commercial work

From 1972 to 1984, I worked for the small company called Import Bazaar, in their downtown office, around the corner from their #1 store. Eventually Import Bazaar, an offshoot of Pier 1 in the States, took over all the Cargo Canada stores in the rest of Canada, giving us stores right across Canada.

This was my first job after graduating University, and I learned on-the-job. It was a great job, very informal, as was the company.
I was "the art dept.", and did signs for the stores as well, at first all hand done, then later, commercially printed. The ads were all hand-lettered for many years, but eventually type-set and stripped in by me.

All illustrations were drawn from the actual item placed in front of me, a good way to train the eye, but a ruler was used to make sure of dimensions. (Of course people and animals in the drawings were made up!)

From 1990-1992 I worked as a replacement for someone for a month in the graphic dept, and then was hired as part of a group of Technical Illustrators, for Pratt & Whitney, in Longueuil, Quebec.
I had all my training there on-the-job! I learned to transfer the airplace piece from the blue-print, and then ink in the final drawing, on acetate.
As you can see below, there is a very precise way to do this.
So now I can't look at poorly done tech illustrations, as I know how they should look!

Technical drawings have no perspective, unlike real life, but this makes it easier to see all the pertinent parts. I was hired to learn on the job, because my employer saw I was good with details, as in my Import Bazaar drawings (which all have perspective).

The following are examples of some of my free-lance work: