Maddy's Favourite Toys

Every year I like to draw something special for my daughter's birthday (you might remember last year's illustration featuring Maddy soaring on the back of her Alphapup over a city of blocks). This year I thought it would be fun to create a yearbook page featuring her toys. Just like classmates, some of them will be forgotten immediately, while a select few may be a special part of her life for a long time. I created this print so that she could look back on her toys later on and say, 'I wonder whatever happened to that guy?'.

If your kid has any favourite toys, send me a photo at the Land of Le Beef Etsy shop, and your child can have their own illustrated version.

IB Learner Profile Posters

If you're an IB teacher, then these IB learner profile posters will be right up your alley. I made these for my wife's classroom because wanted a fun way to remind her students of these qualities, and because I like drawing animals. 

Can I buy these in your Etsy Shop? Sure, if you want. They are available in two sizes as physical prints, or as digital downloads so that you can print them yourself. 

Woodland Classroom Animals

I realize that on the surface, the title of this post makes no sense whatsoever; as though I just decided to string three random words together in the hopes that no one would notice. Well I assure you that there is both a rhyme and a reason to it.

By now I'm sure you are all familiar with the collaborations between the Land of Le Beef and Woodland Pre-Schools (more info on that here and here). Each of the Woodland classrooms is named after a different animal, and in this latest Beef-Woodland collaboration I went in and illustrated  each classroom's character on a chalkboard that is mounted outside of the room. The result was unlike anything that the Land of Le Beef has produced before...

the Montessori Academy

You might remember that I recently did two small murals at a preschool in Hong Kong ( one of Woodland Pre-School's 10 locations in the city). Well those murals turned out so awesome, that Woodland insisted that I adorn the walls of their newest, most spectacular school yet - the Montessori Academy on Caine Road.

In keeping with the woodland theme, we decided to go with a forest motif for this mural. So once again I picked up my pencil, and went about designing what would soon become the modern version of Raphael's School of Athens. I could go into great detail about the planning, process, and decisions made, but I really don't feel like writing an essay right now. What I will say is that it is a huge honour to be a part of such a great school - the Montessori Academy is amazing.

(a big thank you to Rainbow Wong who helped with the painting - many long hours were spent making sure that each brush stroke was perfect)

planning, floorplan, construction...

sketches, ideas, details...

in progress, details...

paint, a paintbrush, and a beaver...

view of the main wall...

unfortunately the wall is so long that it is really hard to fit the entire mural in one photo, so here's a portion of it...

here's another portion of it...

this is a separate mural at the entrance of the school... 

the Woodland Montessori Academy from the outside...

chinese new year

I'd like to wish all the people out there a very happy 'year of the snake'. I can't say that snakes are my favourite animals, but as far as the chinese zodiac goes, they're definitely in my top twelve.

anyhoo,

Chuk nam sang wei.