nicole's art and life corner

Christmas goodies!

2011-12-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

So much fun! I love making these. For Christmas, I've been creating accessories with sculpey. I have a few ideas for some other ones, and I'm hoping to sell some too! Hit me up if you want to buy some or have a request!
nautilus.neko@gmail.com

Self Portrait of sorts

2011-12-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

Just something I doodled last night while listening to music. I guess it kind of turned into something Jen Prior-esque. Yay for doing art outside of school!!

Drunk Stepfather

2011-12-10T13:00:00.001-08:00

Another Thesis piece under the belt! The Wilde quote is "Children begin by loving their parents, after a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them". I'm mostly happy with this, but I feel like I will probably rework it later on.probably the arm throwing the mug.

Raaaawwwrrrrr

2011-12-06T10:01:00.001-08:00

This is Hodwar, the Howling Swamp Monster. He wants all your office supplies!!!
He is my prototype for business class. Hopefully I can make a better version to cast in resin, so I can make multiples to sell!!

life draws

2011-12-05T12:49:00.001-08:00

Just handed these in today. I took these crappy photos with my cellphone, I didn't have my camera with me. I'll take better ones when I get them back. I feel like these are getting closer to how I want to work, but they still feel somewhat unresolved..

Queen Victoria Teapot

2011-12-03T20:46:00.000-08:00

Just messin! :D

Art Dumpage

2011-12-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

Yeeaa art dump!!! Just some life drawing/paintings im working on, hopefully I can finish them for monday....

New thesis piece

2011-12-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

Yay, I finally have more things to upload!! I feel like the next time I post is going to be a massive art dump. This one is a take on Wilde's quote, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go." This time instead of creating a human character I opted to focus more on the interior life and the impracticality and sheer volume of their furniture, and how they really valued material possessions. They kind of said a lot about your value as a citizen.

I had a lot of fun with this one too, I'm really striving to push myself with mixed media.

The Mortician: finally finished!

2011-11-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

Whew! I've been working like mad at my thesis project, going through a lot of changes and revisiting pieces I submitted, I wasn't satisfied with the level of completion I'd left them at. This is the third piece in my series, and I had two Oscar Wilde quotes in mind when composing this scene: "This suspense is killing me...I hope it lasts" and "I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead". They made me envision a really morbid, dark individual. Also lots of the food in the victorian era were tainted with pollutants and toxins, making a lot of people quite ill.

All work and no play...

2011-11-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

Yay hand monster!

So recently my school work (mostly my thesis) has been gradually transforming me into a hermit, and I've been almost entirely just been focusing on schoolwork, no art for fun. I got fed up today and doodled this up pretty quick. I'm kinda liking it so far but it has a looong way to go. But I'm happy that I'm learning in photoshop...gotta keep trying :)

First thesis piece

2011-09-23T18:10:00.001-07:00

Hey! Finally finished my first piece for my 4rth year Illustration thesis. I'm working on a project illustrating quotes by Oscar Wilde about the Victorian era. I love that time period and I also find the dualities of good and bad kind of crazy and horrible and humorous all at the same time. This first piece has two quotes. On the left is "The one charm about marriage is that a life of deception is necessary for both parties", so the husband is leaving for work unaware that his wife is having an affair with the young fellow in the corner, while later on we see the husband on the right being pulled into a questionable establishment, and the quote is "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. I can resist anything but temptation". There's a lot I like about it but I do need to tinker with it a bit more before it's finished. Onwards to the next piece!

Wow, it's been a while...

2011-09-23T17:58:00.001-07:00

So in my frazzledness forgot to upload the image of the first painting I completed for my co-op this summer!! Again it was for the Crowley centre, in NDG Montreal, its 30"x60" in oil paint. My gosh I had forgotten how much of a challenge this medium is after using acrylic for so long!! In hindsight I realize I went kinda crazy with all the colours, weird how my paintings always look like rainbows.. just need to keep at it and try to balance more. I want to do more oil but it's so messy and stinks! I also try and wear a gasmask and latex gloves while im using it but I get so sweaty that it's almost unbearable.. anyway that's it :)

Sunbathed Illusions

2011-08-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this one for a few weeks now, I got inspiration for this one, walking to my parent's bathroom one day and caught the sun-cast silhouette of the window. I thought to myself, that would be a pretty cool idea for a painting, a sort of ambiguous space, is there a person in the window or not? Does this room exist? The cosmos part is kind of an ode to my good friend Innah Park, her paintings almost always feature galaxies, starry skies, and I feel it adds an element of otherworldliness to the image.

sketching at all hours of the night

2011-08-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

I'll admit I'm starting to go loopy from lack of sleep...need some honk-shus.

Final Painting for co-op

2011-08-04T21:29:00.001-07:00

Hi guys, here's a preview for (probably) what will be my last painting at the Crowley Centre, god willing. I went through a few colour combinations and roughs to get to this one, I like it the most. We'll see, I'm still waiting for my boss to confirm.

