the contents page. I'm really happy with how these turned out!
Thanks so much to Anders at Avenue Magazine. Everything looks amazing!

Cafe Con Leche!!!!

So I did some stickers for my friend Ines!
She is this awesome girl from Mexico that I met in New York.
She's done a lot of stickers and a lot of drawings for a lot of people.
Check her out here and here.
ps. all of these stickers are for SALE.

Avenue Magazine Illustrations

I did three illustrations for the September issue of Calgary's Avenue Magazine.
The above image was a full page illo for an article that wonders: "Why do smart people get scammed?"



This illustration was for a section in the same article about the profitability of buying and flipping houses.




Lastly, this one was for a bit about playing the stock market.

I'll try to get some images of them in print, just to see how they look that way. My parents live out in Calgary, so I'm sure they can send a few my way.

Thanks a ton to Anders K., art director at Avenue, for all of his help!

Cover for The Antigonish Review

The Antigonish Review, a literary arts magazine out of Nova Scotia, has put one of my illustrations on the cover of their 162nd issue. It's an image I created last year, entitled "Centaur". Check out their website here.

Wowee Zonk Window Display at Magic Pony!

A pic of the window display Wowee Zonk recently did for Magic Pony Shop and Gallery in Toronto. It'll be up for a while, so check it out if you're in the area!
Thanks Steve, Kristin, Alicia and all the Pony staff!

Katamari Fundraiser

Poster for the upcoming Katamari show at Floating World Comics out of Portland, OR. The lineup of participating artists is amazing, I'm just happy to be included. Plus, it's for a good cause.
Check out the details here.
Thanks Jason!!!

EYE Weekly illustration

Illustration just finished for Kate Carraway's column in EYE Weekly about growing up the youngest of three sisters.
Thanks to Art Director, Caley Tessier, who consistently features illustration work in the paper. Kudos.

The Deep Dark Woods

A poster I recently finished for my buddies: The Deep Dark Woods.
It's for their current tour. I love these guys, and I love their music.
You can purchase their albums here.

WOWEE ZONK

Wowee Zonk has a great new website!! Check it out here.
If you didn't know, I am one-third of the art collective Wowee Zonk, alongside the amazingly talented Patrick Kyle and Ginette Lapalme. The new site has a great store, some good pics, and a link to our blog that will keep you updated on our hi-jinks.
WOWEE ZONK!

Soccer...er, Football..

The King and Queen of all Cosmos

A piece I did for Jason at Floating World Comics in Portland, OR. They are putting on a Katamari-inspired show/fundraiser in the fall and asked a number of cool artists to contribute (and me, too). This piece is loosely based around one of the characters in the game: The King of all Cosmos. The character has a killer mustache, so I was thinking of famous mustaches.

Main Street Theatre Co-op

This is a poster that I did recently for my best-friend-for-life Daryl King. He is one-fourth of the amazingly talented Vancouver theatre collective Main Street Theatre Equity Co-op.
Their past two shows (both of which I did the posters for) were extremely well-received.
They were Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo, both by David Mamet.
I really enjoy working on these projects, as they give me a lot of room to try things that I normally wouldn't attempt. Despite my apprehensions, I am always very pleased with the final product.
Thanks D.

Koyama Press!!

This is a piece I did for Anne Koyama of Koyama Press.

Background: I am one-third of an art collective called Wowee Zonk. The remaining two-thirds consist of my best friends Ginette Lapalme and Patrick Kyle. They are way better artists than I am and they constantly amaze me with the work they create.

Annie thought the same and was gracious enough to publish a book cataloguing some of our work. It's called 'Pobody's Nurfect' and you can buy it here.

Anyways, Annie has been asking her extensive list of amazing artists to produce their version of her logo. This was my attempt!

I love you, Annie!!!!

New Comic Book

I've started a new comic book entitled 'Complex'. Here is a sample of what's to come.

Pages 2 and 5 respectively.

Gaga!!!

This is a piece I did for a zine called 'Prison for Bitches'.

It was put together by my friends Ryan Sands and Michael Deforge.

Ryan is the creator of the amazing Electric Ant Zine (which I've lovingly contributed to twice) and the Same Hat blog.

Deforge is a crazy talented illustrator who constantly blows my mind.

This was a super project to contribute to as it included a LOT of talented people. Some more well-known artists such as Johnny Ryan and Michael Kupperman participated, but also a bunch of up and comers like myself.

Buy it online, it's a great big book and it's totally worth it.

Montecristo Magazine illustrations

Illustrations JUST finished for Montecristo Magazine out of Vancouver. About men's health in Vancouver, BC.

Worked with Mark Reynolds again on this one. Thanks man! I'm really happy with them!

New York Times Magazine spots.

For the past five Sundays I've been doing spots for the New York Times Magazine.
Each pair of illustrations accompanied a tech story for the Points of Entry column. I have to give my heartfelt thanks to Leo Jung, whose art direction was amazing. Thanks so much for the opportunity Leo!!

This was another new experience for me as the size of the spots were quite small. It was a challenge figuring out what details to include and what to leave out, and how to make the ideas come across in the images. I'm pretty happy with the final product.

Pieces for One 2 Many show at Steamwhistle gallery.

step1

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step6

My pieces for a group show at Toronto's Steamwhistle gallery called One 2 Many. The theme was loosely based around the collision of the natural environment with the urban. It was a good show with a great group of artists: Patrick Kyle, Adrian Forrow, Ryan Lake, Jim Mezei, Kellen Hatanaka, Alexis Hatanaka, Patrick Thompson and Beside Herself Printing.

Jim really took the lead on this one. Thanks buddy.

Two pieces selected to appear in the American Illustration Annual!!

Lumberjerks and Central Park Smoke Break are both from the 2009 Wowee Zonk Suicide Pact show at Board of Directors gallery.

They will appear in the American Illustration Annual which launches November 11th.
I hope to be there in NY for the launch!

EYE weekly illustration

An illustration I just did for Taylor Shute at EYE weekly in Toronto.
A quick little project for a strange little article about the fun you can have with pharmaceuticals.

I got Blog'd...

Nate Williams over at illustrationmundo featured my work the other day.
Thanks Nate!!

http://www.illustrationmundo.com/wp/2587

New Work

Some new work....

Posters

Some more posters I've done in the past few months.

A Poster for Dawn Farm

A poster I just did for Dawn Farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

James Balmer, the president of Dawn Farm was really great to work with.

Thanks James!

http://www.dawnfarm.org/

My first Blog post.

This is just a little drawing I did the other night.