~You might want to buckle up for this month's vlog. It's a bit lengthy but there were just so many things I wanted to share!
Daily Doodles:
I really wanted to get into the habit of drawing every day to help practice my skills, create new ideas and diminish my fear of starting new projects. The first week went really well then I missed the next week. So I've been filling in the missed days and bringing my tiny sketch pad with me everywhere looking for new things to fill it with! I will try to do this for a year or until I run out of pages, so we'll see what happens first!
New Work:
In the middle of September I finished the 2nd part of the Nurture series. It was fun working on her bit by bit on the subway although I'm not 100% happy with how she turned out. I find different yellows hard to distinguish from one another so I will have to try make her again with a more brownish yellow to outline her features. So I decided to list her in my shop anyways at 20% in case this didn't bother someone else. I still trying to decide if I want to add more poses & colours to the series but I know that I definetly want to make them again but much bigger. Right now I make them to be 4x4 inches but I would love to do them at around 12x12.
This month I tried to add a short video focused on one thing in the middle of the month. I probably should've started doing videos like this first and then studio vlogs but oh well, what can ya do? So I'm pretty happy with this speed embroidery of the Waved Spinx moth. Although I didn't mean for the font at the beginning to look like that and the lighting could be much better. I was actually rushing to get it done after work and it gets dark so early now! But I look forward to doing more speed embroidery and hopefully tutorial videos!
Toronto Film Festival:
Ryan was volunteering again at TIFF so we got some free movie vouchers! We went to see Walking on Water.... and it was amazing! But there's more! after they screen the documentary the director and Christo Claude came out on stage after to do a Q & A. It was very surreal to be in the same in room. Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work has always inspired me in so many different ways. I also realized that moving to Toronto was a great decisions because there are some many opportunities like this one that I would've probably missed out on if I was still living in my hometown.
Kensington Pop-Up Market:
This event was pretty nice because the other vendors and organizers were extremely welcoming and friendly. Although I didn't do very well selling my art. I think it was because most people who go to Kensington Market are young, have less money and would rather shop for vintage clothes than artwork. I'm glad I went though to meet new people and understand what sells in that area.
Hard Twist Exhibition:
My friend Karen and I went to the opening reception of Hard Twist 13 at the Gladstone Hotel. It's an exhibition that features solely fibre arts and textile work. The artwork was very unique and it was very inspiring to see the different ways that people are working with textiles. Sometimes I find that people consider textile work to be just craft and not fine art because paintings and sculptures are so highly looked upon. So it's great to see a whole exhibition dedicated just to textile work and gives it the recognition it deserves. Also, Mandy Forbes was showing her work there! She's and embroidery artists I met at the Black Sheep Festival and I'm so excited for her to be apart of this exhibition!
Ketzia Kobrah & Saskia Wassing
Queen West Art Crawl:
This event was really fun! I'm so lucky that I've had such nice weather whenever I did an event outside. I'm also very grateful to my boyfriend Ryan and my mom for helping me set up my booth and keep me company. I found that the first day and earlier in the days people would come to buy art whereas later in the day it was mostly people on their way home from work or people just walking through to check out the art for something to do. Everyone was very friendly and there were so many talented artists there! I also really enjoyed being able to connect with people through my artwork. I find people generally hate or love moths so it's nice when I find people who love them! I would love to do this event again next year and be apart of the Queen West Art Crawl community!
Nuit Blanche:
Last night I went out to Nuit Blanche with Mikayla and some friends. I had never been before but would always hear about it. I don't know if I will go next year, I did have fun but I don't really enjoy large crowds/thought of getting lost at night. My favourite pieces that I saw were; Ancient Forest Alliance by Jennifer Baichwal & Nicolas de Pencier at the AGO and Do Angels Exist by Nadine Bariteau at Larry Shefton Park. I wish we could've been able to see more but I'm not very good at pulling all-nighters!
Inktober:
I'm going to try and do Inktober again. I'm excited but also nervous because last year I think I only made it to day 5. But this year I decided that if I'm going to do it and be happy with my illustrations then I will plan and prep as much I can because that's just the kind of person I am! It will probably also help for me to complete them in chunks versus one a day since I have such a busy schedule in general. I'm really happy I'm doing this challenge to practice my drawing skills and explore more narrative illustration since I always thought it would be cool to create artwork for novels.
Sooo let see if I burn myself out next month! Until next time! 😘