birthday gecko

every once in a while I like to do something really special, like draw a birthday gecko inside of a pelican's mouth*

* actually, a friend of mine was having a birthday, so I asked her what her favorite animal was so that I could make her a super awesome card. She said a pelican and a gecko, and that is how this illustration came to be. I think it might be the only one in existence.

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...

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

I found out it was International 'Talk like a Pirate' Day a few days ago, so I hastily threw together this mediocre pirate cartoon. I actually kind of like how the pirate turned out, but what I should have done instead was simply drawn a tiger with a sign that says 'aaargh'. I guess I'll save that one for next year.

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...

me and my can-opener

this is based on actual events* that took place in my kitchen one day...

*my can-opener has a habit of getting about a third of the way around a can, and then getting stuck; this forces me to have to use a spoon or fork handle to pry the lid of the can open like some kind of neanderthal.