Los Angeles Lakers - LeBron James hits 40,000 Point Milestone

I am excited to share this piece I created for the Los Angeles Lakers. I worked with them on creating this piece to celebrate LeBron James reaching the historic, memorable, possibly unachievable-ever-again (at least in my lifetime), record of 40,000 points in the NBA.

This was shown on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (and possibly other social apps I don’t use) with downloadable wallpapers available on Lakers.com.

It was cool to watch as LeBron reached this milestone and see how the Lakers published the post, and then watch ensuing likes and shares tally into the tens of thousands (217, 000 likes on IG as of this writing!).

The gold jersey version (with alternative starry background). He scored 40K in white, so that was the version that was used.

I’ve always wanted to do illustration work for an NBA team so this was really a dream project. Maybe I’ll be asked to draw LeBron again when he hits 50K points :)

Cottage Weekend : New Narrative and Landscape Illustrations

It may be winter, when I usually work on my winter illustrations, but this year I had a couple of warm weather drawings to finish.

“Back to Nature on the Midnight Bus”

“Back to Nature on the Midnight Bus” is a piece inspired by a mostly-abandoned motel nearby. I wanted to tell the story of two girls who have taken a bus to a cottage for the weekend and they have stopped here for a 15 minute rest stop before the bus continues on its journey. I took many Greyhound buses in my younger days, many of them the midnight bus, overnight journeys that drove through small towns in the wee hours of the night, and they always stopped at these dumpy little spots for breaks and snacks.

Above left is “Below the Dappled Light” and on the right is “Little Dipper.” I think these two pieces go well as a kind of “Cottage Weekend” theme, as perhaps the girls discovered these scenes when they finally arrived at the cottage and went exploring. I myself am exploring a new palette with these pieces, something I am really enjoying and plan to continue working with.

Looking Back On 2023

It is 2024 and somehow it’s been a few months since my last post here. 2023 was a productive year for me, bringing me many new clients and interesting projects. Here are a few projects I enjoyed working on and haven’t shared here.

Denver Nuggets, a collaboration with Ryan Snook

I pitched the idea to fellow illustrator, and my old college classmate, Ryan Snook, that it might be fun to work on an illustration together. I love his playful illustrations and thought they would be an excellent addition to my more figurative work. We didn’t discuss the direction at all before we started. I created the artwork of the two players, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, and sent it off to Ryan, excited to see what came back. Of course it did not disappoint and I love the way his style works so well with mine. I’m hoping we have time for more of this in 2024.

“Manitoulin Alley.” A wedding present for Peter and Emma.

The black and white ink version.

Our friends Emma and Peter were married in Halifax in August. I gifted them the ink drawing of this illustration and coloured it later digitally. They love cats, so I added a little cat into this scene of an alley I photographed on Manitoulin Island over a decade ago. I’d always wanted to draw the scene - the overgrowth, wires and mysterious open door.

Sports for Cincinnati Magazine

This was an enjoyable project for Cincinnati Magazine, drawing a variety of sports and finding a way to make them all look good compositionally.

Reader’s Digest, Spanish Edition

This was such a fun project for Reader’s Digest International. I created this scene depicting the Windjammer Lewis R. French racing along the water. This project seemed right up my alley. It was one of those jobs that just came together exactly as I pictured it.

I’ve been doing portraits on a monthly basis for Business Traveler Magazine. These two faces were in the most recent issue.

Portrait of my wife Chantal

I drew this portrait of Chantal for our anniversary. We’ve been drawing portraits of each other as anniversary gifts every year that we’ve been married. It makes for an exciting reveal and it is fun to look back on previous years to see how our appearance has changed and how our illustration styles and skills have improved in 13 years.

Thanks for reading! I’m excited for many more enjoyable projects this year and sharing them with you. If you’d like to receive my newsletter, subscribe below.

re:porter Flight Map for Porter Airlines

I was asked to recreate the flight map for Porter Airlines’ inflight magazine, re:porter.

I’m always up for a map illustration and when I sat down to sketch this one out, I knew I wanted to add some additional elements to really make it special. It’s a two page spread and would continue to run in each issue of the magazine indefinitely.

I came up with the idea of having a landscape spread across the page at the bottom that encompasses some of the landscape of both Canada and the United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the coastal towns of the Maritimes or New England.

For the map’s location illustrations, this was a fun challenge as I had to decide what would represent the areas on the map. I didn’t want to just include major landmarks from Porter’s destination cities, but to include imagery that represents the areas.

For British Columbia I drew a little VW bus with a canoe on top, a mountain range behind it. Alberta has an elk, Saskatchewan a grain elevator, and so on.

When re:porter comes out in the winter, there will be a new map with some of the more summery images replaced with winter appropriate activities. That was a suggestion I made to the art director that I’m happy he was on board with. It may be a small detail that only a few people notice, but I know I will be happier knowing it better represents the seasons.

I’m looking forward to adding more artwork to this map as Porter expands their destinations throughout the United States.