Late Night Daenerys Targaryen

2011-08-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

Stayed up late tonight to practice some photoshopping and anatomy, I've wanted to draw Dany for a long time, she's a really beautiful character (and actress!), and Game of Thrones is an amazing show. If you're not watching it now, you should be. There are a few really iffy areas that make her not look like her, so I'm gonna keep working on it. Will post finished version soonish..

Stevie Ray Vaughan

2011-07-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

One more portrait for my co-op, this one is of the guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan. I may add him holding a guitar, but I like it as it is as well.

Digital and watercolour.

Joni portrait

2011-07-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick portrait done for a potential piece at my co-op this summer, I'm trying to squeeze in a few of these.
Watercolour and digital sketch/painting, photo collage

Finished Two Dancers painting

2011-07-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

For the past 2 and a half weeks I've been working on a large painting for my work co-op, which will go in the lobby on the first floor. It's turned out nearly exactly like the rough, I'm quite pleased with it, although it's quite different from how I usually depict figures; but I've wanted to work more abstractly in certain instances anyhow. Now onward to the next one!!

Painting for Crowley Centre WIP

2011-07-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

(Click on image for entire scope)

So I've been working on this piece for about 3 weeks, it doesn't look like it from this angle but its a 7'' canvas Im working on, one of the biggest I've made in a long time. It represents the dynamism of dancing and performance, as Nick wanted something with lots of bright colour and energy. It's nearly done, just a few details to add in/tweak.
For those curious it's in acrylic.

New personal painting

2011-06-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I finished 2 weeks ago. I was reflecting on the digital/technology age and how we hide behind it because we are afraid of showing people our true selves and face who we really are. I also wanted to paint a mysterious figure, and what started out as a vague face of a woman, I interpreted as a modern-day Medusa. I think mythology is really interesting and holds so much inspiring facets, I may continue with this and make some similar paintings.

Material: Acrylic on Canvas

Charity painting about healing

2011-06-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

I finished this one a while ago but I've been taking a short break from socializing online (my co-op is challenging and draining a lot of my energy) but here we are! One of my friends/past schoolmate/former coworker approached me in January/February to do a painting for the Relay for life charity, held on June 17th. They wanted something that spoke of strength and healing, and this is what came out of it. I was painting a model in class one day, and the lighting was really interesting. It was all orange and glowy, as if she had light emanating from her.

There will be an auction for the painting and all the proceeds will go to the charity.

Cyber Cowgirl W.I.P.

2011-04-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

Still working on this, it was a really fun project. Our last one-week project in Interpretive class was to "draw a cowboy", open concept. I took it in the character-design direction, a female bad-ass cowboy who's as rough and tumble as they come. Her design is a mix of cowboy and some samurai details, it's one of my favorite combinations (I'm not gonna lie, Red Steel really comes to mind when I look at this). I might do another colour variation or digital edit of her.

Graphite and Acrylic on Illustration board.

new painting

2011-02-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

Yay! I haven't painted in acrylics in a little while, it was starting to drive me nuts! I started this painting during the xmas break but I started working on other stuff so this got left aside for a bit.

mysterious face

2011-02-11T14:43:00.000-08:00

Just another digital messing around :) I admit I was feeling a little gloomy. I like the result though :)

Flamebot

2011-02-11T14:36:00.000-08:00

Just messing around a few nights ago, and this little dude popped out :D One of my fav digital expirementations to date!

YarnTastrophy!

2011-02-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

This is a mixed digital/tradtional piece I did for the "Recipe" project in Interpretive class. I went for the invasion of yarn and craft making! It truly takes over your living space!

Cyber Nature

2011-02-03T22:26:00.000-08:00

This is the painting that I was slaving over last semester and finally finished it before Winter break (while working on another painting simultaneously). It's in acrylic on canvas.

San Francisco trip part two

2010-08-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

On our second day in SF, we booked a really great tour of the city and Muir Forest (the Redwoods). We spent half the day touring around in Elie's Green Dream tour bus, which uses bio-fuel. It was super entertaining and he had lots of awesome local info, like SF is one of the greenest cities in terms of fuel used (many buses use electricity, bio-fuel) and stores a certain size and larger have to use paper bags, no plastic. The redwoods were a breathtaking stop, the forest is a peaceful, quiet refuge from the city. Unfortunately we only got to spend 40 minutes there, we would have stayed longer.

Unfortunately it was really foggy that day (as it was most days) so the Golden Gate was half-obscured. Still amazing though!!

We couldn't believe how tall some of the trees were :D

One of the city's famous streetcars. We didnt get to ride one (though we rode a cable-car, somewhat less theatric)

It doesn't look like it but the hill we had to climb during the tour was insanely steep. It had 3 levels, and we were almost out of breath after the 1st one!!

At the top of the hill was the "world's crookedest street" which is in fact the 2nd, not the 1st. Still really crazy though!!

We loved these trees, they looked like they were made with cookie-cutters!!

We stopped in Haight-Ashbury on the tour for a bit, they have all these awesome Victorian-Edwardian houses, and really silly shops. We spent half a day there later in the week.

