Melinda Josie

November 7th 2012

While watching the very exciting US election coverage last night, I finished printing a new, small-scale silkscreen print.

I've been developing some ideas for prints for the last little while, and I finally settled on this. I'm so happy with the way they turned out! I wanted to experiment a little bit with my Print GOCCO using multiple colours per screen; (not only because I thought the effect would be nice, but also because of a shortage in GOCCO supplies these days).

Firstly, I applied a screen with white snow and a faint outline of the reindeer; it's difficult to see from this scanned image. The next two screens were printed with 7 and 3 colours respectively. It turned out just as I'd hoped!

They're 5" x 7" and printed on a lovely ivory hot press stock.

To order, please visit my website, here.

November 1st 2012

Happy November! I hope everyone is having a great start to the new month.

I've been pretty terrible at keeping up with this blog lately. I've been busy with a couple of things on the go, which I'll be excited to share when I'm able to.

Since my last post, Chris and I visited Montréal, where we attended a benefit auction of children's book illustrations to raise funds for the CCBC. It was held at the beautiful Musée des Beaux Arts de Montréal, and was a pretty exciting event, (and nerve-wracking when it came to my piece). I'd never been to an art auction before, so it was a treat. Unfortunately, the trip was far too short, but it was a lovely one; just a quick day and a half trip out of Toronto.

Also, Nathan Jurevicius' show I recently did a painting for, and was scheduled to open last night, was postponed due to power outage at the gallery. It's located in the lower half of Manhattan in the East Village, and got hit pretty hard by the hurricane. They're hoping to have things restored and opened by the weekend, but updates will be made on their event page.

Lastly, I want to send my regards to everyone who was effected by the hurricane. My thoughts are with you all.

October 11th 2012

I was recently asked by a friend, Nathan Jurevicius, to create a painting for a show he was curating. Nathan is the artist behind Scarygirl, a series of illustrated stories, games and toys centred around the namesake main character. He has been creating this series for the last 10 years, and wanted to have an anniversary show dedicated to other artist's interpretations of his set of characters.

I decided to tackle the main character, Scarygirl. I wanted to make her look like a real little girl, which was a real challenge because so much about the character is highly stylized. She has a stitched mouth and a hook for a hand. The character also has a single bone where her hand should be, and I decided to leave that absent. I think she started to look a bit like a little girl from a Japanese horror movie, but I'm happy with the direction it took.

The show is set to open at Underground Gallery in New York on Hallowe'en night; Wednesday, October 31st. To view a few more pieces from the exhibition; which will display the work of over 100 artists, head over to Magic Pony's blog.

September 28th 2012

Anabela and Geoff got married a couple of weeks ago.

I wanted to make something special for them, because they're pretty special friends. They both love cats; quite possibly, (dare I say it), even more than me, especially their two kitties Oreo and Pony.

Both Chris and I put our heads together and decided that we wanted to make them a framed painting. If you're familiar with their work, you'll know that they use a lot of light, ethereal imagery, so I wanted to include a hint at that in the painting. Anabela loves peonies, and I thought Pony would look adorable in a silk ribbon. Chris made a beautiful frame and we stained it with white pickling stain to keep the whole thing nice and bright, (like their lovely apartment).

Anabela posted a little more about the painting, which you can view here.

On another note; I wanted to mention the event happening at the AGO tomorrow night for Nuit Blanche. Heather Goodchild has recreated a midcentury garment, ceramic and metal-work factory in Made It Then, Make It Again, where workers will be assembly-line manufacturing uniforms, mugs and metal stools for the workers to sit on. I'll be helping out along the garment line, and will clock on between 1-4am, but the whole performance takes place between 7pm and 7am. For a proper explanation, and some beautiful photos of the space coming together, visit The Wardens Today.

Also, I'm looking forward to sharing a painting I've been working on lately for an upcoming show. It will take place at the end of October in New York. It's been a lot of fun so far, and I'll post all about it closer to the date of the show.

September 27th 2012

If you're already familiar with my work, you'll probably know that I use a lot of mushroom/fungi reference in my paintings.

I'm not really sure when this fascination began, but it was probably when I was quite young. I did not like eating mushrooms; I thought they were horrible, until an old neighbour who used to watch us took my sister and I out into the woods to look for edible mushrooms. From memory, I think they were probably King Bolete mushrooms, but she called them 'Butter Mushrooms'. We took them back home with us, she fried them up in some butter, and they were delicious! (Butter will do that).

There was a long while when I didn't give much thought to the humble mushroom, until I started adding them to the odd painting a few years back. Then, in 2010, I took part in a show at Narwhal Art Projects called The Dazzle and devoted all five oil paintings to them.

Now, any time I go up north to my parent's home, I try to go for a walk back in the woods and see what I can find. This past weekend was rainy and cool; the perfect climate for mushrooms to pop up overnight.

Here are photos of just a few findings back in the woods. I brought a field guide along with me, and was able to identify some of them along the way.

*(Please note: I'm not a trained mycologist, so please don't use the names below as reference).