Monday, March 30, 2009

Go James Go!


It's been rather hectic as of late, I've got tons of things that I could blog about, it's finding the time to do it that seems to be rather difficult... aside from work, Karate, GDC and social commitments, I've become addicted to Xbox/Xbox LIVE... ;P

Anyhow, I received a package from Amazon in the mail last week which, amongst other books, contained the Mail Me Art book shown above and below (sorry for the crappy pics).


You might recall (if you frequent KALAMAFRAZ), that my good friend, local designer, illustrator and Kyokushin Karate-ka, James Gillespie submitted http://kalamafraz.blogspot.com/2008/11/mail-me-art-going-postal.html a piece for the Mail Me Art project sometime ago... well, the book finally arrived in my mail box! Excerpt from the Mail Me Art website:

Mail Me Art is a British-based project, run by Darren Di Lieto, the founder and co-editor of the illustration news portal the Little Chimp Society. Over the course of a year, the Mail Me Art project brought together a vast collection of artistic work sent in the form of mail by both professional and amateur artists of all ages from across the world. A wide variety of media were used in an equally wide variety of styles and the work arrived on everything from postcards and envelopes to boxes and pieces of wood.

Contributions have included work by internationally-renowned illustrators such as Dan May, Michael Slack, Jon Burgerman, Kristian Olson, Catalina Estrada and Jeff Miracola and in total there have been in excess of 600 pieces of mail art submitted to the project.



Of course, I had to ask James to autograph his page in the book, he was also nice enough to honor my request for him to include a sketch (of a naked space monkey?). So you there you have it! Good stuff James! Keep it up bud!

For those of you who are interested in learning more about the Mail Me Art project, visit the Mail Me Art website at http://mailmeart.com/ - perhaps I'll submit something for Mail Me Art Two... I'll be sure to keep you posted. ;)

Cheers!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Spring is in the Air...


Well, you know that spring is just around the corner in Winnipeg when (said with tongue-firmly-in-cheek):

- the potholes out number the cars on the street
- sidewalk pedestrians are seen doing 'the shuffle step'
(both to avoid slipping on icy sidewalks and all the other crap that surfaces when the snow melts)
- the GDC Manitoba e-News arrives in your inbox... ;)


The GDC Manitoba Chapter proudly presents the first inaugural edition of the GDC Manitoba e-News. Put together by the exceptionally talented, designer, illustrator, photographer, blogger-extraordinaire, Jeope Wolfe (MGDC, GDC Manitoba Chapter Communications Chair), this issues covers a wide range of articles/topics...


...such as Rob and Ian's recent trip up to the high artic for a photo-shoot for The North West Company.

Check out the e-News for yourself, here - enjoy!

Cheers!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Forks Market 7th Annual Art Festival and Auction...


I was at the Forks Market this past weekend, where the 7th Annual Art Festival and Auction was in full swing. The Festival saw Red River College second-year graphic design students create original works of art using a variety of drawing and painting techniques at the Forks Market Centre Court; they had less than 24 hours to complete their work before the pieces were auctioned off to the highest bidder!

Proceeds from this year's event are to benefit Winnipeg Harvest and the RRC Graphic Design Students’ Graduation Fund. A live auction took place Sunday March 8 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Steve Vogelsang was the auctioneer.



It was great to see all the folks come out and support the students (there are a couple more pics on my Flickr, here)! It brought back fond memories of my own experience with the Festival during College. I'm sure that my classmates would agree (for the most part).


A mixed media conceptual exploration for the piece I did, still resides on my studio wall at home... if I recall correctly, the final piece didn't end up looking the exact same... I think the paint was still wet when it went to auction. I'll have to check with my classmates... maybe one of them has a pic? ;P

Congratulations to all the participants, faculty and volunteers, it looked to me like it was a great event, as always! Looking forward to seeing the graduating shows this year - cheers!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Life is...


Crazy.

Apologies for the radio silence... but, things have been crazy as of late. I hope to be retuning to more regular postings soon... stay tuned! ;)

In the meantime, here's a little music video treat (a favourite of mine), Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, watch the embedded video above or check it out, here - via Google Video.

Cheers!