The very famous "postcard row", a block of Victorian houses that feature in a lot of movies and sitcoms if I'm not mistaken, and as the name implies, on many postcards and souvenirs. One of them was for sale at around 5 million $. o__o

Then we visited the Castro area, their "gay village". Its a really nice neighborhood, less threatening than the main downtown area we were staying in. Again a lot of funny shops, with some obvious "themes" going on.

I thought this was a winner painting, I just had to have a shot with it XD

Innah found some rather risqué ads on the telephone posts. These were pretty typical of the area, as were sex shops. There were 3 in a row at one point, kinda reminded me of Ste. Catherine's!

To top everything off, Elie raffled off some tickets to a local show and gave us discount cards to some of his friend's businesses. Innah guessed right on one of his trivia questions and we won them! At first we weren't sure about it since the show was a "Didgeridoo concert", but it turned out to be one of the most fantastic shows either of us had been to. It was experimental, intimate (small-ish venue, it was a jazz club called Yoshi's) and I had some delicious berry tea, steeped in a pot that lasted the entire performance. Truly an amazing 2nd day!!

This guy, Ondrej Smeykal, was doing all kinds of space-surreal sounds, at certain points almost sounded like electronica!! I enjoyed his music the most.

Innah and Nicole's amazing SAN FRANCISCO trip part 1

2010-08-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

One day this summer I randomly said to Innah, "man I want to go to California! We should go this summer!!" but I was only half-serious about it, being pretty broke and trying to save up for school. About a week or so later her dad said, well if you want to go you can stay at Innah's uncle's. I was immediately all over the idea and we started looking for cheap tickets and we decided we would stay in San Francisco for a week, at the beginning of August. A few weeks passed and Innah's uncle told us he would be out of town, so we wouldn't be able to stay anymore. At first we were kind of disappointed, thinking we'd have to throw out our plans, but (I forget who got the idea) we decided to look up hostels and stay in the city instead of staying in San Jose at her uncles. This proved to be one of the best changes as it is a 50 mile drive from his house!! We forgot to take photos of the hostel but it was super awesome, almost like staying in a hotel. We got a private room all nights except for one, it was tidy and had a super cool atmosphere, and the building itself was a sight to see.

I really wish we took photos of the interior and our room, it was a pretty cool place.

Other than the flights, everything could not have gone better. Air Canada and United pretty much dropped the ball on us, both ways our flights were delayed. We waited 2 hours in Trueau airport when they told us our fight would arrive 2 hours late, resulting in us missing our connection to SF. Then on the way back our flight was 30 minutes late to leave, and we only had 30 minutes at Vancouver's airport to pick up our luggage, go through customs, then re-check our bags. It was one of the most nerve-racking experiences. We missed our flight back home, and the only one available was an 11:45pm flight. It was just 3:30pm, and I was like HELL NO. We marched around the airport to customer service, and after heckling with the lady at the desk she got us vouchers to stay in a nice hotel in Vancouver. Kind of stressful but a nice extra day for the trip (we got to stay at the Radisson and we ventured downtown for some Japanese food). Going back to our departure, we decided to stay at Innahs and took the flight to SF the next morning. Fortunately it was a direct flight so we got there in 6 hours. Also the fun thing was that we left at 8:20 am and got there at 11:30 their time, so we enjoyed the extra hours of our first day by walking to Union Square (the main area of downtown with the posh stores) and Chinatown, which didn't feel as big as I'd read as it was one street that stretched on for a while, instead of a few interconnected streets. But it didn't disappoint, we got lots of cool photos, visited a few neat stores and ate some delish chinese fare:

One of the cool odds-and-ends stores in Chinatown

I got to see a few sweet graffitis, this one was pretty cool although not the best. I still like the photo anyways.

Innah and I thought this was pretty crazy and awesome!!

The colours of some of the buildings are super crazy, our eyes almost exploded o__o kinda felt like we were in Miyazaki's Spirited Away!!

Blog restart..

2010-08-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Man I can't believe it's been almost a year since I've updated this thing!! As you can imagine, loads have happened since then. Long story short: I finished my 1st semester of 3rd year at Sheridan college, took a semester off, painted and drew my ass off to prepare for the Beaconsfield art exhibition which got cancelled due to rain *bawwww*, then participated in an arts + crafts fair in Montreal-Ouest, sold a painting there, got approached by the same person to show my work in her cafe (pending for September, I will update when it happens), went to SAN FRANCISCO for the first time for a week with my awesome pal Innah, and now I am getting ready to go see SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD for a second time.

*whew!!*

Hmm hmm, Diddley-do

2009-10-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. havent written anything in a long time. Actually the first post wasnt a post at all!

Facebook is lame, they dont seem to have a journaling section like this. Anyways. So I've been at Sheridan since the 2nd week of September. Things have been...strange. I couldnt say if its mostly positive or negative, I have lots of mixed feelings and my depressive brain tries to take over and feel sorry for itself, so maybe what I perceive as bad experiences are in fact not.

Gotta keep on trucking..

hyperventilates I HAS A ZBLOGGGZZ

2008-12-18T07:54:00.000-08:00

Wow....

I NOW HAVE A BLOG
=
Ive reached the 21st century!

*puts on space helmet*