Painting Inspiration – Uppercase Magazine

I am a very big fan of Uppercase Magazine.  Every time I open up the pages, I get to peek into the creative worlds and processes of artists from all sorts of disciplines. It is so exciting to see a Canadian publication with such a diverse mix of art, design and themes in each issue. If I am ever struggling with a painting, I flip through my old issues to get me thinking in a new direction. I hadn’t explored illustration until I read issue 14 and it intrigued me to experiment incorporating bits of drawing into my painting.

As I work on multiple paintings at a time, I often find it challenging to keep track of what my plans and ideas are.  One of the tools I use is an online application called Evernote. I didn’t realize it’s full potential until I came across a video from Janine Vangool, the editor and publisher of Uppercase, who avidly uses Evernote. It really gave me an appreciation of her process and also the complexity of planning and creating such an innovative magazine. I think I loved the magazine even more after seeing that. You can find copies at Paper-Ya on Granville Island and at Collage Collage at 621 Kingsway.

Evernote works as an online notebook to house my sketches, materials I will use and clips of images that inspire me.  Ideas seem to come to me in the most unexpected moments and places but having my phone allows me to jot down notes which then gets synced online for me to access it later on the computer. With Evernote, I am able to capture my paintings in progress and then look back on its evolution from beginning to end like in my piece Solace in Writing. Every painting has it’s own notebook. We will see how many notebooks I will accumulate.  I hope I never run out of ideas! Thanks Janine and Uppercase!