Fountain pen

It's a fountain pen. It's sketchy line art. It's a little late in the day for my increasingly wrongly named daily illustrations.

Apple core

It's a daily illustration two-for-one day! Based on a discussion about various types of core (yarncore, hardcore and so on), the idea of corecore was brought up. So, an apple core.

The Unicorn Tutorial

I remember my first introduction to nodes and vector-based illustration. When I was about seven years old my father, who was a high school tech teacher at the time, sat me down in front of Corel Draw 3. Up until that day, I had seen the program as a repository of clip art, not knowing what I could actually do with it. He loaded a clip art horse. Everything changed when he showed me the node selection tool. The previously clean line drawing of a horse suddenly had a mass of dots all along its outline. He explained that these were nodes, the points defining the shape of the horse. And then the magical bit: he had me select the node at the apex of the horse's ear. When I clicked and dragged that node, the horse changed. The ear elongated, following my mouse. He instructed me to move the node a little distance and then drop it. The horse was no longer a horse. Elongating that ear had turned it into a unicorn.

Since then, I've learned more about how nodes really work and what can be done with them. But that lesson still sticks in my head. It was an incredibly powerful introduction. It started a (so far) life long love of vectors. A love of all their extensibility, elegance and possibility. So today, I've drawn a horse. It's not quite like how I usually draw. It's just an outline, no shading, nothing fancy. It's a horse with two pointy ears, one of which has a little node at the apex. I've uploaded the .svg file to the Open Clip Art Library (here). If you want, you can download it, open it up with Inkscape or whatever vector manipulation program you use, and turn it into a unicorn. I've put pictures below, so you can see my unicorn. And the next time I talk to anyone about the joys of drawing with vectors, I'm going to start with the unicorn tutorial.

Bow tie

To go with all the previous illustrations of dresses (such as this, this, this and this), I've done something that nods towards male formal wear. Below, a bow tie.

OPEN, colour

The title, I will admit, is slightly misleading. This post has nothing to do with Open Colour in the sense of the Open Colour Standard. This time, it's literal. Having come to the realization that everything I've posted in the last little while has been greyscale, I've decided to remedy the problem. With a neon sign that I drew a while back.

Wind turbine

Below: a silhoutte of a wind turbine. This one is destined to be a stencil, which is why it forgoes detail and shading.

NATO Phonetic Alphabet Book: S-T

Continuing on with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet Book (see previous post), I present to you the letters S and T.

Bison bison

It's Bison bison, the Bovidae so nice, they named it twice. Below, a greyscale, logo-style bison.

Another map of downtown Montreal

Below: I've done yet another map of downtown Montreal. This one details parking lots (dark grey) and the newly defined high parking lot taxation zone (light grey). Visible trend: parking lots in areas with higher property values are discouraged through the use of higher taxes. This goes hand in hand with the current master plan, which aims to densify the central business district.

NATO phonetic alphabet book

I like alphabet books. I like A is for Apple, the making concrete of letters that is accomplished by associating them with things. And of course, I like standards. This is why I'm working up a set of illustrations for an alphabet book based on the NATO phonetic alphabet (you know, alfa, bravo, charlie and so on). Below, some of the first illustrations.

The scribble couch progresses

I'll admit to drawing on furniture. To me, a white couch is an excellent opportunity to do something interesting. So there's the scribble couch. It's perpetually in progress and has been for the last year and a half. Whenever someone comes over, they get handed to fabric markers. At the moment, it's covered in poetry, tic-tac-toe games and some pretty darn nice curvy floral patterns.

Seaplane

Today, a somewhat clip art-y seaplane. A little late in the day, but better late than never.

Old timey hockey player

From the grand old days when hockey players wore real sweaters, sticks were made of wood and everything was in black and white: a distressingly clip-arty hockey player.

Disembodied dress 4

Another dress sans wearer.

Imperfect Snowflake

It's two for the price of one in terms of fast illustrations today. Below, a snowflake which is absolutely and concertedly not perfect.

Disembodied dress 3

Continuing the series of disembodied dresses, here's the aptly named Disembodied Dress 3.

Disembodied dress 2

I started this one last Wednesday and then got side tracked. All told, I think it still comes in under twenty minutes.

