Chef again

Sushi chefs....I need better note taking.

Jesus and the Money Lenders in the temple

This sketch looks like I was looking at the El Greco painting, perhaps in the Frick collection in New York. It is an amazing gallery, around the corner from Central Park, the Neue Gallerie, the Guggenheim, all that good stuff.

This is just a detail, I like the way the painting is essentially done monochromatically then the reds yellows, etc are added in washes.

I always wanted to see this piece of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata

Of course, it was not on display.

YOu can plan your trip to the Frick HERE

Cafe Sabarsky....?

I have no idea where this is drawn, may even be the shitty Irish bar.

I must have hated this place

I wrote "Shitty Irish Bar in NYC"....yikes.

Bartender at Bread

Not sure what possessed me to make this naff drawing of the bartender.

Bread restaurant NYC

This place is great, food is good and the people watching is fantastic albeit dimly lit and difficult for drawing.

You can check out this place when you are next in the Nolita area of NYC, here is a review with terrible pictures from the New York Magazine

More on Stuff at TCAF

Did these sketches of George Walker at TCAF, this was during a lecture on artist books.
These are some simple sketches at 10 am on a Saturday morning.
Its not me, I did not try to make him look like Elvis Costello, he looks that way-honest.

Graphic Imagery

This is one of the most insane images I have ever seen. This picture is part of an amazing show at the Japan Society in New York.
I'll elaborate on this later, its a late night and I have to get some shut eye. It is a good lead in to the recent TCAF, toronto comic art fair which had amazing artists like Seth and Clowes

But for those who likes things a bit more old school, here is another image by master Japanese printer of the 1800s Utagawa Kuniyoshi, first rate bad ass and certainly a inspiration for manga.

Gormley on Madison Square Park

Meanwhile, walking past Madison Square near the Hotel Chelsea, you notice this
And to be honest, either this picture was taken the day it was 'revealed' or these people are all tourists. New Yorkers did not seem to care that this famous British sculptor had decided to go global with flashing/exposing/exhibitionism.

On the whole, the sculptures that you could see at a distance on rooftops seemed the most profound, within the context of a city, they seem like non-passive potential jumpers and I guess that was a complaint of people here, as it brought out memories of Sept 11.

Long Time No Post

OK OK, I have been meaning to make about 10 million posts but where does the time go I ask you in the most rhetorical fashion?

A few weeks ago, I went to NYC via the Megabus, and frankly, meh is my pronouncement on this cheap way to get down there. But when it comes to New York City, unlike much of life, it is not the journey but the destination that matters so don't worry about the crappy bus ride, devoid of the much promised free Wi-Fi and electricity.

No, its more about going to the Neue Galerie on the edge of Central Park, the German art centre which has Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka paintings and a traveling Otto Dix show which will be in Montreal soon.



Otto Dix's series of prints made from his harrowing experiences in WW1 are as terrifying as they are hilarious and sad.

This is where the paintings purchased from the Bloch-Bauer heirs now live. The Adele Bloch-Bauer portrait and some of Klimt's last paintings are here.

check out the Gallery here



This a little sketch from an Egon Schiele painting that was so simple and utter perfect in it's sense of contour.



I sat in the cafe Sabarsky, named after the Klimt art expert who curated a Klimt show I saw 1991 in Florence, it kinda blew me away- you know all about the finished paintings, but it was the sketches that were so simple and stunning. The show was in the massive Fortezza della Basso, which is sort of on the edge of the city.

It is also on a ring road where tranny hookers ply their trade. As students, we had to walk past here every day to get to school, which was fine in the day as we could navigate the insane "Italian Job" Style driving, dog shit and used hypodermic needles which were part of the everyday (Florence, in the early 1990s was apparently the Heroin capital of Western Europe). At Night, however, Fiat Puntos would slow to a crawl, looking for just the right combo of white fur coat, black wig and shiny fuck me boots that made that irresistible Tranny. We would walk past it all in amazement.

May 8th, 2010 at TCAF