Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Play 'em off...

...keyboard rabbit.



Sometimes I can't help myself.

Monday, April 26, 2010

New work and new prints!

Now that the Bazaar of the Bizarre has happened, I can finally unleash a bunch of my new work upon the rest of the waiting world... or... something.

Thank you to all who attended!

Check out the Paintings section of my site to view all of the new work that I prepared for, and showed for the first time at, the Bazaar. A couple of pieces sold, but the majority of the new paintings are still available!

Prints that I wasn't able to have ready in time for the show are also now available for order!

These include:

Brown Hare II:


Original painting: $300
Signed print: $20


Angry Circus Monkey:


Original painting: $600
Signed print: $20


Barn Owl II:


Original painting: $850
Signed print: $20


And a couple of smaller pieces, which are available only as originals:

Brown Hare I:


Original: $200


Black Bird XX:


Original: $220


Also, my show at Trap Door Boutique remains on display! Larger black bird paintings, and a VERY large koi painting, remain available there, as well as a wide variety of other, smaller pieces. Check it out if you're planning to be out near the Junction, or even if you're not! :D

Saturday, April 17, 2010

The Bazaar of the Bizarre -- Spring edition!


It's happening again!

On April 25th, 11am-7pm, at the Pia Boumann School of Dance, a collection of vendors including yours truly will be displaying all kinds of wicked, dark, spooky and eccentric wares.

Come out and see!

The official site is here:

http://thebazaarofthebizarre.org/

And the Facebook event page is here. Add it so you don't forget!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#%21/event.php?eid=442238325004

The fall bazaar was FUN, with a ton of great items and some really wonderful people. If you can make it, come by and say hello!

The theme of the event is CIRCUS AND SIDESHOW. My contribution to the theme? An ANGRY CIRCUS MONKEY. Stay tuned!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Confessions of a NERD: Eden makes fan art...

I used to be internet famous. No fooling.

But only among a very particular set...

When I was 14, I started writing Les Miserables fan fiction, and for a couple of years I had one of the biggest websites devoted to hosting it, for myself and for others. This was before fanfiction.net showed up and relieved me of my burdens. But for several years, I wrote stories and parodies and inflicted them upon the (largely uninterested) world.

My interests weren't limited to Les Mis, though. I was a big musical theatre fan, and an avid reader of 19th century French literature (oh the things kids get up to) and The Phantom of the Opera was always very much on my radar as well. As a more visually compelling story and stage play, it was always the more fun one to illustrate via notebook doodles and other methods of time wasting.

Sometimes... I still go through phases.

I made this particular item in mockery of one of the main songs from Webber's Phantom "sequel", which has recently opened in London and uses some serious ret-con to describe a steamy night between the main characters:



Getting back to the Webber's FIRST Phantom stage play, I've always liked the moment that Phantom and Christine have post-unmasking, in which he tries to get her to look at him, but all she can do is avert her eyes and hand him back his mask. That is COLD, woman! I did a little thumbnail sketch of this scene in my book while stalled on the subway the other day, and just this evening, did a rough "pre-ink" clean-up to get my lines sorted. Still needs some work, but here it is so far:



...The Phantom still looks too pretty here, but on stage, only one side of his face is deformed. The finished version of this drawing will have a bit of that peeking out from under his hand. (Bit of trivia: the reason they opted for the half-mask on stage was to allow the actor to still express emotions in his face. Makes for a good compromise, and the Two-Face style deformity has always been pretty compelling.)

...

Okay, now you've seen a little of my true face. My NERDY FAN-ART MAKING FACE. Back to business as usual now... Nothing to see here...

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Full-colour house portrait

I was hired last year to paint a house portrait for some friends of the family. This was my first crack at painting a home from photo reference.

I went to their home on a sunny day and took a few pictures. We settled on this as the final reference shot:


They made a few requests for alterations, which included showing the hedge in its full fall colours. They also wanted the satellite dish and a few minor distrations left out. I also opted to increase the lighting on the side of the house, as it was in heavy shadow in the original shot. I used a slightly looser brush stroke on the surrounding foliage, and put a lot of detail into bringing out the texture of the stones. Here's the finished product:


20" x 30", acrylic on canvas.

Molly: kitten portrait

A slightly looser portrait, this one proved challenging because of the vagueness of the source photo. Still, it was definitely workable, the lack of sharpness and looser pencil strokes give it softness.

Original photo:




Finished drawing:




5" x 7" image on 7.5" x 11" Stonehenge warm white paper.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Me, in the news!

The coverage by Snap Bloor West of my art opening at Trap Door Boutique is now online! It's also in the physical newsletter itself, available for free in many fine stores in the west end. (Inside the very back of the paper.)

Check out the article and photos here.

If you weren't there, you can see all the fun times you missed out on! If you were there, relive the magic. And stuff.