New year, new illustrations!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I had a bit of a rough morning, but had a great new year's eve with a bunch of awesome buddies! I hope you enjoyed a similar scenario for your eve. When I was "healthy" enough to venture of of my apartment today I was met with my very first illustrations of 2011. Remember two weeks ago when I nearly died from creating 13 illustrations in 7 days? Well, today was the day that The Toronto Star published ALL of them in their tribute to FIRSTS. They asked various contributors to write stories about significant firsts that they've had through their lives. Then, they asked me to illustrate as many of them as I possibly could in a week. And so I did. The prospect of this job was daunting but such an amazing concept- I couldn't say no. I have to say, seeing the finished project I am so happy that I sucked it up and went for it.

It ended up that my work ended up not only in the Living section of the paper, but also the FRONT PAGE of the paper and much to my father's delight, the Sports section. The latter is a first of my very own!


Due to the speedy nature of the job I was pretty much given free run on size and shape of each piece by the art director. I was sending them in to the Star as I finished them and so I didn't know what their vision was as far as layout goes. I was blown away by how they fit them all together. It truly looks amazing!


I will be updating my website tomorrow with all of the illustrations from this spread so you can have a closer look at them all. In the meantime here are a few of my favourites.

This one is my ultimate favourite- My first alone.


My first catch.


My first typewriter.


My first brush with death.
My first regret.


I hope you like them! You still have a few more hours to run out and pick up a copy of the paper if you feel so inclined to.

In the spirit of the theme of these illustrations, tomorrow I will share with you the story of a very important first for me- my first published illustration! It's hard to believe that it's already been 7 years since I hit that landmark, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

Now I will go back to nursing my new years hangover. Unfortunately not a first for me.

Auld lang syne to you my friends, and thank you so much for reading my babbles in 2010. I promise some exciting posts in 2011.