Chantal Bennett Illustration Blog

Teaser

chantalbennett — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:53:40 +0000

What’s on the drafting table today. I’m always so happy with the sketches, then become really nervous when going to final. I guess I’m out of practice.

Meldrum Bay and lighthouse sketch

chantalbennett — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:57:53 +0000

Joel and I spent the long weekend on Manitoulin Island with the beagle where we visited friends of the family and camped one night in Meldrum Bay, all the way at the tip of the island.

There was an old lighthouse museum near the campsite so we spent an hour sketching it. I feel like I could have done more detail in this sketch but the sun was baking hot and after an hour I couldn’t stand it any more!

Joel and I were also debating what would be better to convert to a studio: a lighthouse or a church? What do you think?

Mississagi lighthouse in Meldrum Bay

I highly recommend camping at the Mississagi Lighthouse campground. If you like smooth, smooth stones and cold, cold water, that is.

Copper Cliff Part Deux

chantalbennett — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:08:34 +0000

Joel and I had a fruitless search a few weeks ago for a location in Sudbury interesting enough for plein air sketching. We wandered around for over an hour trying to find a somewhat inspiring location and came up with nil. This time, however, we opted to go back to our old sketching stomping ground for Copper Cliff Part Deux.

I’m pretty much convinced that despite it’s industrial neighbours, Copper Cliff could be transformed into an artsy small-town suburb of Sudbury, if anyone in Sudbury had the imagination to do it (which of course, they don’t). There is a old style main street, a large green park, stately historic homes and an old building that must have been a hotel at some point but which is now an old folks home (what a waste of good architecture). Joel and I are kind of fascinated by Copper Cliff. Of course you would have The Stack constantly in the background, but we think it’s a place that has some kind of charm.

Copper Cliff, ON. We liked the look of this old school barbershop.

Copper Cliff Part Un, almost 2 years to the day in 2009

Mackenzie King Estate

chantalbennett — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:43:16 +0000

Joel, Peanut and I were in Ottawa for Canada Day last weekend (saw Wills and Kate on a screen, yay!) We decided to take a jaunt over to the Mackenzie King Estate in the Parc Gatineau the next day and these “ruins” were on the property away from the house. Mackenzie King thought it would be fun to salvage various pieces of old houses from around Ottawa and leave them on his property as ruins. A nice place for contemplation, methinks, but not a night because that would just be spooky.

We would have sketched longer but we had forgotten to bring stools with us and therefore had to sit on stones, which hurt our bums. Note to self: always have camp stools handy in the car!

Part of a "ruined" window

Sea hair

chantalbennett — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:26:23 +0000

I’m trying to work with a lot of black ink now. This one’s based on a rocky outcrop in Maine that I liked.

Away until May 19th

chantalbennett — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:52:27 +0000

Joel and I are packing our bags for a week in NYC to visit the National Stationery Show and catch up with old friends. I’m looking forward to being completely overwhelmed with stationery goodness. It’s at the Javitts Centre, so God know there will be TONS of it there.

Back in the studio on May 19th.

Wayside

chantalbennett — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:28:39 +0000

Feelings of isolation

Since moving back to Sudbury, whatever personal work I have been doing has involved a LOT of black ink. Metaphor?

A big empathetic thank you to all the teachers who have had to put up with me over the years. While in post-secondary education I was a much better student, I know in high school I must have been hard to handle. I just finished teaching a first year, semester-long drawing class at a local college and I can now say to you poor teachers: I know how you feel!

Naively, I expected them all to fall over themselves trying to glean some nuggets of wisdom from my experiences as an artist…but whatever I said or taught was mostly greeted with glazed over, indifferent eyeballs. I hope at least a few of them gained a better appreciation of drawing.

From the inspiration file – Early 20th-century color photographs

chantalbennett — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:00:03 +0000

A few years ago I discovered a website showing the photographs of a certain Russian photographer, Prokudin-Gorskii, that were all developed in colour! It was the most amazing thing ever, to see authentic scenes from over 100 years ago in full colour. Apparently he had developed a special process for developing in colour, but the photos were subsequently lost during the Russian Revolution and only resurfaced later. I often use theses images for reference because they are so vivid.

There is also a very interesting section on the website about re-creating his colour process but using digital methods.

We tend to think of the past in black and white or in sepia tones, so to see it in colour reminds us that those people in the photos really did exist. Here is a selection of my favourites:

self portrait of the photographer

Awesome cast iron machinery

Cute animals

chantalbennett — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:27:24 +0000

Babies are impossible to draw, so here are a group of baby animals instead!!

Do you recognize that beagle?

You can see this drawing on one of our latest Papillon Press birth announcements:

Papillon Press birth announcement

Victorian Ladies letterpress

chantalbennett — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:06:11 +0000

I’m finally putting my penchant for drawing Victorian ladies to good use!

Stay tuned for a series of letterpress art cards, soon to be available through Papillon Press.

These will go along nicely with Joel’s Troublemakers series…

Soon to be available as a Papillon Press letterpress card