Serena Malyon

This (very large) illustration was done for the Inglewood Bird Santuary. They wanted illustrations to decorate the sides of large planters, to be filled with plants from different zones around Alberta. I was tasked with illustrating the foothills montane region, a region full of life. The Inglewood Bird Sanctuary has a lot of classes that visit, so I wanted to create something eye catching and fun for the kids, something that promotes a love of nature and a healthy lifestyle.

For this project I took several of the once well-respected Gods of Olympus and turned them into wine labels. Perhaps when I get some time I’ll do Poseidon, Athena and Artemis.

Some promotional banners for the theatrical production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe that I designed (see previous posts). These banners are composed of three translucent layers of fabric, which all combine to create the image you see above. This effect mimics the set design’s translucent curtains, and adds an air of whimsy to the ads. The figures you see are the White Witch and Aslan.

Some set designs for a theatrical production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Taking this story on as a theatrical production was a challenge- there are so many scene changes that the set would have to be versatile. So I designed the set as a series of translucent curtains, able to be moved across the stage, facilitating scene changes and making Narnia seem vast (walking through the woods is no longer limited to one set). Some of the curtains would have wireframes, allowing characters to be supported by them (see the second and third scenes).

Some character designs for a theatrical production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Mr. Tumnus, Lucy Pevensie, The White Witch.

I did some spot illustrations for Albert Ostman’s sasquatch story. He was abducted for several days by a family of sasquatches and made a dramatic escape. In his tale, the sasquatches come off as peaceful, friendly creatures. I pushed that a bit further, making them quite civilized, complete with period hairstyles (apparently the woman-sasquatch had bangs) and furnishings. So these satirical illustrations show a sceptic’s view of his story, but you should check it out for yourself.

Here I have a gig poster concept for the band The Unsettlers. It was done for class, but it was a pretty open project so I just had fun and tried to design something that really fit their music. You should check them out!

*its not a real gig date

A cover for The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

I recently wrote a story about a girl named Bridget who travels around Ireland and encounters a group of wandering giants. They take the form of standing stones so they can travel around, camouflaging themselves to hide from humans. Bridget makes friends with them and tells them human stories about giants (see the 2-pg spread), and they’re enthralled. That’s all you really need to know to understand the illustrations, and the story is long and poorly written, so I’ll save it for another time. I illustrated it so it would function as a pop-up book, which was lots of fun to engineer, but unfortunately I didnt have time to actually construct it.

Here’s a link to the pdf, which is easier to read: Black Death Illustrated Guide. This assignment was a fun one, we simply had to research a topic and create informational illustrations about it. Because I have always found medieval life and the Black Death fascinating, I decided to created an educational guide to the Black Death. While the illustration style departs slightly from my usual stylization, I think that it’s still recognizably mine. It was a lot of fun to reference medieval woodcuts and illuminated manuscripts, and I think I’ll probably use some of the reference in the future as well.

ps. while I did do my research, I wouldn’t exactly use this booklet as reference for an essay.