Grad Show.

It is almost time to graduate... and by almost, I mean that there are still a few stressful days between myself and the show that will close the 4 years I have spent studying illustration at Sheridan College.

The 2009 Illustration BAA Grad Show opening will be held at 7pm on Thursday, April 23rd at the Burroughs Building (639 Queen Street West). There will be finger foods, drinks, and plenty of illustration work to view. I would love to see anyone there who wants to come. It should make for a very exciting night.

Please visit the promotional website for more information (and to view some sample works): www.sheridanheadlines.ca

My website looks like it will soon be making its own debut, all thanks to the programming skills of my web-genius friend, Michelle Durocher. Everything is coming together, slowly but surely. I can almost feel the stress melting away. What will I do when I actually have a life after this week? Who knows... the possibilities are endless. Haha.

On a closing note, here is a sneak peek of my final narrative project, "Glory Days", that I am hoping to be able to print large-scale for the show. The piece is a fold-out visual story about my Dad's youthful glory days and the road trips he took in his last year of college.

Section of Glory Days
5" x 30" (Original)

Unbearable.

Extract

8" x 8.5"

This, right here, yes... RIGHT HERE, is my final illustration assignment to be handed in for interpretive illustration class this tuesday! Can you believe it? The end is near, kids.

I'm going to go on a sappy rant in a couple of minutes, but first let me give you a little back story on my piece. 'Extract' is a illustration created to comment on asia's bear bile farming. Bear bile farming involves painfully extracts bile from gall bladders of cruelly caged asiatic black bears ("moon bears"). Bear bile is used in ancient chinese medicines, and is believed to have some healing properties to it. Bear bile farming is an un-necessary industry that continues to exist despite the fact that it is both inhumane to these captive bears, and has no proven human medicinal benefits.

The bear depicted in my illustration has his identity not only mirrored and challenged by the bile drop in behind him, but he is also caged by both the 'barred' background and the medicine packaging that restrains him. The chinese characters on either side of the bear mean "chinese medicine", and i felt that having them on either side of him would also reiterate a feeling of being trapped in the piece. Often it seems that bile bears are basically trapped by the very fact that they do produce bile in the first place, so I tried to show both that, and the commercial side of why the bear is unable to escape what he is going through. I hope that makes sense.

'Extract' is one of several projects that signal a coming close to my 4 years at Sheridan College. I have mixed feelings about the end of my college experience. On one hand, it's nice that one chapter of my life is coming to a close to make way for the next, but on the other - it's incredibly sad. I guess the thing I will miss the most about Sheridan are the people who I have spent the last 4 years with. I have never been in such an environment where artistic thinking was so widespread... I have now become so used to it, that I think I have sometimes even come to take it for granted. While I definitely plan to keep in touch with the "illokids", it is easy for me to understand why things will never be like they are now. It's hard to imagine all of us in the same place again, like we are right now while immersed in the same program, at the same college. So I guess right now I am savoring the last few drops (3 weeks or so!) of my time here in a program I love, with people that I am extremely grateful to have had the pleasure to meet in my life.

What's next? First, there is still a mountain of projects to conquer, then... Design at either York or OCAD. I have yet to choose. There is still a lot to think about!