The printed map with locations and text added.

Some new additions to the winter map

Lost Illustrations From the Archives

I was going through a folder on my computer today when I came across a map illustration from 2019 that I’d forgotten about. I enjoyed the project but it came right before I went on vacation, so by the time I returned home and caught up on emails and started new projects, this map was forgotten. I love drawing buildings and the challenge of arranging them on a map.

Map for San Diego Magazine

I worked with Elisa Glass at San Diego Magazine on this piece and she did a fantastic job making with the pinpoints and inset map information to make it easy to read.

Another project I was reminded about recently was a project for Scientific American last year about innovators in health care. I was contacted again this year for a similar package of innovators who are highlighting environmental inequities and improving the health of their communities. I’ll try and remember to post those when the issue is published. Here are the portraits from last year.

Barbie and Oppenheimer Portrait Illustrations

I had fun with my Mission: Impossible portraits from the last post and I wanted to draw a few more portraits for the other highly anticipated movies of the summer, Barbie and Oppenheimer.

I saw Barbie recently and loved it. I think it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve seen! Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are perfect for Barbie and Ken.

Adding the spinning Mattel starburst was a simple task, and trying my hand at a slightly more complex animation of the Trinity test detonation for the Oppenheimer portrait (Cillian Murphy) was a fun challenge. I used photo reference from the Trinity test and illustrated key frames to try and get a smooth animation. I’ve never done anything like this before so it was all very new to me. I started to really get into the process and thought about adding other effects to the animation such as new lighting effects and more complex shading, but in the end what I really wanted was a simple background animation while keeping the portrait as is. Illustration is my strength, not animation, and while I am hoping to improve on my basic animation skills, I’d like to keep the animation to a minimum which is why I think it works great as a background element on these portraits. It gives an extra little pop and element of interest, and I think this approach would look great on a client’s website, like it does here.

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer

Margot Robbie as Barbie

Ryan Gosling as Ken

Mission: Impossible

I’ve been looking forward to the new Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning movie ever since I saw some behind the scenes footage showing Tom Cruise jumping off a mountain on a motorcycle. I loved Fallout so I’m excited to see if this new one can match the excitement.

Just for fun I decided to do some portraits of six of the movie’s stars: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames and Hayley Atwell.

I added an animated element to the background that gives the portraits some motion that looks a bit like an explosion. I am definitely going to try this out on some future portraits as I really enjoyed seeing how they came together with the animation.

Paintings from England 2023

I took a trip to England in April and made seven paintings. I spent some time in London before travelling to Manchester, and then on to the Lake District, York, and the Peak District. There was no shortage of incredible places to paint. The weather cooperated as well, and as always painting in England is as pleasant as can be.

I’ve gotten into the habit in the last few years of doing drawings at restaurants when I’m travelling. I really enjoy doing it and find it helps me create a different kind of memory of the places I visit and where I eat. Sometimes I’ll include info about what I ate and the cost of the meal which is interesting to look back on after a few years. Here are some of my favourite drawings from restaurants or tea houses. I love capturing my travels through drawings and paintings. I always come away from my trips excited to get back to more painting and drawing in the studio.

Portrait Recap

It’s been a busy few months of drawing portraits. I have so many great clients who I work with regularly and I get some lovely faces to draw. Here are some of my favourites from the last little while.

The first batch is for Tufts University website, showcasing Earth Advocates who are students and graduates working on climate change issues around the world.

The next group are portraits for the Globe & Mail that I do on a weekly basis.

The group of portraits in turquoise circles were done for the LCBO’s Food & Drink magazine.

The very last portrait is for Swiss designer Chris Rohner.

Sketches from Iceland

Iceland was a place I’d wanted to visit for a few years. A few of my friends had gone and loved it and it was about time Chantal and I visited our Icelandic friends in Reykjavik.

We rented a camper van and drove up the west coast, around Snaeffelsnes and across to the Westfjords by ferry. Due to the wind, rain and cold, a few of my paintings were done from the comfort of the van, but we were lucky with some mild weather on a few occasions.

House in Stykkisholmur on the Snaeffelsnes Peninsula. We spent the night here while we waited for our ferry to the Westfjords.

Bjarnarhöfn church, near the Shark Museum on Snaeffelsnes Peninsula.

Óshólar lighthouse, Bolungarvik, in the Westfjords. We witnessed a powerful rockslide just down the road from here.

After working on a few paintings I wanted to experiment in a separate sketchbook and do some ink drawings with minimal colour.

Ink drawings in Stykkisholmur

A building and whale bones in Isafjordur in the Westfjords.

Whenever I go to restaurants I like to bring a small sketchbook and do some drawings while I wait for the food. We didn’t go to a lot of restaurants in Iceland as we cooked most of our meals in the camper van, but here are some of the drawings I did. I enjoy working on these and sipping on beer.

