L'il Rosie Designs

As mentioned before, my number one inspiration these days is of course my 20-month old daughter Rosie. I've been thinking about doing some strips of her in a "Peanuts" style for a little while now, and finally got down to working on some different character designs. The following is what I came up.

It was a pretty neat process and much tougher than anticipated. The best part was doing research by reading through the Fantagraphics Peanuts books, but also looking at how other artists draw kids particularly Jordan Crane (one of my favourite cartoonists), and Don Rosa (specifically looking at how he gets across feelings when the facial designs are so simple).

L'il Rosie #1
This is my very first try and isclosest to Schulz's designs. The main difference is that Rosie has really long eyelashes, and I have to incorporate these somehow into the design.

L'il Rosie #2
Again pretty close to Schulz. Added the bow to the hair, head is more "football shaped", eyes after Little Orphan Annie.

L'il Rosie #3
This is me trying to add more details into the face, and I think the result is less successful.

Li'l Rosie #4
Less sylized eyes and nose - not bad. Initially I drew this with a bow in her hair as well, but I photoshopped it out. Rosie's a bit of a tomboy anyway!

So -- this weekend I think I'll start work on a one to two page L'il Rosie strip.

My aim is to have a new mini-comic out for SPX called "The Rosie Stories" which will feature my story in "Drawing the Line Again", some L'il Rosie stories, and a new longer format story done in my regular style.

Drawing the Line Again

I have a 5-page story in Suley Fattah's "Drawing the Line Again". This is an anthology with the theme of health and wellness, the proceeds of which go cancer research. There are some awesome people participating like Darwyn Cooke, Ramon Perez, Cameron Stewart, Moebius and many more! I'm really happy with the story, it's the most personal one I've done to date (it's about my daughter Rosie)...

It recently got a 5 out of 5 review in Metro News - Read review here.

Purchase the book directly from the Drawing the Line website. The Silver Snail is also backing it big time, and you can pick it up, along with Vol. 1 at their Queen Street location.

Welcome everyone to my new blog! This will replace the former "news" section of my website at www.speedlines.com. I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but have been inspired by my friend Mike Cho (check out his awesome blog ), who recently started one up and posts artwork to it quite regularly.

So - I've got lots of news and artwork to post, so I''ll let's dive right in!

I recently did up a new mini-comic called "The Toca Loca Project". It made its debut at the Paradise Toronto Comicon this past April. At the show I also had some t-shirts for sale using the back cover image of the mini. The image is of a kazoo, and underneath it says "Ceci n'est pas un kazoo" (French for "This is not a kazoo"). This was inspired of course by the famous Magritte painting "Ceci ne'st pas un pipe", as well as the band - The Nihilist Spasm Band. All will become clear after reading the mini, but the t-shirt is cool on its own as well.

These are the first t-shirts I've ever done and I'm really pleased with how they came out. They are 2 colour screenprinted on Fruit of the Loom tees. I did up a bunch in a variety of different colours and sizes. I was surprised that the bestselling size for me was the small size as mostly it was women picking them up. Here's what the shirt looks like (modeled by my husband Dave). Both the mini and the t-shirts are available for order here.

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted 3 drawings of my daughter Rosie to the AGO's upcoming "In Your Face" show. Opening in July, this is to be the biggest portrait show in history, and the organizers have encouraged people to submit portraits for inclusion in the show.

I'm crossing my fingers that at least one of my drawings makes it in. If selected, the artwork will be part of the AGO's permanent collection. Family and friends like the one of Rosie in her hat best. Which one is your favourite?


Rosie in hat.









Rosie in highchair.









Rosie at dining room table at Grandma's.





** Update: Originally the final date to submit portraits to the AGO for this exhibit was July 1st, 2006. I've since found out that the exhibit will run for a whole year! As such, they will change things up every now and then and as such are still accepting submissions through to December of this year.

I encourage all of my cartoonists friends to submit so we have a strong showing in the exhibit! There are just about no restrictions, other than the size needs to be 4 x 6, and you need to them them the original art. It does look like you need to be Canadian to submit.

Here's a link to the blog for the show: http://www.artmatters.ca/blog/index.php?/categories/15-In-Your-Face