Back in the summer of 2010, I took a photo of myself fake-levitating over a bed of thistles. I called it ‘We are all fragile at times‘. It remains one of my favourite photos to date. This past week, my friend, fellow graphic designer and incredibly talented illustrator, Stephanie Besselt O’Leary, gave me a wonderful gift. It was this illustration — inspired by my photograph. Wow.
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I’ve been having a lot of stress dreams over the past month. So as a way of letting them out of my head, I decided to sketch some of the visuals that stuck with me after waking up. There were a couple of mornings where I couldn’t remember my dreams, but I still woke up with stress weighing me down. In addition to sketching, I also tried to capture the feeling of some of my dreams through photographs. There are times that I wake up in the morning feeling exhausted, because I remember every detail of my dreams and feel as though I’ve been up doing things all night. Other times, my dream memory is foggy or dark around the edges. Anyways, here is a glimpse into the depths of my mind when it’s in a stress dream state. I have to say, it’s not very pleasant.
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For week one of my 365two project, I decided to design a tattoo for myself. I’ve had the idea in my head for a number of years now, so I feel confident that should I ever get a tattoo, that this is the one that I’d get. I would of course need to work with a tattoo artist, as I’m not sure I could have this level of detail (given the size that I’d like the tattoo to be; which is small). Anyways, I’m going to keep the meaning to myself — other than to say that my intention is to include my birth year. For internet purposes, I’m saying that’s the year 1900. But you get the idea.
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I suspect I got into design for the same reason that many other designers did… I loved to draw. I wish I still had one to show you, but when I was a little kid, I used to draw some pretty elaborate farmscapes (house, barn, fences, livestock, rolling hills, sun, etc.). I could never really draw anything out of my head so instead always had to copy a photo or the object/scene itself. In high school art class, my attention to detail started to come out. I didn’t have an illustration style, but I did have a whole lot of patience. I mostly liked working with pencil, or with pen & ink (the dip kind, not the technical kind) and watercolour.
When it came time to decide what I wanted to take in university or college, I sort of wanted to be an archeaologist, but I mostly wanted to do something creative. I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to make it as an artist, so when a friend of my brother-in-law was visiting and told me about graphic design, I was sold. I still had no real understanding of what graphic design was, but I applied to two colleges (Medicine Hat and Red River College in Winnipeg) and was accepted into both. At my RRC interview, it was suggested that I attend the student Open House to see what it was all about. Seeing the work there made me decide to stay in Winnipeg. I remember being really inspired, and finally having a sense of what I was getting into.
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