The Doodlebox

New projects

2010-07-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

I've been In St Petersburg, Russia since June 30th.

While this trip did not always go according to our initial plans, I've definitely had my share of pleasant surprises. Russian life (in a large city at least) is certainly becoming more westernized, customer-oriented, and generally...nice.
the heart of it all is still very "Russian"...I can't really define it beyond that, so I would like to learn how.

Checking out souvenir stalls, and even on storefronts, clothes and cars, there's a revival of folk art. Maybe studying it and it's influences will help figure out what makes us tick. As a result, i'm hauling home a bunch of paint, blank matryoshka dolls, and a guidebook to techniques of Russian folk art.

Let's see how long i stick with it.

Getting 2010 Underway

2010-01-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've updated, or really done much artwork. In recent months I've been inspired/encouraged to start working on some projects that will need a lot of time as well as a lot of flexing of my art muscles.

In the meantime, here's some ink artwork.

Masks and Mishaps

2009-06-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days I made some clay masks for a customer. They were drying ever so peacefully on the back deck yesterday afternoon that I decided to leave them out there this morning and thus keep them from stinking up the apartment. Then I left to run errands...and on the way home it started pouring.

Lesson of the day:

clay masks + pouring rain = sad pandas

The masks are clay and most of them are flat and simply decorative, so you can put them up on your wall or somesuch. Managed to rescue them as well as I could, so here they are:

Mask 1 - Day of the Dead half-mask

Mask 2 - Ashanti Ghost, based on this one.
due to its size I had to put it on cardboard backing...which didn't like the rain either
Mask 3 - Day of the Dead - full face. Resting on a full face mask mold to help keep the shape.
Mask 4 - inspired by this.
Mask 5 - first to be made.

However - marvels of nature include the sky, light, and everything turning very saturated shades of green during a thunderstorm. I still find that incredibly cool (there was the one time everything turned sepia...but that was mostly due to smog, which made it inherently less cool).

CaribFest calendar artwork I

2009-06-23T12:59:00.001-07:00

First set of photos of artwork going into the CaribFest Kingston 2009 Special Edition program. Each is an image for the calendar inside.

So far all are water-soluble oils on canvas board

October - Silhouette
September - Green Dress
July - Limbo Dancers

Still finishing up/taking pictures of the rest of the months.

Writing Sample

2009-05-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

This brief was published in the Spring'09 issue of the Queen's Alumni Review. It appeared in the Alumni Notes section as a spotlight on the marketing initiative that the ThankQ Graduating Class Gift Commitee organized in November of '08 as a means to kick off fundraising events for the Winter term.

"Students prepare to give back

On November 24, every building on campus was plastered with paper tags identifying all the items inside that had been purchased with the assistance of alumni gifts. From chairs to blackboards to computers, more than 2,000 items were tagged, drawing the philanthropic message to the attention of students. If the tri-colour letter-size tags were not visible enough, three massive “tag” banners were put up on Grant Hall, Stauffer Library, and the fence of the Queen’s Centre construction site.

Tag Day was organized by the student-run ThankQ committee, to recognize student and alumni contributions to Queen’s and to help students think about their class gift campaigns in winter term. November 24 represents the day in the academic year in which students’ tuition stops covering the real expenses of their education: alternate sources, including donations from alumni and students, cover the shortfall for the rest of the year. The ThankQ committee helps graduating students in each faculty raise funds toward their class gift to the University. The 2008 graduating class raised $23,000 for Queen’s.

The tags, which were only on display for 24 hours – long enough to remind students of the extent of the tradition of giving at Queen’s – also promoted the class of 2009 website. For information on the year’s class gifts and each faculty’s progress, go to www.classof2009.ca."

Digital Media Portfolio, updated

2009-05-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

A sampling of most recent digital work.

THANKQ GRADUATING CLASS GIFT PROGRAM

As part of my volunteering with this group, I was requested to create a logo and advertising material to promote a university-wide fundraising event.

The event: a Nintendo Rockband tournament where student-created "bands" face one another while playing the game to raise funds for the Graduating Class Gift.
The challenge: make the brand unique, while echoing the Nintendo Rockband video game style.

The logo:

The posters:

The Blog
For event details and registration info, Rock the Gift has it's own Blogger page, with a custom-designed header.

QUEEN'S STUDENT ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

As the VP of Marketing and Communications, I was requested to make some promotional material for a weekend Career Conference on campus. The visual identity of the QSAA brand had to be maintained throughout: using specific "Queen's" colours, fonts, and logos.

