I’ve just wrapped up a few busy weeks of art shows with Fanfayr in Kingston on the July long weekend and Fantasy in the Forest this past weekend. The shows were both amazing! (Pictures are coming soon!) They gave me a chance to show some of my newest work, including this recently completed series inspired by the classic board game, Clue.

I was so excited to work with the colours represented by the players/suspects and developed my own film noir inspired versions of each one.
I just love the texture and drama in the fashion from this era. If you know the game, you’ll recognize the weapons and rooms shown in each painting. Hope you like the finished product!

Father’s Day is this Sunday and I’ve been working hard to add to my selection of cards for men! The illustrations
are a combination of hand-drawn artwork as well as some digitally rendered pieces. As always, all of the cards are
printed on FSC certified papers.

The cards are available for order through the Shop Page and I will be making local deliveries in Kingston
this Friday and Saturday. You can also pick up select cards in downtown Kingston at Dwell Boutique,
Card’s Bakery and at the In the Art of the City Gallery at 122 Princess St.

Have a very happy father’s day!

Today the latest issue of Off The Map came out including a feature about my illustration work! I’m so excited!
You can take a closer look and see the whole issue at: otmzine.com.

I’m so excited, because tonight I will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Creative Arts at
the Alumni Show! Creative Arts is a high school focus program in fine art and is taught by
Karen Peppercorn. I took the program when I was in Grade 11 and was thrilled to be invited
to be a part of the exhibit this year. It also seemed like a great opportunity to show off some
of the paintings from my newest series of fashion illustrations, the Fashion Alphabet.
Here’s a preview:

Beyond the alumni component of the exhibit, current students of the program are also
showing their work from the year. This isn’t your typical student show, because the work is
really amazing. The location is 122 Princess St. in Kingston and it runs until June 20th.

This semester at Ryerson, each student was assigned the task of creating an
elaborate flash website for our New Media course. Animating my drawings was the
ultimate illustration project and it was so cool to watch this website come to life.
After a lot of hard work and after making a lot of unsuccessful out-of-control
clocks, I conquered flash and this is what I came up with.

Click Here to visit the Tick-Tock History website.

The idea for this site came from my fourth year thesis project that was all about
memory, nostalgia and keepsake objects. Greeting cards were the starting point for
my research, but as the year went on, I started looking at modern incarnations of
keepsakes like Polaroids, movie posters, video games, out-of-date computers,
and cell phones.

Just looking at images like these can take you back to another time and place.

So, to get some perspective on the modern keepsake, I decided to make a history
website that tells the story of these objects and where they came from. The site
also gives a bit of background on major historical events of the twentieth century.
Obviously, no one likes a boring history lesson, so the website needed to be
interactive and engaging. It features illustrated and animated clocks that connect
to videos that I created of decades from 1900 through to 1990.

Visit the site at: http://stw.ryerson.ca/~aperlin/ticktockhistory.html

Valentine’s Day is the prettiest holiday and seemed like the perfect occasion to share
one of my new notebook designs.

This fall, when I was looking around for back-to-school notebooks, I had trouble finding any
good looking, environmentally-friendly options. So I created this mini collection of fashion
illustrated notebooks to fill this gap. The books are printed on FSC Certified papers and are
designed to produce as little paper waste as possible when they are assembled. They have
72 pages and a durable metal binding. And best of all, the notebooks fit easily in an average
sized purse.

Beyond these features, working on these books gave me the chance to play around with a
different style of illustration. Here are a couple of the other illustrated covers.

Happy Birthday Aquarius! Everyone loves a makeover, (especially at this cold, wintry time of
year). So for your birthday this year Aquarius, a makeover is exactly what you’re going to get!

Here she is in her everyday look. You can see that Aquarius is very intelligent. She’s a
compassionate leader and she really cares about the environment. But she has a glamorous
side too.

The new look was inspired by a few of my favorite Aquarian friends. They are all fun,
charismatic, talented people and a couple of them are also great singers. (Some are not
so great.) Whatever your talents are, have a great birthday!

Need a last minute gift or stocking stuffer? Don’t worry, it’s not too late!

There’s still time to order a 2010 fashion agenda or holiday cards. Tomorrow I will be
making last-minute deliveries around Kingston. If you’d like to order, just call 647.981.3057
or send an email to alex@alexperlin.com.

This 2010 calendar was designed as a sequel to the original Zodiac Fashion Agenda for 2009.
The fashion agendas were a big success at the art shows and sales that I vended at this year.

One of best parts about vending at art shows is that it gives me a chance to meet customers
and get feedback from them directly. Those great ideas inspired the redesign and improve-
ments in the 2010 fashion agenda.

No one likes to look like the rest of the pack and this book was designed with that in mind.
It comes in two cover options so you can choose from Champagne or the Red Polka Dots.

These weekly calendars start in January 2010 and now also feature a full year calendar
at the beginning of the book. There are also blank pages for writing down those important
phone numbers or “To Do” list items. The book is 8.5” x 5.5” and fits nicely in most purses.

The cover has a soft textured finish and like all of my products, the paper is FSC certified.
The book is a limited edition and is only distributed locally.

All of the illustrations are NEW this year. Each fashion illustration shows the styles of the
season and corresponds to its month. Here’s a sneak peak at what you’ll find inside the
2010 Fashion Agenda:

It’s hard to believe that the holidays are finally here! And as everyone prepares to take time
off from work, school or whatever they normally do, it only seemed right to dedicate this blog
post to a guy who is working hard this holiday season. So, this one is for you Santa.

There are so many different types of images of Santa and everyone seems to have
their own idea of what he looks like. Back in September, I used this idea when I started
working on my thesis about keepsakes, greeting cards and memory. I used vintage
holiday cards to make this Santa Memory Game as a bit of an experiment. It’s a take on
the classic Memory game, but here instead of matching Elmos, apples or the alphabet
you match vintage card illustrations of Santa!

The rules are simple: Everyone gets a chance to see the cards turned upright before
the game begins. The decides on a time between 10-30 seconds. (Choose the based
on age and ability.) Then flip the cards and play!

Besides being a fun game for the holidays, it was also fun to see how people’s
visual memories are different from each other. While none of us have seen the Santa
in person, we all have a pretty clear idea of what we think he looked like. I found that
people chose Santa images that looked closest to their own idea of Santa. One student
ended up with a bunch of Coca Cola Santas, while others matched all the pairs with
cartoon-like features.

Happy Hanukkah friends! And what did I get for you, you ask? Illustrations of course!

My immediate family celebrates Christmas, not Hanukkah, but our Jewish ancestors would
be proud to see my Dad cooking up Matzo Ball Soup every December 26th. And who can resist
a little gelt? Yum yum.

One of my best friends, Sarah is celebrates both Hanukkah and her birthday in December. Her birthday
party usually has a Hanukkah theme where we play with dreidels and eat Star of David cookies. This year
it will be a Hanukkah sweater party! Sarah was my inspiration and offered help to develop this illustration.

Here is the sketch and initial steps in painting as well as the finished card.

If you are in Kingston, this card is available from Dwell Boutique or Cybil Scott. Or order online in the website shop.

Enjoy the festivities!