Brittany Brooks Drawing Fans In With Her Music And Artwork

Brittany Brooks has spent a good chunk of this summer working with guitarist Jimmy Bowskill and putting the finishes touches on a new album. However, in addition to her various releases, recording and touring Brooks has made quite a name for herself in recent years creating concert posters for a myriad of acts. Whether it's the John Borra Band, the Doghouse Orchestra or Mike T. Kerr, you've probably seen her work at longtime Toronto watering holes like the Horseshoe Tavern, Cameron House or Dakota Tavern.

Heck, the Parton and Pearl logo you see at the top of this page was created by Brooks herself!

"It's always been a passion of mine," the busy Brooks says in early August. "As a kid you could always find me drawing or painting and that need to create visually has never gone away.

"To me, illustration is a limitless medium. There are so many styles in which you can draw and such a variety of materials to use. I enjoy how immediate illustration is too, compared to something like oil painting which requires a lot of waiting time for materials to dry. I'm not patient enough for that (laughs)."

Brooks began creating posters for her own musical projects while attracting musicians who she made deals with: "trading design work with other musicians who would play music with me in return." She says the design work paid off more than she could've hoped for.

"As my posters became more in demand and I began to include detailed illustration work in each poster, I had to be compensated for the time put into creating the artworks," Brooks says.

The posters themselves look from a different era at times, looking as if they've been uncovered from a music vault from the '50s or '60s, an era when all-star revues stormed through towns with big names and head shots included in an attempt to attract eyeballs. Brooks says the past, namely the 50s, 60s, and 70s had a big influence on her.

And while she doesn't have a personal favourite poster, she enjoys the  work of Taylor Wright Rushing, another illustrator who has created posters for everybody from Willie Nelson and Lavender Country to Colter Wall and Nathaniel Rateliff.

"I like to create designs that look like they could be from another time," she says. "The most important thing to me is to represent the vibe of the music or event I am creating a design for properly."

Although her work is becoming more known in a widening Canadian musical community, Brooks perhaps landed her biggest work when Blue Rodeo had her create the poster for their longstanding annual August concert at Budweiser Stage (formerly Molson Amphitheatre). The Aug. 27 show with support from Sarah Harmer is perfectly illustrated by Brooks, capturing the band's tour bus with the Toronto skyline in the front window. A Ferris wheel and roller coaster in the background symbolize the annual Canadian National Exhibition which occurs from mid-August until early September.

"We discussed a couple of ideas, all of them with the same bright colour palette, but agreed on the tour bus as the main image," Brooks says. "The idea was to create something fun and summery that would capture the vibe of their annual concert at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto. I had the idea to include the band pulling up to the CNE in a 1970s style tour bus with the bus marquee reading 'Many A Mile,' a nod to Blue Rodeo's new record."

Brooks feels fortunate to have designed posters for so many artists she's admired and enjoyed over the last few years. She also says the time needed to complete a tour poster can vary.

"This really depends on what sort of style I'm working in," she says. "Some illustrations I make very quickly but others can take days or even weeks of fine-tuning to get things looking right and all of the details in place."

Besides posters, Brooks has branched out into album cover design and more recently videos/visualizers for musicians include Jerry Leger ("Underground Blues") and BROS ("Clams Casino").

"I've definitely been shifting focus onto animation work over the past year and both of those videos were an awesome way to show people I can do this sort of work too," Brooks says. "All of the video work I've done includes original hand illustration by me which I later animate in (Adobe program) After Effects.

"It's pretty magical to make a series of drawings, put them together in an animated sequence and see them move! I am certainly hoping to do more animation work in the future and have been working on a handful of new projects." 

Meanwhile on the music front, Brooks says Brooks & Bowskill have a busy second half of 2022 slated with their debut full-length album of original music coming out sometime in the winter. The musician says the two different disciplines of music and illustration can crossover at times.

"Most of the lyrics I enjoy or that I write have a lot of imagery within the lines which allows you to visualize something as you listen," she says. "Now that I'm working in animation, the music inspires the movement of the drawing. So it goes and in hand for me and I'm lucky to combine both of my passions into my work."

Finally, Brooks says she has some advice for young illustrators or those eager to follow this particular artistic passion.

"Share your work with the musicians you love!" she says. "I've had some amazing opportunities come about from sharing my work online and within the music community."