The colour image was 1/2 of page 2 in the Queen's Journal

The grayscale image was 1/2 of 5 in Golden Words, the humorous Engineering newspaper

LOGO WORK

Civil Alert

A little while ago I posted a work-in-progress that had since undergone more changes to become the logo of Sabir Bey's Civil Alert World.
When I had received the order, the request was to make a purple metallic phoenix with a gold glow to it. Looking at it now, I may make some changes to it in the near future.

WinterTrekking.com

The Winter Trekkers and Campers Online Community requested a logo showcasing some of the equipment that is featured on their website.
The logo appearing in the top left corner of the page was originally drawn by hand from a photo reference, then scanned and turned into vector art.
This was a collaborative work with ArtTina.

Sk8kicks.com

Sk8kicks.com requested a logo and a banner for their website. The shoe logo was heavily edited from a stock photo, as was the graffiti background. All images are credited to the Stock Exchange.

GOLF101: Queen's Toronto Alumni Golf Tournament

Queen's Toronto Alumni The Queen’s Alumni Branch of Toronto required a logo that was both reminiscent of Queen’s University branding, and was youthful and sporty.

The title suggests a class code that would be appreciated by recent graduates and the overall look is academic in its simplicity but still conveys the necessary message. The “Q” is a vector similar to that used by Queen’s University on its academic materials.

WEBSITE SUPPORT

Over the past four years, I have been the webmaster for Shaping in Canada, Inc., our family-owned fitness studio in Toronto, Ontario.

In addition to ensuring timely news updates of classes and promotions, I have been requested to photograph the studio and keep an up-to-date gallery. Currently, I am working on re-designing the site layout for a third time to make it more user-friendly and enticing.

TRADITIONAL ART

For a gallery of my works in ink, colour, and sketches, please visit my DeviantArt page.

If you like my work and would like to contact me for commissions, please e-mail me at alissa.sokolski@gmail.com.

2009, bring it on!

2009-01-02T23:02:00.000-08:00

With a look back at 2008, the next step is to plan for the year ahead (because every self-respecting blogger has their list of resolutions)

...and in no particular order, here they come!

GRADUATE FROM UNIVERSITY
Ok, I lied, this is a first and foremost thing...and with enough kicking and stubborn pouting I hope to enter the "real world" confused, broke, and loving it in April '09.

GET A "LIFE"
Meaning finding employment of some sort/meaning which would sustain me and my burning desire to get my own apartment/home/box by May '09.

GET PHYSICALLY HEALTHY
From shedding "exam" pounds, to eating better, to returning to belly dance class for the hell of it, I really need to get into a nice, healthy routine.

SOLIDIFY RELATIONSHIPS
People, who I love dearly, watch out! I'm not going away anytime soon :)

GEEKIFY!
Really put an effort into learning about subjects that are hella boring in school, but define and embellish our existence.

MORE ART
With some big projects already on the go, this year I will really make a dent in improving my style and skill and make something notable of this hobby.

this is totally doable

2008 in review

2009-01-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

The new year is here to stay it seems, and demands of many to look back at all the happenings, goings-on and achievements of 2008.

For the most part things were great, some amazing things have happened, as did some bad. For the sake of personal record, the top 10 (in no particular order) of 2008:

1. Making it into 4th year at university (and so far staying there)
2. Re-kindling and revamping a wonderful "friendship" with an epic genius of a man
3. Cultivating an interest in all things gadgety, techy, and otherwise geeky
4. Landing the most kickass volunteer position imaginable
5. Quitting one job in favour of another
6. The return of dad from his long-term employment overseas for good
7. Getting some legitimate design orders
8. Seriously beefing up my book and graphic novel collection
9. Being driven to tears by the tight-knit relationship with my housemates
10. Going from this:

to this:
...not very much it may seem...but there's big things on the horizon, just you wait

A big "Thank you" to everyone that has kept in touch with me until now, provided their support and irreplaceable advice, and been a source of perpetual awesome. Some days it's you guys that keep me going at churning out crazy ideas and misadventures to entertain you with (other days it just happens naturally).

I feel like I really took off in all directions and actively started pursuing a wide range of interests in the second half of the year. I'd say it roughly coinsides with a re-introduction to Radiohead via James Houston's cover of Nude: Big Ideas (don't get any), and thus far I'm really pleased to look back and see how far I've grown since back in August.

