January Update
January's illustration was inspired by the late Al Maitland's reading of The Little Match Girl as heard on CBC radio's As it Happens. The Little Match Girl was first published in 1845, the same year Ingres painted Louise de Broglie, seen at the bottom left in the collection of images below.
This past year was one of my busiest to date. It included trips to Toronto and New York as well as mural project. Read on to find out more.
NYC trip, October, 2011
ADC YG9 Book
Last year started off with the usual, and not so usual, assortment of illustration assignments. I had the chance to work with WAX Partnership in Calgary on a yet-to-be-published project. I am still pretty excited about this one even though I completed work on it almost a year ago now. I will definitely be adding the project to my portfolio when it gets printed a little later this year. In May I was nominated for a National Magazine Award and was fortunate enough to win gold in spot illustration at the 34th awards ceremony in Toronto. I made a couple of trips to Toronto this year and saw a couple of great shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario while visiting. The first was the David Blackwood
exhibition, Black Ice. I grew up in Newfoundland and have had a healthy dose of exposure to Blackwood’s work from a young age. I was even lucky enough to spot him in the gallery and say ‘hello’; he was apparently at the AGO for a book signing in the shop later that afternoon.
On a later trip to Toronto I caught the General Idea show. If you don’t know who this is think Canadian-conceptual-art-superstars. I really enjoyed the exhibition and would definitely look into this group’s work if you are not familiar with them. The ability to seamlessly integrate a strong graphic sense with conceptual art is
something I haven’t seen too often. I was familiar with some of their better known work, such as the Imagevirus, however I was less acquainted with the more humorous work which was very amusing to me.
During the summer months I completed a mural installation that is now hanging in the John Janzen Nature Centre here in Edmonton. The painting is in three parts, 1.8 m by 1.2 m each. This is definitely the largest painting I have made to date, but really enjoyed the process of working at a larger scale and hope to do more of this in the future. There is a photo of the painting, in process, at the end of this post.
January Publications
October included a trip to New York to attend the Art Director’s Club Young Guns party. This past year I was included in the Young Guns 9 exhibition and book. The competition is multidisciplinary and is open to international participants. I was able to meet some really excellent illustrators, designers, typographers, and photographers from Europe and beyond. I am holding my ADC YG9 “cube” in the collection of images above. The trip was a quick one but managed to make some favourite stops which included trips to the MoMA and the Frick. I saw the de Kooning retrospective at the MoMa and stopped at the Frick to see some favourites by Ingres and Hans Holbein the Younger. No trip to New York would be complete without a visit with super-pal
Victor Kerlow who made the drawing of
Josh and me in the collection of images above. Though I wasn’t able to return to NYC in November to attend the American Illustration party, I did have my
somersaulting coyote included in the 30th installment of the annual. I just received my copy in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It’s a nice-to-look-at book from cover to cover and would recommend taking a look if you have the chance.
Towards the end of 2011 I decided to return to self-representation. I will now be personally handling any incoming or outgoing illustration inquiries. This development led me to redevelop my website, a process
that was long overdue since the last major overhaul was completed in 2008. You may or may not have noticed the change in my web address. Though genevievesimms.com will continue to direct you to my portfolio, genevievesimms.ca is the new official home for my illustration work. I have also laid to rest my beloved sketch-blog. Instead I have opted to save any personal projects and sketches to be included in a monthly update. I’m hoping this will not only lead to a more interesting reading/viewing experience for visitors, but will also help me to consolidate fragmented ideas, observations, and themes from my sketchbook and other sources.
Finally, I will finish off by mentioning a couple of projects I have on the magazine stands this month. The first being a full-pager I completed for Maisonneuve’s winter issue, pictured above, on the right. Super-pal Victor Kerlow, mentioned previously, illustrated the cover. Next up is The Walrus’s Special Double Winter Issue for January/February, pictured above, on the left. I had lots of fun making all the mini images used in the cover’s layout; this is one of my proudest illustration moments to date.
See you February!
Mural Project
