MOVES.

Hey Internet,

It looks like it's finally time for me to abandon this here blog. I've updated my website, (with a lot of tears and cursing) to wordpress, and I'd like to have everything all nicely consolidated. If, perchance, anyone actually reads this blog who isn't directly linked to it BY ME, then you should probably update your links and stuff.

CLICK HERE TO MOVE INTO THE FUTURE

Pattern!!

I made this here pattern for some endpages and figured maybe I'd let you see. Of course, it stars my beloved Panties (the cat).

Fire truck.

I did this painting yesterday for some practice. I've always had a more difficult time drawing anything that wasn't people, and even more so, anything that has straight lines. Hopefully you can expect to see more little doodles like this (this is about the size of my iphone) in the future. Maybe I'll have so many I'll have to sell them just so I can walk around! Speaking of which, you can get a print of this (or a card, or a t-shirt, or an iphone case) at my Society 6 shop.

Erin.

I forgot I drew this for my (almost) brother-in-law's birthday a little while back. One day I might colour it, but if I'm honest with myself, probably not.

Buy Stuff

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but YOU (yes, you) can now get prints (and other gadgets) of my Deadly Plants series from my Society 6 shop! Each piece is available in all the goodies! Christmas is coming up, I know this because the store I work at is already full of holiday products, and what says "I love you" more than a picture of something poison is made from. Hey, you could take it one step further and lace each product with a tincture derived from it's namesake! How sweet of you.

Framed Art Print (also available unframed) various sizes.

 Greeting card (5x7)

 iPhone cases models 3-5

Black Math.

Deadly Nightshade, gouache, 5x7 in, $200

Mandrake Root, gouache, 5x17 in, $200

Wolfsbane, gouache, 5x7 in, $200

The show is up until the end of October, if you live in Toronto head on over to the Steam Whistle Brewery and take a peek. I have to say, I'm super proud of all my friends, this one is a particularly good show, the art of such high calibre, it's a little astonishing that most of us are not making a living off this stuff!

Sadly I forgot to take ANY photos at the opening. I'm a bit flakey like that. The frames these guys are in are actually pretty nice, gently roughed up by my fiancé. They are for sale, and any inquiries can be directed to my email (britt@brittwilson.com). When the show comes down I will probably also be offering these as prints.

BLACK MATH!

 Hey guys! I'm frantically gathering my crap together to hang some paintings at the Steamwhistle brewery for a show opening this Wednesday. If you're around you should come out and take a peep at these poisonous plants I've painted. I've decided to reveal the Mandrake Root, but you'll have to come out (or wait til thursday when I blog them) on Wednesday night to see the other two!

THIS mag.

Hot diggety! Thanks, Lauren, and THIS mag for saying such nice things!

A Saucy Opening.

The Expletive Show opened Friday, and apparently did awesomely! A big thanks to everyone who came out and even more thanks to those who got in the spirit by wearing a saucy shirt. There are a bunch of events going on in the space for the duration of the show. Head over to Light Grey Art Lab  for details if you're local to Minneapolis. There are a poop-tonne of other amazing and naughty type-treatments. I haven't seen them all, but I got a peek when I browsed through this flickr set from opening night. Really I just wanted a piece of those big cookies.

I'm working on some fun things currently, which I'll have evidence of later this week perhaps.

I'd also like to add a thanks to everyone who has bought a copy of my book so far. I've realized now that I was very naive in thinking that the hard part would be making the content! Slogging the thing is proving to be the most difficult and stressful part.

Fall Comix Class

Contact Little Island for info on price or to register (Phone: 416-901-7489 E-mail: mail@littleislandcomics.com).  I'm really hoping I get some older kids this time around so we can get more into the nitty gritty of things.

Also if you're in the hood, the Expletive Show is opening tomorrow at the Light Grey Art Labs! My raunchy swears will be all over prints for you to purchase and put on the walls of your house. I might have let the cat out of the bag on showing you guys the whole print early... but I swear I read and re-read an email saying I could... OH WELL. You guys can keep a secret, right?

Expletive Poster Show.

Buy a print of this sucker at the up and coming Expletive Typography Exhibition and Poster Show : Ugly words to admire at the Light Grey Art Labs in Minneapolis! Hopefully I'm not posting this too early... Anyway, the show opens on Sept 14, 7-10 pm. Sounds like it'll be a fun party, if you go, wear that shirt hiding in the back of your closet because it has swears on it. I think they'll like, give you something. If you do. Anyway, it was really fun trying to decide what things to say, thanks to Vicki Nerweinis for helping me out.

Tumblr.

I'm not leaving. I promise. I've had a tumblr for a long time, but I don't particularly like the way the damn thing works, or doesn't work, or whatever. But I can't ignore that, well you know, everyone is there, having fun. Without me. So maybe I've gone over to the darkside. I don't know.

I think in the end, tumblr will end up just another place for me to post random instagram pictures. All the meaty posts will still end up over here. Tumblr sucks for meaty posts.

If you'd like to follow me over there, I'm brittwilson.tumblr.com/ reblog me, share me with your friends, your mom, your dog. Help me get my name out into the internetosphere, so I can make the monies and feed myself, and more importantly, my cat.

Etsy Update!

I've added a new item to my shop, whoa! It's just a test run for now, mostly to see if it would be worth my while to invest in making more prints of my artwork, or for that matter, artwork to make into prints.

BONUS: I can't keep myself from spending way too much time on the envelopes, so you'll probably get a hand made AND hand lettered one like in the image above.

