Charcoal sketches, February 02, 2009

Charcoal drawings with one of those wolf pencils I have had for 15 years, these images start to reoccur in my work and later I incorporate the cameo motif.

Another view of the bar

This Moleskine note book is just full of drawings at the Cobourg bar over a few nights, low on notes high on booze infused drawings. I don't think this was the night this guy spilt an ENTIRE glass of red wine on my sketchbook and then him and his lady were giving me shit because I was not gracious enough to laugh it off. I pretty much expect that in bars.

A cast of characters at the bar

Feb 01 2009, Sketch at the bar

February 1st, 2009

At the Cobourg bar on Parliament Street.

These songs go on forever.

The band warms up

These two guys don't look like they are into jazz either

Pre Show jitters

Nicola looks nervous here, I think she was just getting ready.

Sunday Night Jazz, February 1st, 2009.

For the record, I think I hate Jazz. BUt you want a drink that is 5 doors north of the studio on a Sunday night-Its always Jazz on Sundays at the Cobourg. C'est la vie I suppose.

Person on the far left, that is Nicola playing the saxophone. The toque lady must be Natalka.

Jan 14th, 2009

ericfarache.com The site is up and running!

My website is online now, and you can check out a wide variety of images; sketches, photos, paintings and prints.


ericfarache.com

Just click the above link and it will take you there.

I have just added a gallery from our recent trip to China- One month in the world's most populated country, it was amazing. Most of the China pictures are digital. I also took a very heavy Yashica twin lens camera, look for more film pics to be added in the next day or so when they are scanned.

Please also check out the 2nd gallery on the site, marked "dreams" which I think comes closest to what I am trying to do with my photography.

Mao

This was supposed to be a much larger longer narrative with a re occurring Mao, like a babushka doll.

continued

Blossoms on a tree

An unfinished Japanese style book

Japanese foldout Moleskine, I started this when I got back from China, based on things I saw, my images etc, but I never finished it and now it is just too long ago.

Shanghai Street Scenes

As seen on the side of a news stand in Shanghai last week.

Classic scenes from China either Real or Imagined.

These are a few pictures from Shanghai. The whole time we have been here, the country has not been any sense typical to ideas you may have about the country before you get here.

People have a great deal of personal freedom here and the culture is on the vanguard of modern art and technology.

So when I spied these images in Shanghai, anachronistic images of China- I had to photograph them, utterly typical photos to what western media portrays China to be: young men in oversized military uniforms and old men playing the flute like some bad CCTV (Chinese National Television)advert-Experience the mysteries of the orient- China, tourism destination 2008.

December 6th, 2008- Beijing Airport

December ish 2008

These 'fanciful' images were both based on pictures from something, I cannot remember

November 30th, 2008

Yong Kang, Home to the World's Best Drivers

Well, we made it to Yong Kang.
This is a small factory town, where primarily doors are produced for the Russian Market. Who cares about that. What blew us away was the variety of vehicles and amazing forms of transportation people use.

November third, 2008.

More of the city that never sleeps

Yup, its true-New York is a pretty amazing city. Just walking around we saw some pretty amazing things and got taken in by the various vibes of neighborhoods. Luckily for us, it was very sunny the whole time we were there so we could spend our days walking around eating and drinking prosecco.

Of course, we could have made a special trip itinerary of all the places we went to that have been featured in movies. These two kids on the steps were at St. Patrick's cathedral, where Soylent Green (its made of people!!!!!!) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes was filmed.

Luckily there was no intercontinental ballistic missile there.

We walked to the Neue Museum, which means we crossed the Diamond district but Marathon Man "Is it Safe?" did not occur to me until afterward.

I like New York in October

Kensington Pedestrian Sunday

These images were taken near the end of the summer in Kensington. The sunlight really felt great, I bumped into the photographer Norman Wong and we went for a drink.

I can't seem to find the picture I took of this lady over by Augusta who wanted some lessons on how to use a twins lens camera, I'll put it up later. She had her Granpa's old Rollei-which is pretty awesome.

Cabbagetown Festival

The Cabbagetown Festival came and went. Basically, if you call rampant capitalism with very little to offer the consumer, then you would call this a festival. Don't get me wrong, people had a great time- just tables of crap for sale, everything all the junk someone keeps in their house (good) to dubious cooked sandwiches and this jerk selling a bike bell that he rang for 8 hours repeatedly (bad).


I just walked around with an old Yashica Twin Lens camera and took some shots, bumped into some friends and got annoyed at the "dragon drum" people as their drumming made the roof of my apartment vibrate in a menacing way, like it was seconds from collapsing Jericho styles.

Before the show began

I started to really fall apart here

The Burghers of Calais

With the robes, I was reminded of this sculptural group by Rodin

I hate it when they just do voice scales

The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts

Sarah took me to the centre for some singy dancey thing. I got the giggles and was never invited back.

Etching

This is the first update in a number of months, I thought I would start with some etchings from a few years back. They were done when I came back to my studio in Yorkshire after a hideous bus trip to Amsterdam.
This image is of night, somewhere in France or Belgium. I used a rag to daube extra ink onto the plate for a painterly effect, whose un-reproduceable qualities make it a Variable Print.Basically, its a method of adjusting the amount of ink on the surface of the etching plate to create the dramatic atmospheric effect. This place was dark and forlorn and made all the more so by a bunch of techno-kids who pulled up in a VW golf, all loaded up on uppers. It was the Gend'arme and their dogs that scared everyone the most. Even though the techno boys were wearing cowboy hats in Europe.

To illustrate the technique, this image is more or less a straight print.


This is the same etching with "inky effects" This is the Lieddeseplan Square on the edge of the Red Light district where i stayed at the crappy Bull Dog cafe in 1992. What a dump, the guy in the bed beside me held back vomiting for 3 hours from 6am till 9am and then went back to the bar to stay drunk.
I was walking by this place in 1999 in the aforementioned bus ride and was struck by panic to see the place again.I decided to sit and draw the passers by.