More importantly, in retrospect this shows how far I've got to go...and I couldn't be any more excited!

...so, 2009 bring it on!

I'm studying, I swear!

2008-12-14T23:48:00.000-08:00

...and while diligently doing so, my sketchpad just happens to accidentally fall in my lap and open to a blank page. The inherent problem with blank pages is that they are so lonely, crisp, and far too clean for their own good. This grievous error had to be corrected!

I've been asked to work on an image of a phoenix. The first I came up with was a bit Okami-inspired...though certainly, nowhere close to their stunning artwork.

The same image saw a little bit of clean-up to end up as such:

And just for kicks, I decided to go with a heraldic spin on the idea, because...well, it just looks freakin cool (click for reference):

Yeah...I may have gotten a little carried away with that. Looking at it now, I might shrink the birdie's neck so it looks less ostrich-like.

Now, naptime!

December dancers

2008-12-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

ACK! two updates in one week?!

One glorious, glorious night I was kept up until 4 a.m. by the "soothing" sounds of the awesomeness of David Guetta via Deezer.com. Oh electronic beats, how you inspire me some days.

I've decided to try my hand at drawing movement and different perspective, because drawing *very* posed characters gets hella boring. The girl in the top right is a throwback to a really old doodle from at least 6 years ago.

T-shirt designs may or may not be coming up...

Stay tuned!

November Doodles

2008-12-03T14:56:00.000-08:00

Though November may be well behind us, that doesn't mean no doodles happened in that time.

In fact, between essays, I finally got my act together and worked on a tattoo that was long-overdue. A co-worker asked me to rework an existing tat into something more interesting, so the heart and flames motif had to stay. The rest just needed to be made a little bit more ladylike (read: "girly").

So thar she be...

Another couple of designs got started, but are still in progress, updates for that are coming soon.

Until then, exams await!

October doodles!

2008-10-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since updates...the portfolios methinks were a good idea at the time though.

I have managed to score a job with the campus Publishing & Copy Centre as a graphic designer as of last Friday (Oct 17) and will be starting training this weekend. Needless to say, I'm down to my last three shifts at Staples!

Never fear though! If you have ever commissioned work from me, or are planning on doing so, please feel free to contact me, for I will be more than happy to work on projects outside of work hours.

While walking home from class the other day, an image popped into my head:

I should really ink that image to actually get to what was imagined...the hair then went on to become part of:

As per the suggestion of a friend, the hair has a life of its own. Until now, it has been tamed by a tiara and a bun, taking away its power:

That was the original avatar created...two years ago I believe...her evolution tracked through my attempt to tackle the 100 Themes Challenge...my progress so far is here.

Armed with a new-and-improved avatar with sentient hair, I completed the "Teamwork" theme of the challenge:

Stay tuned for more!

Digital media portfolio

2008-10-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

A sampling of recent digital work.

Shaping in Canada

Over the past few years I have been given the opportunity to develop my digital graphic design skills while creating promotional material for a family-owned Toronto fitness studio.

The company website was created in collaboration with Erin Marchak. She worked on the codes, for the templates, while I've maintained the site after its launch: text updates, editing links, and maintaining image galleries

Recently, a series of flyers and posters were made to promote an Open House at the studio

Queen's Bands

Originally sketched and inked by hand, the dancer girl was fixed up in Adobe Illustrator to provide Queen's Bands with the highest quality image for their Dancers' Night Out'07 t-shirts

Personal Brand

Rather than have a plain black-and-white resume and cover letter that blends in and gets lost with the rest....why not make a black-and-white "Liss brand"? The look extended to business cards and throughout the portfolio as well

Design process

A sample of how any creative process happens. In this instance the process covers a tattoo design commissioned by a good friend.
First, I request a description of the desired image and potential references.
Stage 1 of the design process involves a doodlefest to get any and all ideas down on paper.
Stage 2 is the cleanup of proposed images that the customer selects.
Stage 3 involves finalizing the image - in this instance, the addition of a vine to frame the celtic design.
The final product, the tattoo itself is included, huzzah for satisfied customers!

Traditional media portfolio

2008-10-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

The following is a sampling of my work in a variety of traditional media.

While the majority of my work involves character studies and tattoo designs, I am attempting to devote more time to environment design.

Pencil sketches

Character design based on given description

Gift art - original design for katana based on a plethora of references

Ink

A character that was born out of several hours of Marilyn Manson's "Golden Age of Grotesque" on loop...