There are only 4 in the whole world (currently) so act quickly if you want a very inexpensive ($10+shipping) print from meeeee! The print is 5x7, printed with a very nice photo quality canon ip1600 that is not mine, and on pretty darn fancy matte paper, and signed in the corner. Please don't hesitate to comment if you'd like to see more prints in the future!

As always there is a link to some purchaseables on the lefthand side of the page. Click on all the pretty images and you'll be taken to a site you can purchase them from.

@#$%& Expletive Show!

I'm gonna be taking part in the Expletive show at Light Grey Art Labs in September! I think it's working like the Pokemon show in that if you show up there you can buy prints of all the artwork! So, all my Minneapolis fans/friends... (like, one) you'd better show up. And have a good time. For me.  Have a sneak peek at my piece below. I'm not gonna reveal the whole thing until the show opens Sept 14, so I guess you'll have to hang tight. Also, if you'd followed me on twitter or instagram, you'd have already seen a bunch of this. So there.

A Daily Occurance.

Aviv doesn't believe in pants. That's a lie, he believes in them, how can you not, clearly they exist, but he sure as heck doesn't like them very much. He also likes to make his very frequent farts into something special, just for me (that's the back of my head in the corner there).

Lately on Instagram:

If you have a fancy phone and would like to follow me, I'm britterson. If you don't have a fancy phone, but you have Twitter, you can follow me there, I am also britterson, I post everything there too. 

I've been checking out wedding venues and posting about my adventures. This weekend I fell in love with a place, only to find out that they're booked solid, and even if I'd called the very same day we got engaged, it's very unlikely I would have gotten a spot. Well dang, who'da thunk a barn would be in that much demand?

Anyway, back to work. Perhaps I'll have another small but brand spankin new never seen before anywhere else post later today.

ALSO PLEASE DON'T FORGET ABOUT MY SIGNING AUG 23rd 7pm INDIGO EATON CENTRE! 

SIGNING AT INDIGO!

Come out and hang out with me for a bit, if nothing else. BUT if you purchase my book (from Indigo, but if you have one you bought elsewhere, I don't mind) I'll DRAW YOU INSIDE. I can't promise it will be flattering, or even good at all, but it should be interesting at the very least, and probably pretty funny! So again, come out and keep me company. We can chat. Catch up.

If you like that kinda thing, here are some progress shots while I was a-workin. I gotta say, digital is not my forté, but I'm not very fast when I'm analoguing. My hands are ITCHING to get all painty again. Between wedding planning and freelance work, and social engagements, I've had zippo time to play.

GOOD NEWS!!

I'm too pooped to post about the last class right now. I'll do it later, jeeze!

Also, it's my birthday tomorrow!

Comix Class: Observational drawing

Last Thursday was Observational Drawing. Tough enough to do with adults and older kids, near on impossible with the 10 and under crowd. I had a much smaller group this week after losing some kids to camp. I knew that keeping their attention for life-drawing would be very difficult and I read a lot of different teaching techniques from the internet. All of them suggested only drawing from life in very short bursts, so the kids don't get discouraged. It's VERY hard, especially for younger children. Another thing all these techniques had in common was NEVER drawing for them, no demos whatsoever. If they don't understand the principles quite right, explain to them, or just let them do their own thing. But seeing the drawings of someone more experienced can be very daunting and intimidating for some kids. I've had experience with this before, while drawing with kids. They give up on their own drawings, and just ask me to draw things FOR them, because I'm better at it. It's a rare child who understands that only by doing over and over and over can they achieve the same results. Or maybe they do understand, and have no desire to commit, or don't have that kind of dedication to drawing.

While I'm on the subject, I get really pissed off when people tell me I'm talented, that they "can't even draw stick people", and that I'm lucky to have such a "gift" for drawing, or to be so "artistic". Bull@#%* I work HARD. It helps that I had parents who encouraged me, and that I have a very competitive/obsessive personality. I wasn't any better at drawing than any of the other kids in my kindergarten class. Only better than a FEW in grade 1, and only because by then a lot of them were already not drawing every day. Already their parents were having them do extra math work and go to prep schools after school let out. These kids didn't have time to doodle and play freely like I did. The only skills I have over someone who can't draw stick people, are an obsessive nature (some would say stubborn), a hardness when it comes to myself, and a slightly better eye for small details. The reason I have the abilities I have today are because I worked hard to get them. I practiced drawing the way other people practice math equations, or speeches, or driving. 

Don't tell me I'm lucky. It wasn't luck. 

OK, enough ranting, check out some of the weird things the kids came up with. First, a blind contour drawing of yours truly! 

I had them draw some objects too. A necklace, some deodorant, a plastic dinosaur and a mug.

Because it was so popular last week, whenever I noticed the kids' attention waning, we did a round or two of exquisite corpses, I joined in this time, despite having plans not to draw for the kids. I was getting pretty bored myself. 

This is what we're gonna tackle next week, and a few other ways to make books too. Hopefully by the end of the class, the kids will have models of books they've made, so they can use them to make more whenever they want! I'm also hoping we'll have time to actually make short comics in at least one of them.

I'm not sure at this point if there will be any continuing classes in August, or if there IS, what the age group will be or what the subjects will be. I'm almost hoping for some older kids, with attention spans longer than 3 minutes, so we can get more into the knitty gritty, and the really fun stuff, something a little more complicated than barebones contour drawings and exquisite corpses.

So just in case you've forgotten, and you really wanna sign up your lil' rugrats for my last class:

SIGN UP FOR JULY 26TH BY 

CONTACTING LITTLE ISLAND:

phone: 416-901-7489 Email: mail@littleislandcomics.com