CO2 Emissions as smoke puffs

I know smoke stacks are a CO2 cliche, but they work so well. Below is a visualization of emissions from the top 8 worst offenders for the years (from bottom) 1990, 1997 and 2006.

Disembodied dress

I think it's going to be a week of garments.

Habanero Pepper

For no particular reason, a habanero pepper.

Pistachio pattern

Much enamoured of the pistachio I drew earlier, I've made it into a pattern. After all, you seldom see a single pistachio on its own.

Pistachios

I wanted some pistachios but wasn't willing to brave a Saturday afternoon grocery store. Instead, I drew one. Here are two iterations of the same pistachio.

Lemon

Continuing on the sliced fruit theme, a cross section of a lemon. For Alex, because he liked the tomato.

Cory Doctorow: illustration and article

This is the last one, I promise. But I'm incredibly pleased with this illustration and article. The article, based on my interview with Cory Doctorow, appeared in this week's issue of The Link. It's called The Digital Backwater, referencing the sorry state of telecom policy and infrastructure in Canada. And here's the pretty picture that goes with it. The copy editor has dubbed the laurel the Wreathernet. This graphic is significantly bigger than the one on The Link's website, for your zooming pleasure. And, finally, if you want to see the article and graphic as they should be, check out the pdf of this issue.

Tomato

Cross section of a tomato.

Potato Flowers

Now: an illustration of potato flowers. Later: a more substantial post.

Bedbug

I know I said I was going to do plants this week. I know that a bedbug is not a plant. Plant illustrations starting tomorrow. For now, a bedbug.

Wood duck

The last illustration of animal week: a wood duck. Next week, plants, I think.

Lawbot is going to Brussels (without me)

The good folks at Constant are at it again. The Verbindingen/Jonctions 12 festival is coming up, with the theme "By data we mean." Among all the activities slated to take place, there's also going to be a fine array of artwork on display. Our favourite robot sleuth, Lawbot along with Copycat and the leader of The Cabal are going to be in attendance in their fine, digital, text based form. If you're in Brussels between November 21 and 29, be sure to check out what Constant is offering up.

Red Fox

Continuing on with the cute wildlife theme, this morning's illustration is a red fox.

Lop rabbit

This morning, a lop eared rabbit in shades of brown. Looks like it's shaping up to be a week of small animals.

Postcards

Just got a load of postcards back from the printer. I, for one, am pretty happy with them. They'll be making an appearance this weekend at Expozine. There's a pigeon, a hightop running shoe, the island of Montreal and Jean Drapeau. Not necessarily in that order.

Daily illustrations/squirrel

I've issued myself a new challenge. Every morning, I have to do an illustration in less than half an hour. From here on in, they'll all be filed under the "daily illustration" tag. Today, a squirrel.

Panopticoncordia

Because I've yet to kick the habit of drawing Concordia buildings, here's another: the Hall building as panopticon (okay, so it isn't actually a real panopticon, given that it's only looking in one direction, but I couldn't resist calling it Panopticoncordia).

Coping Mechanisms for the Young and Ambitious

Just over a year ago, I posted what I called "A Manifesto for ginger coons." Much of the text of that manifesto is back, in the form of a zine. Now, however, it's called Coping Mechanisms for the Young and Ambitious. Just in time for Expozine next weekend. Photos below.

Menacing PSA Posters

Ontario has some new legislation meant to penalize people who talk on handsets while driving. The two groups most likely to talk and drive are young people and taxi drivers. So, in the fine tradition of alarming and mean public service announcements meant to scare people into compliance, I've made a couple posters.

Popewood

Many authors and artists are said to have cult followings. Margaret Atwood is a fine example of such an author. So, perhaps she should be given the trappings of organized religion. Hence, a graphic I'm calling Popewood.

Isometric Concordia

The farther I get from Concordia, the more I seem to wind up doing representations of it. Below, the major buildings in the Quartier Concordia, towering above a flat downtown.

Student Occupational Hazard Icons

A series of graphics detailing some of the occupational hazards involved in getting a university education:

The results of excess partying on a week night.

The high risk of silly hats involved in excess party, any day of the week.

The crash that comes along with all-night study sessions.