An avid fan of the grilled cheese sandwich, I decided to experiment a little (inspired by a delicious lunch from Mangez – thanks Roz!).
This is my homemade grilled cheese with brie, grape tomatoes, and basil pesto on half/olive tapenade on the other half. Both sides = amazing!
I also had to slice it up then flip it so it looks like a heart shape (better picture here); my brother Aaron taught me this important technique. Good for any time of year, but especially Valentine’s day appropriate!
In the spring, my friend Sonya encouraged me to submit an illustration to 3×3 magazine’s seventh annual professional show. Here it appears in the new annual.
Today’s Metro Globe and Mail should contain a supplement featuring this new illustration I created for Paws for the Cause, a dog fashion show and cocktail party benefiting the SPCA. Pick up a copy and find out how you can support!
This week I did a drawing of Leith Clark for her Style Notebook interview. She is the founder Lula magazine, a superstar stylist (um, Chanel?) and overall seems way cool. Read the interview here!
I had to hold off on posting this until I finally picked up a pillow form this weekend.
(If you’re curious, the back looks like this)
Not to be extreme or anything, but since the pillow was hand-pieced and hand-quilted, I decided the entire operation should be free of any machine work, so I hand-stitched the zipper in place, and backstitched the whole thing together, by hand.
A second pillow is almost finished too, but it might be a gift, so I haven’t decided whether or not to post it yet…we’ll see!
This is the last weekend of TIFF 2010 – which means the neighborhood will be getting back to normal soon. Normally I’m really into TIFF one year, and the next generally do not get involved at all. This year was pretty exciting – for the first time I was able to contribute some illustrations – and even some writing on the topic!
This portrait of Nadia Litz is up today on The Style Notebook. It was the first TIFF-related illustration I did this year and was published last. Go figure. Nadia is a Canadian actress who directed the short film, How to Rid your Lover of a Negative Emotion Caused by You!, that debuted at TIFF this year. I didn’t get a chance to see it, but it sounds amazing, doesn’t it? She talks about the film and about her experience directing for the first time here in her interview!
This week I finally saw Black Swan! Well, it’s only been playing at film festivals for a couple of weeks but it feels like forever! It’s been months if not years since they announced that Rodarte was doing the costumes, and then recently the trailer came out – so good!
The movie is sooo Darren Aronofsky, and if you like him, you’ll like the movie, and if you don’t, you won’t. BUT if you love Rodarte and ballet and Darren Aronofsky, then you will feel as do I about the film!
My second attempt at writing has now been published on The Style Notebook – I did a movie review! Pretty crazy. There is a bit of a synopsis, and a bit of fashion. And of course an illustration! Since it was pretty detailed, I decided to post a little cropped piece of it here on the blog. The composition is pretty sparse here, but to see the rest, check it out on The Style Notebook, or on my Flickr.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting the lovely team at Brill Communications PR firm.
On assignment for The Style Notebook, I got fancied up by the Donato salon team at a pop-up salon for TIFF in the Brill Building downtown. Beside fashion editors (including an editor in chief!), fashion bloggers, and a vintage designer clothing boutique owner, I sat, sipping Prosecco and trying to keep a cute Pomeranian away from my double chocolate chip cookie!
Covering this before party make-up session was super fun, and also marks my first attempt at writing (non-school-related at least!) To accompany the writing, I did an illustration inspired by the popular Gaga-esque nail colour by Deborah Lippman called Bad Romance. Looking at it now, the illustration turned out a little saucier than intended?
If you’re feeling kind, here is a link to some self-portraits taken at home at the end of the night, and more importantly, here is a link to the article!
A little while ago I came across a post on the fifi lapin blog about a most fabulous contest she was holding – to draw an outfit for her to wear at an upcoming book launch. I decided to enter because drawing outfits is super fun for me. I put together an original design inspired by an apron dress I made this summer, along with some fun and practical accessories (note the sharpies!)
Contests are always a gamble. For someone who draws for a living, it’s basically doing work for free. And if you win, some publicity might come your way. If you don’t win, at least you get some content for a blog post!
Peace
Well, I don’t suppose this demonstrates process in a strict chronological way. But it does show one thing I like about working digitally, which is being able to play with layers. As one would with different pieces of tracing paper in a traditional sense, you can almost have more fun with in a digital sense, in that you’re playing with colour and various states of being rendered.
Do I like the first image better? In a way I do find it more interesting. Less literal. Her hair implied instead of given. Her mouth highly rendered in comparison to the other components. Imagine creating portraits like this. How would those commissioning a piece react? It might be interesting to play with the layers of finished portraits some more, working backwards in a way, to come up with something different. More interesting? Hmm. Perhaps a future project idea..
This illustration was created for The Style Notebook. Rita Liefhebber is a Toronto designer, and former fashion editor at Flare magazine. Click here to read the interview.
