Opera Ghost

The teatra della dea was a prestigious performance locale for many years. World renowned for it's decadent operas, and the talent of it's performers...
That is, until the fateful dress rehearsal that resulted in the death of the theatre's new leading lady.

Signorina Marisa, a new arrival to the theatre, was to play the lead female role in her first opera - but fate is a cruel mistress. During the final scene of the dress rehearsal, while Marisa was singing the solo that should have jump-started her career in opera, a negligent stage hand failed to notice an improperly tied rope in the flys...
Before Marisa made it to the end of her aria the rope snapped, dropping the heavy set piece onto the unsuspecting singer.

Of course, the show must go on! Not even death could stop the powerhouse that was the theatre.
Marisa's understudy stepped up to perform in her place - leading the opera to a fantastic ten sold-out shows, and the lady to fame.

What of Marisa?
She is still in the opera house.
The stage hands are trained to be extra careful during dress rehearsals. For every time the lead lady steps up to sing her solo, one of the flys comes loose and an ominous laugh echoes through the rafters.


Goofy story, very fun drawing.
I'll put up all three versions of it: the see-through ghost version, the solid color version, and the lines.
The one thing I'm sad about is that I just COULD NOT get the lineart to look as detailed on the computer - no amount of fiddling made it work. But she still turned out looking gorgeous.
It's been so long since I've drawn something detailed like this - I'd forgotten how much I love it.

Maize

Spot the pun for a fake prize!

Oh ho I'm so clever today.
It's a view from the corn maze at Downey Farms, in Ontario.
My friend Erica and I decided to have some fun, and ran headlong through the maze for a bit before stopping (completely lost) and checking out the... not-so-varied scenery.
It was a perfect day for it, though - check out that sky!

We were, however, in agreement that a corn maze would be much more fun in the dark by lamplight - and far creepier.

Fehér mint a hó

I'm getting tired of naming all my snow/winter-themed pieces after snow queens and the like, so I opted to use an online translator and have fun with the title.
I just typed in "snow" in an English to Hungarian translator and picked out a nice one.
Fehér mint a hó apparently means "as white as snow" in Hungarian.

Part one of the four seasons masks I want to make.
Obviously this one is for winter.
The icicle crown makes it rather top-heavy compared to the other masks I've made. They're tinfoil spires with sculpy clay mashed over top of them, and the combination of all that tinfoil AND the clay ended up causing imbalance with the bottom. Not that it matters - I think they're pretty fancy, myself.

The little icicles around the eyes were a pain to make - I went temporarily cross eyed.

Inkspell

I was bored this morning.
And by morning I mean between 2 and 3 am when the drunk loonies were out in the field screeching - dear pub night: go somewhere else.

At least I got something interesting out of it.
Two versions of the same thing, here: one the normal colors and the other an inversion (personally I like the inversion best)
I have some super-black India ink in my collection of art stuff, so I decided to mess around with it.
All I did was load up my ratty paintbrush with undiluted ink, flick it onto paper, and then took a straw and blew on it while it was still sopping wet.
Miraculously I didn't get anything on the carpet OR on myself.

That has to be a new record for cleanliness while operating a paintbrush on lack of sleep.

P.S. I also turned them into way bigger images - I needed a new background for my computer. Feel free to steal them for yourself if you like (the white one MAY blind you - I'd suggest the black)

Communication Design 1 - P1, P3

This is the third approach for my first ever Communication Design project.
In approach three we had to combine words and images to make an emotion-inducing poster.
Unlike approach 1, it didn't have to be a LOT of words - just enough to make your point clear.

This was, I think, my favorite of all three.
I came up with the idea on a lark and ran with it - turns out it was a good idea. It was one of those times I barely had to refine something - the images from the first trial run are almost identical to this one (just a little rearranging)

Communication Design 1 - P1, P2

This is approach otwo for my first ever Communication Design project.
In this part we had to create a poster (that again, caused an emotional response in the viewer) using only images. No words allowed whatsoever.

This one and the last one were my favorites - these are all images I took myself, and edited.
Kathleen thought it was a man's neck in the top photo - apparently I'm very manly. Or at least have a chunky neck?

Communication Design 1 - P1, P1

This is approach one for my first ever Communication Design project.
Our goal for this part was to create a small poster that inspired an emotional response from the viewer, using ONLY typography (no images)

Of all three options I like this one the least, but I'm still fairly satisfied with it.
Mostly because of the color and the title.

Typography 2 - Project 1

First project for Typography 2: create a two-page layout, including cover and back page, about an influential type designer chosen by the professor. The idea was to make a brochure to be displayed at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, at the University of Toronto.

We also had to use a grid system, and the layout software Adobe InDesign.
I used to HATE HATE HATE using that program - now I really like it.
FYI: grids are used in everything. Magazines, newspapers, books.
My project was based off a four-column grid (all columns equal sizes) and, as my professor put it: "well you really used all possible methods for that one, didn't you?"
She was talking about how things seem to float around on the page... and yet are actually part of the grid at the same time. It's organized, it makes sense... and yet it doesn't all at once, which makes it look interesting.
HOPEFULLY that's a good thing! Mary Ann is a hard person to read.

As for subject matter: I got, as you can tell, John Baskerville!
I wasn't, admittedly, very excited to learn about him at first (I'd wanted Giambattista Bodoni because I really like his typeface, but Neti snatched him up quicker than we could say "no!")

In the end: I'm glad I got this guy.
His typeface was one of the driving forces that lead to the invention of modern typefaces. He's the one who INSPIRED Bodoni to create that typeface I like so much!
The images should be large enough for you to read the actual information if you're interested, but here's a really fast idea of it:
- his design was ludicrous for the time (since it had REALLY thin lines and really thick lines)
- it inspired later type designers to create typefaces with even THINNER lines

It was printed on a slightly textured, cream-colored, thick paper.

In the end: I'm very pleased with it.
My Typography work when it comes to paragraphs and layouts isn't the strongest, but I had fun with this and I think it looks great.

FYI: there are probably some typos in there that got missed. When you're doing last-minute editing at 2am the night before you have to have it printed you tend to miss things...!