Spring Cleaning

I think I promised that this would drop last week, but it's been quite busy of late which is always a nice problem to have.

This was created for a postcard promotion that went out last month. Below is the bonus accompanying wallpaper. Click it to download the hi res image.

Masthead Spread for Turtle Magazine

Hey, if you check out the March/April issue of Turtle Magazine then you can see the above illustration featured on the masthead spread. It accompanies a poem by Suzanne Wenk.

Stripping for Spring

To celebrate the coming spring I created this and another piece which will be debuted here next week (check back soon!). After living in Edmonton for 4 years and then moving back to Ontario, spring seems so early now! Man I hate winter.

 

You can see from the original sketch below that I made a few adjustments to the final piece. I eliminated the naked winter tree and gave the snowman a scarf to help the visual flow from left to right which is really important in this piece. The scarf also helps tie in the gold colour throughout the entire image. The tree was a case where something looks good in a sketch but is obviously out of place once seen in colour.

As an added bonus, this piece has also been made into a handy desktop wallpaper that you can download in full size here.

Sweater Be Gone!

It's been a while since I've had the chance to participate in an Illustration Friday topic, but I have a very slight lull for about a day and so I had the opportunity to do a sketch for this week's topic of "sweater". It was inspired by the fact that we've had a couple days of unseasonably warm weather, and I have the urge to run outside and shed clothing much like in the piece. Don't worry neighbors... I won't actually do it.

Once finished I'll be using this piece for a promotional email next month to celebrate spring, and as my new homepage header at The I Spot. Check back next month because I'll also post the finished product here.

Retro Pixel Background for Keep the Heat

To celebrate hitting 500,000 subscribes Alex of YouTube's Keep the Heat fame commissioned this fresh new background. It was a fun challenge since I had never created anything with this pixelated look before but I think it came out great.

Working with Alex is always a good time since he always has a fun new idea. I'm glad that I'm his go-to illustrator!

Toothless Illustration for Humpty Dumpty Magazine

If you check out the new issue of Humpty Dumpty Magazine you'll find my work on the back cover. The piece accompanies a poem by Jody Jensen Shaffer called "Toothless". Below you can see some of the concept sketches. The first attempt (far left) came out a bit too scary looking to be age appropriate so I created two more sketches as options and we went with the latter one.

2011 Winter Wallpaper

It took a while for me to get around to this with workload, Christmas holidays, and a new baby in the house, but here it is at last, a fresh new wallpaper for 2011. If all goes well I'll have 3 more this year - one for each season. So please check back in April for the next installment.

Since Blogger limits image sizes to 1600x1000 pixels, go here if you'd like to download the full size wallpaper.