My name is Thomas Girard and I've lived in Toronto for 3 years now. I'm a professional web developer, aspiring visual artist and armchair neroscientist. When I moved here I was inspired by the artistic community Toronto had and I just wanted to immerse myself in that.

I got started doing the things I do two years ago when I thought trying to focus on my creative side would be a good project. As a programmer by trade I don't usually come into many situations that allow for creativity but I've always loved doodling in the margins of notebooks. I have an extremely active and vivid imagination so there's a lot in terms of resources up there. What really gave me a push was a gift my wife gave me. It was a pair of felt robots mounted on paper and hung with ribbon and I just loved it so much that I wanted to turn some of the images swirling around in my head into something physical.

I started really working on my drawing skills. I'm all self taught mostly from books and getting feedback from those vastly better than myself online and I've made considerable progress.

My work is mostly collages. Collages of junk and miscellanea made up my robots and collages of paper and ink to make more traditional visual art. Those are the two areas I excel most in but I'm still feeling my way around the creative world. I got a beautiful case of pastels as a wedding gift and I'm slowly teaching myself colour theory and how to draw with shades and shadows rather than lines. I'm even wetting my feet in photography!

It's the most indescribable feeling when you create something beautiful. To look outside of myself and see these images usually confined to my mind is just wonderful. It's an even better feeling when people take interest in your work. I've sold the bulk of the things I've made over the past two years on etsy.com, to friends and locally in Toronto. I don't do it for the money (but I'd love it if this could be my full time job), I just like passing that feeling of whimsy on to other people.

Taking time away from all the screens in your life is great. You can just sit back and let your mind go wild. The more you do it the better you feel.

I spend a lot of time playing video games. They've been my passion since I was very young. I'm very into the independent games community because they make games that really break the mould. I too am an amature games programmer with nothing really interesting to show just yet, but it's a hobby. I also enjoy building my personal website (www.imaginarythomas.com) and coding experiments that rarely get finished because I have so many projects on the go at the same time.

In the future I hope to start doing more elaborate work with my junk collages. Living the apartment live doesn't allow the full array of tools I'd like so I make due now with what I am allowed. I've also taken on a few custom commission jobs which I'd like very much to do more of.