Him and his ladies...and his booze

A series of inked scenes for a mock "Butter" advertisements done by a friend. Done with India Ink and Prismacolour gray markers. The images themselves have not been retouched (aside from the smear of yellow butter in the first ad).
With these in his portfolio, he scored a pretty decent marketing gig in NYC.

Colour

On occasion, I'll bust out the Prismacolour markers and end up with doodles of my alter-ego:

From my Fantasy art phase, when acrylic paint owned my soul:

My biggest achievement in acrylic: a mural on the wall of my high school history classroom at Northern Secondary School in Toronto

The Challenge

2008-08-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead! Just due to an overwhelming amount of work and severe lack of intense conversation (damn you Cuba stealing my friends!) I haven't had much inspiration to post.

That said, I've finally come up with page 1 of my list of art challenges:

The challenge is on!

Stay tuned for FanExpo pics!

gurgle

2008-08-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

FanExpo...all day....lineups....furries...nerdstink...Star Wars geeks...overpriced...AWESOME!

I am indeed not dead...well...braindead for sure...but the day at 'con was great. It's always a nice thing to realize that the artists you worship are real people too.

Pictures will be posted shortly...most of them ninja'ed without people knowing...oh Stalking 101.

Until then check out Johnny Hollow, a wicked band that I was introduced to at 'con while waiting for my friend to get her Joker face scars done. Give 'em a listen!

Tour dates!

2008-08-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Liss shall be appearing in Toronto from Friday, August 22nd to Monday, August 25th. More specifically, I plan to make an appearance...for a really long Saturday of workshops...at the annual FanExpo!

I'm looking forward to the Cool School and panels...and hopefully there will be many a doodle to come of this!

See ya there!

Steampunk pretties

2008-08-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

The most recent Environment of the Week challenge in Conceptart.org is to create a Steampunk Concert Hall.

Liss likes steampunk....a lot...'nuff said

Have to say, I love doing research when the subject matter is a personal favourite...which usually means links after links of randomly delicious goodness:

1. As recommended by a friend: The Resonant Chamber - an animation of an automaton by Animusic.

2. A revolving and elevating stage at the National Theatre.

3. And two homes featured in the NY Times Home&Garden section: a gorgeous home by architectural designer Eric Clough on Fifth Avenue with custom clues and puzzles; and Clingstone, a 103-year-old mansion on an island of its own.

Now to actually get this entry done on time...

AI, evolution, and education

2008-08-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine and myself have been having lengthy conversations about the future of the world, science, and our place in it for the past couple of days, and I would just like (primarily for personal record) to make note of all the links and information that I was introduced to in one night:

1. Continuing from the previous night's discussion of image databases and all their potential, there is TinEye

2. Followed by a neat link to 1 0 Futuristic User Interfaces where all the ideas are reminiscent of sci-fi and anime, but in their presentation are not actually that far-fetched...

3. A short sidetrack to portable projectors...

4. ...and we return to our scheduled programming of interfaces with a flashback to two years ago, where the world was presented with advanced touchscreen technology beyond what we are already familiar with.

5. A discussion on Singularity and the concept of technology developing faster than we can follow it...

6. ...which lead to a discussion of the evolution of technology and how often we are really shooting for something far beyond our grasp...like humanoid robots, which to this date are still beyond our grasp...the missing link of this evolutionary leap of technology explored by the creators of BigDog

7. Flashback to the night before and Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question", since we were on the subject...

8. Since the topic of evolution was sparked, the Peppered Moth has to come in to play...

9. To throw in a link of my own, I was intrigued by the discussion of creativity in schools.

10. Lastly, a link sent to me by a fellow blogger to top off the night: a discussion of the origin of languages (always a personal favourite)

Liss learned a lot tonight.
Liss also has much reading to do.

Starting and the such

2008-08-17T20:07:00.002-07:00

For someone who rants and rambles a lot, it's hard to admit that I have no clue what to say in my (very) first (ever) blog post, other than: "Shitson! Liss got a blog!" and thus realize that I just may be easily amused.

I guess the major point of this thing is to house my portfolio of doodles. Along with my older stuff, random creations, comissioned art and its destinations, there's word that there may be art challenges with other bloggers in the future.

Of course, being 20, a geek, working in a Big Box Retail store, and going into my last year of undergrad, there's rants a-plenty to come.

You have been warned.