Iceland was a fantastic adventure and having the camper van was a fun experience. We saw the Northern Lights twice and that in itself was worth the trip. I was surprised by the amount of indoor and outdoor basketball courts in Iceland, and I got to play a few times. One of the highlights was the night I played pickup hoops with my friend Arni and a group of Icelandic musicians and artists.

Summit Series Coin for the Royal Canadian Mint

This is a big one for me, a toonie that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Team Canada winning the 8-game Summit Series against Russia in 1972.

Funny enough I am not a hockey fan, and never have been, but I know how much this series meant to people who were alive to watch it and how much it still means to them today. People remember the names, the goals, the plays, and they can recreate them like they just watched the series last week.

Having my coin chosen for this special coin was special and I love the fact that it is actually my artwork on the coloured version of this coin, shrunken down to less than 28 mm. Seeing them in person for the first time was awesome. The colour really pops, and having the pure white background on the artwork really helps everything stand out.

The Mint also produced larger versions of my coin in silver and gold. I have the silver one and it is beautiful. The Mint’s engravers did an excellent job as always capturing the detail of my design and adding their own touches.

Restaurant Illustrations

I illustrated 6 restaurants for Garden & Gun magazine’s feature about southern restaurants.

Paintings from Dorset

I spent 2 weeks in England in April and came away with 5 plein air paintings. All of my paintings are from Dorset, an incredibly beautiful area with amazing coastal towns, manor houses, and lush landscapes.

Before heading down to Dorset I found a new travel watercolour set at L. Cornellisen & Son in London that gave me a few more colours than my previous little Bijou box from Winsor & Newton.

Corfe Castle

I painted this one in Corfe after having a nice cream tea for lunch. I sat in a quiet churchyard on my travel stool. Not too long after starting a few local kids started playing some 90s dance music at the church gate so I had that to listen to instead of the charming sounds of the town.

Helter Skelter on the boardwalk in Weymouth

This painting was way more complicated than I expected it to be. With the angles of the slide, the little lightbulbs and the text, I actually ended up finishing this one at our B&B.

Thomas Hardy’s Cottage

This ranks high on the list of most enjoyable times painting outdoors. This property was so tranquil, the wood smoke coming from the chimney smelled amazing, the flowers in the garden were beautiful and the weather was perfect.

Lyme Regis

This was another enjoyable painting. We sat overlooking the street below and around us people sat at tables eating lunch, so we could smell the amazing pasties people were eating. We ended up ordering a couple ourselves and they were the best we’d ever had.

Montacute House

I couldn’t resist the urge to paint the wibbly-wobbly hedge at this beautiful house. The distorted appearance of these hedges was caused by snow that made them misshapen back in the winter of 1948. They never recovered and were left this way, creating a really fun look.

The most relaxing place to paint.

Rough & Tumble

I worked with art director and designer and friend André Mora on two maps for author Frankie Love’s new series of books, the Coming Home to the Mountain series of romance novels. The first book, Rough & Tumble, is the first to show these maps that help to set the environment for the characters.

I illustrated maps for downtown Home, Washington as well as the larger area that includes Home and the town of Burly, in the Rough and Home valleys.

I’ve been drawing maps for years but this was an especially fun project. Having the maps published in a series of books by a popular author makes it extra fun.

Flying Magazine

I’ve been working on the “I Learned About That From Flying” column for Flying Magazine for a couple years and each project really pushes me to try something new.

With a redesign of the magazine the excellent art director Amy Sledge asked me to switch up my approach from my fully painted illustrations to my ink and digital work. I was happy to make the switch to push myself to work more in that style. I’m really happy with this first go at it.

Commercial Observer Portraits

I illustrated 41 portraits for the Commercial Observer’s Owner’s Magazine.

I took on this same project back in 2012 when I drew 40 portraits. This time I used my “sketchy style” which is a bit looser and faster than my two-tone approach. Funny enough, my wife Chantal has also worked on this same project two times. A few of these top real estate investors are the same people I drew 10 years ago.

Business Minded

I had the pleasure of illustrating 18 portraits for the book Business Minded by Carly Riordan. Carly is a lifestyle blogger and started the popular blog ‘Carly’, as well as Carly’s Book Club.

I enjoyed drawing these 18 entrepreneurs and it was great to receive a couple of contributor’s copies and see them all in print. It’s a really nice book that is an excellent resource for anyone setting up their business, or even to those who have established businesses and who are looking to improve how they work.

You can find some helpful links to buy the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/2255693/carly-a-riordan

New Website

It’s only been a few years since I last redesigned my website but my previous site seemed to have slowed to a crawl. If I didn’t want to wait for the images to load, why would you? This new site design should load much faster which hopefully means you enjoy looking at my work a lot more.

Whenever I redesign my website I think back to my original website back in 2003. I built it myself, sliced it up with clickable areas in Photoshop and made it all work in Dreamweaver. I built this site with Squarespace and it’s incredible how much easier it is to do. I’m grateful to not have to tinker with code, small images and uploading through FTP.