July 17th 2014



This blog has moved!



To read up on updates and events, please visit this shiny, new blog instead!

Thank you for visiting!  



- Melinda







February 4th 2014

For a while now I've been planning to challenge myself with a personal project, one that I haven't attempted since art school; a self portrait.  I've been doing a number of editorial portraits lately, but this project felt very different to me.  I'd explained to a friend that it was a completely different way of working on a portrait, because I sometimes knew what features were so familiar in their placement and colouration,  I'd forget to look at my reference.  That's not something I tend to run in to when I'm working on a portrait of someone I'm not very familiar with.

This image is the finished portrait.  I'd taken a few process photos, but they were mostly terrible shots, so I'm not including those below in this post.  I get questions concerning how I build a painting up, so I'll be sure and take better photos to share in the future.



I'm in the middle of a busy time, but wanted to clear my head and try something (sort of) new. After taking a few good long days to finish this, I'm back to work and feeling refreshed.


January 20th 2014

This morning, I wanted to post a number of the business portraits I've been working on for Southwest Airlines' inflight; Spirit Magazine, in the past few months.

Wolfgang Puck, Austrian celebrity chef and proprietor of Wolfgang Puck restaurants


Marty SklarThe Walt Disney Company's International Ambassador for Walt Disney Imagineering, the company which designs and constructs the Disney theme parks and resorts across the world

Jim Henson, (possibly one of my favourite portraits jobs of all time), American puppeteer and creator of The Muppets

Alexis Ohanianinternet entrepreneur best known for co-founding the social news website reddit

Randi Zuckerbergformer Director of Market Development and Spokeswoman for Facebook, and sister of the company's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg


Hans Woolley, founder of Evite

January 15th 2014

It's a little belated, but happy new year, everyone!

To say that I have a little catching up to do on this blog is a bit of an understatement.  It's quite embarrassing how behind I've gotten on this thing.  (Perhaps I should use this post as a job listing for a new studio assistant??).

Even though very little has been posted here in the last… month… s… I plan to go back through the work I've done over the past while and update what I've been up to during this hiatus.


So; since my last post, some exciting projects have come over my desk.  One in particular was a solo show that I worked on over the summer, and opened at Hellion Gallery in Portland in November.  I've got photos of the two new paintings I did for the show that I'm fixing up, and will do a proper post in a couple of days.

I also worked for TIME Magazine for the first time this September.  I was asked to do a set of nine portraits for them for an article on the Clinton Global Initiative; among the portraits were ones of Bill Gates and Brad Pitt, which was a lot of fun.

I've been working for nearly a year now as the regular weekly illustrator for The New York Times Magazine's back page; the Lives article.  It's been a wonderful job so far, and I'll post a few below with links to their articles.

Keeping Kosher








I also did a job with the WWF, which was a dream.  I love what they do, so it was a pleasure to do a set of illustrations for the Winter 2013 issue of their quarterly World Wildlife Magazine.


One of the highlights of the past few months was a series of portraits I did for The New York Times Magazine's Movies Issue.  I was asked to illustrate 14 Hollywood screenwriters, which accompanied 11 short films, (and may be viewed here).


Seriously!?  I don't think there's a single person on this list that I don't admire.  This job was an absolute joy.  I particularly liked being able to paint local writer/ director Sarah Polley.  Very exciting.

I'll update with further work in an additional post or two in the next few days.

To close off this first post of 2014: some New Year's resolutions; drink more water, take my vitamins, keep this thing updated like a responsible freelance illustrator...