My OCAD interview went good. Nothing terribly exciting (except for the one reviewer that shared his love of Arrested Development).
I don’t know what my status is yet though. Apparently they’re sending out emails in the next couple weeks. So at least I won’t have to wait too long.
My interview is tommorow. This is my (slightly longer than 250 words) admissions essay. Wish me luck please!
I have always loved visual culture.
I just don’t think I realized that there was a discipline that spanned it all.
Then one day I stumbled upon the world of graphic design and illustration.
This is a world that I am now immersing myself in, and becoming completely fascinated with.
I am obsessed with: graphic novels, illustrated blogs (I happen to have one), vectors, comic strips, Blythe dolls, small press publications, DIY, creative graphic design, typography, library pop, bright colours, female auteurs, repurposed art supplies, and the new wave of illustrative art movements like Japanese Super Flat, and SoCal Lowbrow (not to mention all the wonderful stuff that’s going on right here, right now, in this very city).
I want to write and illustrate my own graphic novel, and children’s books. I want to animate. I want to design my own toys. I want to do illustrations for forward thinking magazines and other publications. I want to have shows in galleries. I want people to wear clothing with my drawings on them. I want to design concert posters and album covers, and packaging for beauty supplies and board games.
I want to come up with new ways for people to discover art and design in their everyday lives.
I love working in many mediums, digital and traditional. Mostly though, I like to fill black lines in with bright colour (maybe it’s a throwback to my colouring book days). I love the exciting versatility of vectors. I worked as the illustrator of a student newspaper (The Brock Press) for a year, and when you don’t know what size your finished illustration is going to be printed at vectors are an absolute godsend (not to mention how crisply and cleanly they print out).
I want to accomplish so many things.
I want to create a whole world in my own style.
I want to satiate my desire for more knowledge and inspiration.
I even want to go to work and learn, everyday inside that amazing, frightening sculpture floating in the sky.
I want to go to OCAD for Illustration, and no place else.
My favourite preliminary sketch for my sofia coppola portrait.
I think she looks most like her self here.
I got my hair majorly cut in preparation for “the interview.”
It is once again, a cute bob: but a very short, very trendy, Coupe Bizzarre, Queen Street bob.
I’m aware Robin Black used to (still does?) work there, and yes I went there any-ways.
I was very specific about there being absolutely no asymmetry though. I can not handle sweepy, in my eyes, “emo hair.” That would just be going too far.
And then I would have to get a MySpace.
And I already have a LiveJournal.
Actually, it’s kind of Sassoony. Which I don’t mind at all.
I seriously just went to the place because it was 2 blocks away.
I am having a hard time finding the ideal place to sit and drink warm, non-alcoholic beverages.
My biggest beef is that everything independant closes early, like around dinnertime. I must be weird, because I like going to have a tea and a brownie at prime time. Why is that so weird cafe owners of Toronto?
Alternative Grounds has the bestest, bestest coffee - but looks like it was decorated in a single fell swoop of a nearby value village.
I am all for vintage, but it just feels a little too… hippy? Grimey? Grungey? Hmmm, actually alternative is a pretty good way to describe it.
Then there is the polar oposite: Balzac’s in the Distillery district.
It’s a beautiful space, with a good selection of yummy pastries, but has horridly strong coffee (that literally makes me sick) and is filled with entitled old geezers (who had just got out from a production of Our Town and tried to steal our drinks).
Not cool.
Admittedly, they both beat going to Starbucks (St. Catharines only decent coffee option, and more specifically, the place that employed me for 6 miserable months).
Here she is, although not exactly in all her glory.
Due to a combination of a crappy camera and weird, late-winter, city sunlight the colours are totally off.
She is bigger than I have usually work (since I usually work in a little sketchbook) approximately tabloid size, and mixed media (in case you couldn’t tell).
This is an idea I’ve been mulling around for a long while now: a portrait of someone who inspires me, in a really illustrative style (something that would work in a magazine as a cover or with a profile). I’ve started off with Sofia Coppola, and I may even go on from here and do a series of these.
If I get ambitious.
Which I don’t tend to.
The closer I get to my actual interview for OCAD (one week away!!!), the lighter I feel.
I still have some nagging doubts, and of course my own resident lack of self confidence in my own abilities (I am learning that this is something pretty much every artist ever experiences).
But I’m starting to feel better.
Of course, by the day of the interview, my stomach will probably be twisting itself into some fun pretzel shapes… but for now things are going good.
I actually got a major piece done for my portfolio, which I am very, very happy with. The concept has been bouncing about in my head and my sketchbook for weeks now, so I am pleased that it finally found it’s way out onto illustration board.
It was kind of a major block.
Worrying and fussing over this one drawing.
The time and worry was worth it though, because I think it’s turned out beautifully. I think it really expresses what I want it to express, and is indicative of my newish personal style I’ve been developing - but is also a bit of an evolution from where I’ve been (and if I say all this, just like this, in my interview that’d be cool too - exposition is good).
I actually feel a bit of that happy feeling people talk about with the birth of a new creation.
I will probably post pictures later.
My very first concert poster!
I will fully admit to stealing the image off the internet, but this was a last minute, for internet purposes only kinda-dealie.
Hopefully next time, I’ll have the time to actually illustrate something pretty.
Hopefully, there will be a next time.
Also, see this article in the star and the band’s myspace.
I hoping we’ll make it to the party, but we have to decide between it, and a Rhett Miller show at the exact same time a few blocks away.
Inebriated Jews, or adorable alt country boy…
It’s gonna be a tough choice.
Addendum to that last post:
We were bored today, so we checked out Kensington market. We were intrigued by the concept of large enough quantities of delicious cheese to fill at least one store.
The cheese shop: smelly and unimpressive.
The cheese shop boys: smelly and unimpressive.
Later, we overheard:
A gay best friend who was carrying his best friends baby in a snuggler:
“That bed is sooooo Sigourney Weaver in The Ice Storm.”
FYI:
It wasn’t. The bed was mid-fifties Scandinavian modern. The ice storm was set in the mid-seventies middle America.
You’re a gay best friend, if you’re going to cross-reference your pop cultural references to your knowledge of interior design, do it properly.
In related news:
Rebecca Eckler has a blog. In which she discusses how her nanny can afford Prada, and her 2 year old gets 140 dollar haircuts. I am not linking to it, because I don’t want to make anybody yak. If you really want to see it, or don’t know who I’m talking about, you all know how to use Google.
Today, Toronto made me want to yak.
What happened to you Toronto? You used to be cool.
About the whole: cheese debacle.
It seems wherever you find speciality food shops, you find pathetic yuppies who romanticize the bohemian lifestyle of the minimum-wage food-service workers who are employed there.
See also:
Clafouti,
Record stores,
And every barista working at every gourmet coffee shop ever (I should know, I was one).
Ladies:
The real reason these boys are not going home with you, probably has a lot to do with the fact that they (without a handy employee discount) can not afford the pretentious, overpriced gourmet goods that you are so willing to waste your time and money on.
Lose 20 pounds, acquire a new wardrobe at your nearest thrift/vintage shop, buy these kids a case of 50 and give them a lead on a gig for their band, or a new media job that pays more than 8 dollars an hour and their heart is yours.