Krystal King Birdbear
The Krystal Kings paintings were sketched out by Marc, painted by Magda, and finished with fine black lines and detail work by Marc. They are painted with acrylic guache, pearlescent, metallic and day-glo paints, and feature an ultra matte black guached that makes them seem to be painted on black velvet.
Krystal King Froghawk
Krystal King Pink Robot
Krystal King Ghostbear
Krystal King Pinkcat
Marc Ngui with the Krystal King Birdbear painting.
Olden County graphic novel stack of drawings
Marc brought these down for me to start photographing, and after he hefted them on the kitchen table, he stared at the stack a bit and finally said, “This goes a long way to explain the pain in my back”. Yes it does, yes it does.
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The Devices illustrations were drawn by Marc Ngui for the Too Cool for School Art and Science Fair. Pen and ink, watercolour, pencil crayon, and jelly roller pens, 2009.
Maker Unit
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The art and science fair is this Saturday!
Art and sciene unite!
Saturday May 8, 12pm – 4pm
Harbourfront Centre
235 Queen’s Quay West, Toronto
Free, open to the public
“The Too Cool For School Art & Science Fair was invented to turn the spotlight on the unexpected feats of imagination and exploration that are happening all around us,” writes Sally McKay of her most recent brainchil on the home page of the project, www.artandsciencefair.ca.
The website was designed by me and the illustrations were drawn by Marc. We worked closely with Sally to come up with the name and identity graphics. I also designed some print posters that are available as PDF downloads from the website.
What is an Art & Science Fair?
The event is structured like a typical science fair, with fifty projects and their creators assembled for one day to share their work and ideas with an audience and to compete for awards. The difference is that the projects are a mix of both art and science.
Additionally, the participants in the Too Cool for School Art & Science Fair are from all walks of life, amateurs and professionals, many sharing their pet projects with the public for the first time. Participants are selected from an open call for submissions on the basis of originality, depth of inquiry, creative innovation and the element of surprise.
Read more about the project and check out all of Marc’s awesome illustrations on the Too Cool for School website.
Some earrings are finally up in the Ladilola shop on Etsy. I’ve been trying out various backgrounds and styles of photography, experimenting with what works as a process for me and also how the photos then look in the shop and within Etsy search results.
Ladilola earrings in black patent leather in a geometric, pointy shape.
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Ladilola is the name of my jewelry work.
Ladilola jewelry logo
This is a new logo for Ladilola casual printing needs, to match the silver foil stickers I had made while still in France in 2008.
I first made some earrings five years ago out of scrap leather and beads because I didn’t like anything in the shops, and I gave a bunch of pairs away as presents. They were a hit!
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About a month ago I started using the Panasoni GF-1 camera, with the “pancake” lens (f1.7, 40mm lens equivalent). Very happy with the camera, and this is also my first time shooting RAW format files. VERY happy about that. Recently I took the camera on an outing to a friend’s place and shot inside with very little light. I used the Lightroom 3 beta release for post production, and I’m deslighted with the results I was able to achieve with the low light RAW files. I opted for black and white or super-saturated effects in Lightroom partly to test the setting and also to highlight the most aspects of the the low quality photos. There is a lot to learn in Lightroom and I’m planning on buying the video tutorial from Luminous Landscapes.
Below are a few of the photos – you can see the rest in the Band Practice photo set on Flickr. Thanks to Band Practice for the photo op. :)
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Knit log pillows by Chick sin Design.
I just love these knit bolster pillow covers by Hong Kong based Chic sin Design. Originally I found the items in their Etsy shop.
The pillows are in the shape and size of tree logs “chewed by beavers”, and the tree bark and other texture graphics are knitted into the textile in several colours, rather than printed on the surface.
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Here is a preview of five images from a new collection of Marc’s drawings that we are just about done putting together for publication. The collection is called Monsters and Heroes and the drawings were chosen from Marc’s plethora of sketchbooks and notebooks from the last several years.
I’ll know we’ll have done it right if the final thing feels like a combination of instructive tale about the tricky nature of face value, colouring book, and high contrast, eyeball giddying stare-a-thron.
Hero or monster? Hint: drool earrings.
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New Happy Sleepies piled up for a group photo at the end of a photo session.
Cloudy days have lovely diffused light and big pieces of styrofoam make really good light reflectors.
That sums up the most recent advancements in my skills as a still life photographer.
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