Halifax artist Emma Fitzgerald is out with a New Year’s project

A local illustrator is ringing in the new year with a new project: a desk calendar chock-full of familiar sights from around Halifax.

Emma Fitzgerald, author of the award-winning book Hand Drawn Halifax, said the 2019 calendar filled with her distinctive, colourful artwork incorporates a lot of her earlier work into a brand new product.

She said the calendar itself has been in the works for a few months, but the work that went into it spans a good chunk of her career.

“The calendar actually has a lot of images I’ve done over the years, so in a sense it’s years in the making,” said Fitzgerald, 36.

“Some of the images are from Hand Drawn Halifax and some of the images are other images that I just thought would be appropriate, or people might enjoy based on the feeling they would give people for a particular month.”

Some pictures in the calendar are of places that are in Halifax, but could be anywhere — like an image of a bicycle resting against a house — while others depict more iconic local scenes, like the Public Gardens, the Oval, and the new library.

“I just wanted to have a mixture of things people could recognize, and things that could be more loosely interpreted,” she said.

A few drawings feature houses that can be spotted around Halifax: sometimes, in more places than one.

“I find it’s interesting that I can draw a particular house, and people will go, ‘oh, it’s around the corner from me,’ even if it’s not the actual house in question,” said Fitzgerald. 

“There is this kind of overall feeling or character to Halifax houses.”

Halifax — and, more broadly, Nova Scotia — is a frequent subject of Fitzgerald’s artwork.

She said that when choosing a scene to draw, she looks for the ones that people from Halifax would recognize, and ones that she can learn more about by drawing them.

“I just try to take people on a little journey, so you get the same kind of feeling you have as when you’re out and about, walking around,” she said. “It’s a way of understanding the place we live in. There’s a sense of an ability to connect there, that wouldn’t be there if it was just any place.”

Fitzgerald, who grew up in Vancouver and has lived in Halifax for 15 years, said Hand Drawn Halifax began as a way for her to record her neighborhood.

“Then when the idea of the book came along, it was my publisher’s suggestion to go to different neighborhoods. That was just a great way to learn and understand places better,” she said.

“It’s like, once I’ve been somewhere and drawn it, I’m never going to forget there.”

As someone who’s been drawing nearly all her life, Fitzgerald said the act of drawing is a “relaxing way to make sense of the world around me.”

“I was one of those people who loved it right from pre-school and never stopped,” she said.

The new calendar is sold in multiple stores throughout Halifax and Dartmouth, including Kept, Inkwell, Atlantic News, Bookmark, and Studio 14.

Fitzgerald added that it seems like it’s been well-received so far.

“I do feel like since the production costs are higher than just a print, it was a little bit of a gamble,” she said.

“But I feel like since it’s been so well-received, maybe I’ll do another one.”

Fitzgerald has a new book, Hand Drawn Vancouver, coming out in 2020.