Isabel's Blog

Category: Illustration

Junk food

May 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

isabelfoo-junkfood

Why everything that’s supposed to be bad make me feel so good? Everything they told me not to is exactly what I would.

Once, I read an Uberfact that listed the top foods that give people cancer. It was basically a list of (junk) food that I love most in life. Sigh.

I’ve been too distracted and/or unmotivated to do the junk I set out to do at the beginning of the year. I find I’m most productive when I’m happy, which is rarely, which in turn sucks (I did do the food icons above in a short-lived moment of quasi-contentment).

Though in this past week, despite living in a shitstorm of personal drama (much of which I brought on myself), I’ve come to terms that things in my life need to change, including Getting Things Done (GTD), because damn it, it’s almost June and I can’t live like this anymore (GTFO).

Work it bitch! (goals, due prior to September 2014)

  1. Illustration portfolio: update website to feature projects that I could submit to magazines, websites, for (small) freelance spot illustrations
  2. Stationery illustration: design and illustrate a few cards for my friend Sam’s business, Have & Hold Design
  3. Design portfolio: eventually update my design portfolio to include recent projects, in case I need to find a new job at some point

I’ll write a post about my actionable items later. I think just writing these things down and prioritizing them is a good step. I decided this after a coffee with my friend Ed on Sunday. He made me realize I need to figure out how to present my work better. At first I just wanted to curl into a ball and cry about how I’m a shit designer/illustrator, but I know I just gotta put in the work and be better. I just have to figure out how to take a step back and actually do this.

Free your mind

April 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

IsabelFoo-blog-officedesk

An old coworker from my first real job used to take home dummy books we’d get as paper samples for his kids. I started doing this too, for my niece(s). Tonight the older one was colouring in one of the blank hardbound books. She looked up at me and said “I want to draw something, but I don’t know what to draw!” which was funny because that’s exactly how I feel most days. Being creative is hard! I never really know what to draw. I told her to draw her favourite things, which is sorta what I do myself. I kinda wonder what other people do to get over creative block.

I didn’t go to illustration school. I’ve just always loved drawing (thanks to my sister, mother of the munchkins AKA the nieces). But now with my “goal” of doing “real” illustration work, I’m wondering if I should do something to be more legit? Should I take classes? Or at least read a book? Do I need this, or can I just send out my website when I’m ready? Advice?

Above is a work in progress from this past weekend. It’s very meta, as you can see.

Go Jays!

April 5, 2014 / / 1 Comment

FOMO-hotdog3

Here’s one of my first animated GIFs of my own making! (It’s pretty dry, but hey, I don’t know how to use After Effects). Dave and I went to the Toronto Blue Jays home opener last night. The nights before the game we’d been watching the Jays play in Florida, so I just came up with this grilled wiener as my own way of supporting the home team. One of my favourite things to do when eating street meat is to spell my name with the mustard. And as any aficionado knows, nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog!*

*JK: I fucking love putting ketchup on hot dogs, and Dave yells at me every time.

Being aimless, having goals

April 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

DUMPS-CH-soupdumpling_2

It’s April already. I feel like I’ve frittered the first quarter of the year away because I haven’t done the things I set out to do at the beginning of the year.

One of my goals was to produce an illustration portfolio with the wishful intent 😛 to do spot illustrations and possibly editorial illustrations for big magazines. I haven’t really done that, but I have done some fun little things for my aforementioned side project. Another side project I’ve been working on the last two weeks is with my friend Danbo, these dumpling illustrations. Well, eventually they will be a series of different kinds of dumplings. So far I’ve just got this one, of Shanghai soup dumplings. Dan’s going to code a micro-site because he wanted to practice his skillz.

I think the biggest hurdle is doing a BIG illustration. Something epic! The dumplings series will help, so instead of blogging about it I’mma go draw some pierogi and ravioli.

PEACE!

PS: I’m not crazy about the spoon being all floaty like that, but damn it, I don’t want to draw a hand!

 

Strut strut strut

March 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Last week I finally enrolled in the Skillshare class I’d been meaning to take, Simple Character Animation by Fraser Davidson. My  coworker and friend B and I have been (trying to) do some silly animations as a side project (ironically/not ironically named Fear of Moving On), where I do the illustrations and he animates them in After Effects, but I had literally no knowledge of how to do anything in After Effects. So this was a nice way to start learning and I got to make this lil’ guy:

Isa walk