Check out #LivingstonYYC's new mag, Live Up. We love flippin' through and reading about the first family! https://t.co/Wv8QlztvpZ pic.twitter.com/7YF5RLTE3T
— BrookfieldYYC (@BrookfieldYYC) March 23, 2017
A funny thing happened after I started working as a graphic recorder: people started asking me to draw pictures. Of course, I'm always drawing pictures, so that probably sounds weird, but what I mean is, I'm not a trained illustrator or graphic designer and so I really don't have a whole lot of experience working in this capacity. (Luckily, I keep learning as I go!) But when the folks at RedPoint Media asked me if I'd draw some pictures about "A Day in the Life" of a local coffee shop, I had to say yes!
This picture was featured in Brookfield's LiveUp Magazine, which was published recently by RedPoint Media to help promote Brookfield's new neighbourhood, Livingston, up at the northern end of town. And the coffee shop in question was the Good Earth Coffeehouse in Coventry Hills.
Despite being an inner-city dweller, I've actually spent quite a bit of time up in Coventry Hills. I spent a nice day getting reacquainted with the neighbourhood, the locals who came and went during the day, a few of the staff at the Good Earth, and, of course... the coffee!
Here's the sketch I made that day, which turned into the finished picture, below.
This picture was featured in Brookfield's LiveUp Magazine, which was published recently by RedPoint Media to help promote Brookfield's new neighbourhood, Livingston, up at the northern end of town. And the coffee shop in question was the Good Earth Coffeehouse in Coventry Hills.
Despite being an inner-city dweller, I've actually spent quite a bit of time up in Coventry Hills. I spent a nice day getting reacquainted with the neighbourhood, the locals who came and went during the day, a few of the staff at the Good Earth, and, of course... the coffee!
Here's the sketch I made that day, which turned into the finished picture, below.
I feel like adding this note, to say that I just can't get used to working in colour. For so many years I've worked with black ink on paper because I just never have time to colour things in. These days when I actually have the luxury of drawing a colour image, I feel like I'm wading into dangerous unknown waters where I've never ventured. I have so much to learn about how to incorporate colour into illustration work. Who knows, maybe one day I could even try working wthout those black lines!
And here's a funny footnote to this story. I was just thinking about how I've been going to the Good Earth Coffeehouse for years and years, ever since they opened their first location in the Beltline in 1991. In 2009, when my first son was just a baby, I dropped him off at my in-laws', who lived nearby, and headed to the same Good Earth to catch some moments to write and draw, in an attempt to steer my creative efforts into a "career" of sorts!
When I posted those pictures from LiveUp Magazine, I had a vague recollection that I'd drawn a long-ago comics page that said something about the Good Earth. I dug through the archives and found the page - below. There I am sitting in the Beltline Good Earth in 1998, on March 26th, which just happens to be the same day I'm writing this, 19 years later! Let me end this post with this collection of strange and random quotations that came out of my pen way back then. Thanks Good Earth for being a welcoming place for creativity and comics, for all these years!
When I posted those pictures from LiveUp Magazine, I had a vague recollection that I'd drawn a long-ago comics page that said something about the Good Earth. I dug through the archives and found the page - below. There I am sitting in the Beltline Good Earth in 1998, on March 26th, which just happens to be the same day I'm writing this, 19 years later! Let me end this post with this collection of strange and random quotations that came out of my pen way back then. Thanks Good Earth for being a welcoming place for creativity and comics, for all these years!
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