Illustrator, Emma Biron--Friday Feature

Before I dashed off into the science program on registration day at Concordia University, I was signed up in their fine arts program; I was going to be a commercial artist and go into advertizing. Then, I decided to save the planet instead (big grin). I'm still doing it...

Ever since I was a kid, I've been a cartoonist. I created the first "Get Smart", a spoof on James Bond. I called my cartoon, James Back, 000 (triple O). My recent graphic art piece was a cartoon, The Adventures of SF Girl, which you can see below. Well, my constant fascination for this medium led me to today's Friday Feature, Emma Biron, a fascinating illustrator from Vancouver, B.C.

Emma met me at one of my book signings and immediately caught my attention when she mentioned that she did animation. What follows below are a few examples from her recent comic book, MITMOL, which I'd describe as funky anime-style, with something else. Not sure what to call it, certainly an Emma-signature. Emma tells me that she draw s"everything by hand, using fine liners for inking."

When I asked her to elaborate on MITMOL, Emma told me that it "is set in outer space and follows the characters April, Neko, and a few others. The one with purple hair and blue skin is April. Right now I’m still working on MITMOL, which is an acronym that is not really worth figuring out (it has something to do with the meaning of life)." Okay...

"I love drawing," she continues. "But I think eventually I would like to become a writer. I’m especially looking forward to the comics exhibit (KRAZY) that will be coming to the Vancouver Art Gallery." Me too, Emma! See you there!

I asked Emma to describe her pictures shown here.

The first cartoon, about talking to a container of milk, is a dream sequence from MITMOL. Says Emma: "Perhaps it has a slightly religious subtext, but that’s entirely subjective."

The next cartoon describes a scene with women in burkas and masks who are interrogating a police officer. Says Emma: "This page was rushed sadly, but I liked its subject matter."

The blue girl is April. Says Emma: "I was inspired for the pose by Egan Shiel paintings. Some comic artists have sexy main female characters, but April usually isn’t, so I was joking when I drew her like this and named it 'trying to raise viewership' ".

The illustration at the top is, according to Emma, "a self portrait I drew when I was feeling sick after eating some cheap food. My friends said my sweater looked weird in it, but it honesty looked like that... I was leaning weirdly!"

There you go... lean weirdly and you too might draw something that awesome.

A Quiet Symphony—Friday Feature + meme

For today’s Friday Feature, I present Melanie Faith’s charming blog, A Quiet Symphony… If you quiet your mind for a moment, you can just hear it too…

Quotes Melanie on her opening page, “Many silent years are spent searching for the right notes—the right conductor to illustrate the song inside our hearts… A quiet symphony is of’t overheard; overpowered by the loudness of life and the busyness of stillborn ears.”

If you check out her site on MyBlogLog, she describes her blog like this: random stuff, life, writing, marriage, spirituality, friendship, food, animals--and everything in between. That's quite a lot when you think about it... Her tags are equally eclectic, quirky and humorous. Among some meaningful ones like “spirituality”, “writing”, “friends”, “kids” and “animé” (something she betrays a strong interest in—dare I whisper, obsession for?), she adds “funny” and “stuff”.

Upon alighting on her site, you are first embraced with classical music—quiet, elegant and unassuming like the author. Treating her sidebar like a fireplace mantle, Mel unabashedly displays what she holds dear: like her rather fat cats (well, they are, Mel!), her son, husband, family and close friends. So, what kind of “stuff” does this lady, who admits that one of her main interests is daydreaming, put on there? Well, a random visit and scroll down her blog might provide you with a delightfully varied sprinkling of eclectic topics that include:

• reviews of movies, books and, of course, animé (good animé, I might add);


• some quirky tidbit of information, puzzles, quotes and silly photos;


• news clippings, often with some strange twisted truth or humor in it;


• issues that resonate with the author’s sensibilities and philosophy; and,


• always something both personal and tender.
  

On her “esnips” site, Melanie displayed a kind of creedo and it went like this: “the three most essential ingredients to a successful life are Love, Faith, and Passion.” WOW! That is a remarkably wonderful tenet to live by.

A Quiet Symphony, was a truly delightful find for me and when I “stumbled” it, I was thanked by fellow stumblers for bringing this charming site to their attention. So, keep on writing and blogging, Mel! And the rest of you, go check it out. ‘Nuff said.

I should just add that Melanie also authors another blog, devoted to writing and poetry, called Amberwood Ambrosia. As with Quiet Symphony, the tag line of Amberwood Ambrosia resonates with deeper tones of poetic truth: Amberwood: the place where every emotional gamut comes to surface—the roulette game of a chanced heart singing out its own distinct voice. Here, time is still, allowing the sun to break the dawn. Here we are ourselves, and in such honesty, give allowance to be broken so that we can become who we are meant to be. That says it all, as far as I’m concerned.

Recently, Melanie, having been tagged by miss Marjie, tagged me with what she called the “Desktop Analysis Meme”: What's the look of your computer personality? Her response was, “I have no idea what this means about me... but it's probably a lot of embarrassing, nerdy things. Oh, well!” then went on to post her desktop, which was—you guessed—some animé scene. Well, here’s mine:

So, what does it say about me? Well, that I’m Canadian and proud of all matters Canadian, including our spectacular and mysterious Aurora Borealis, that I’m a naturalist and scientist fascinated and inquisitively asking questions about how our planet works, but also an artist and spiritualist who’s also content not to know it all… Or is it simply that I am fascinated by swirly things and love the colour green?...

I pass on the screen-capture meme to the following: Princess Haiku; David, sjsuarez, Zia, wforwonder, Joshua, and Deborah.