wallpaper

In Buenos Aires, near the Chacaritta cemetary, there is this crazy warehouse that is absolutely loaded to the rafters (I should know, i was in the rafters) with Wallpaper. When you hear about this, you picture ancient beautiful Argentinian wallpaper, loaded with toxic chemicals but vintage and yet the reality ? The place has thousands and thousands of remaindered rolls from the USA in the 70s and 80s. There were rolls from Wisconsin and as far as some made in Canada which have been shipped to this place.
Why? Who knows.

The place as you can see from this simple phone pic, is a real mess. It is an Insurance collection waiting to happen. The place has rolls and borders everwhere, but we came out that way so we had to grab something.

More sketches from Buenos Aires...Tango.

These are a few sketches of the very popular tango scenes down here, I liked watching all the people on the sidelines- a real interesting assortment of Lautrec to Bruegel types if you catch my drift.

These dance halls are interesting as you have some ancient creepy cronies and young people, a real mix.

I didn't think it was too fair to sit near the front, it would afford me the best view but would block people from the subtle head and eye movements that say whether or not a dance is on.



This Milonga, was set up like a high school dance, wallflowers against the long walls, men to one side, women to the other.




The lady in the middle of the above painting had crazy collagen implants on her lips that seemed to have gone sideways or something, blobs above and below her lips, it was hard to portray that.

More to the left, the woman in the red skirt is Christine, an Australian woman who is staying in the same place as us, soon after this picture was completed she danced with a guy who stomped on her toe and ripped the nail off, yikes.

Ladies at the Milonga

Quick Sketches at a Milonga

These are fast moving people so its a tough gig, let me tell you!

San Telmo Market Painting

Using the Japanese fold out Moleskine, I sat at the San Telmo antique market and ink sketched a long flowing record of a few hours, as people walked in front of me, like this woman's butt, they just got added into the record.

Upcoming Projects

My show has just gone up at Loop Gallery and yet, what is the next thing I'm working on?

A few things I guess. One, is a group of photos I took when we were in Buenos Aires in January of this year. We were staying near the Once (pronounced ON Say) district which is the Jewish part of town. For those who don't know, Buenos Aires has a massive thriving Jewish community and has one of the last daily Yiddish newspapers left and the only Kosher Mcdonald's outside of Israel.

I guess those are the obvious things about the Once area, the lesser known aspects is the tight knit nature of the area, the incredible old buildings-ancient bars that seem to have the original bartenders working and residential apartments which are also serve as houses of worship for entire congregations. Also the area is sandwiched in with a wholesale area that dealt in everything from obvious (textiles) to the lesser so (catholic religious icons)

Lots of pics to follow, for the moment have a look at this one.

This door leads to one such place of worship. I liked these 2 chicas who were talking loudly outside as I was standing there.



And for the hell of it, the Kosher McDonald's in Abasto shopping mall.

Image from Buenos Aires

This is a Holga photo I took in Buenos Aires, Recoleta cemetery. The place is full of all sorts pomp and circumstance, proclaiming the glory of blah blah blah.

Ideas of honour and sacrifice, it would be great if it was just about sculptures.

But sadly, it is about young people dying. I really felt this feeling staring at this monument to the glorious dead over here. The young face of this boy soldier was quite sad and quiet and unlike the people who were nearby laughing and trying to get pictures of Eva Peron's crypt.

I took this series of shots to have this young face flanked and penned in on all sides by this older soldier with a ceremonial helmet.

Compare New and Old

Well, as promised, here are a few more watercolours from my recent trip to Buenos Aires coupled with a year old series I did on the beaches of Cuba.



This above image was done in the Plaza de Mayo, the red haired guy on the left was Federico, I think he was the producer of aforementioned TV series, he seemed to be a bit of a ring leader. As an aside, you see a great deal of people with red hair in Argentina, that may seem odd or perhaps a skewed result based on the fact that they stand out but hey, ponder this, my cousin is really a red head and her mom is from Argentina....I know!

Anyways, the couple on the right were from Calgary and I think had just arrived in town. I hit my stride with the simple and if i may say elegant profile of the lady's face (i don't remember their names) the guy seemed to like the portrayal of his special lady friend and took a photo and then stood beside her to watch the actor, well, act. I then included him into this painting which I guess looks a bit like a inflated image. He saw himself pictured like Mr. Macho and guffawed, which I think is a great reaction.



So here are some sketches I did on my birthday a year ago on the beach in Cuba, surrounded by rotund Quebec-ers who have zero desire to use a skin cream with a SPF factor. It was lobsterville, for serious. Anyways, this is what got me started on portraying people in this simple style versus using pencil or ink pen sketches. The large block forms and shapes of painting worked more for me, with hints of line drawing.

Plaza de Mayo

With my days in Buenos Aires winding down, I headed to the main square to do some painting. This place is known for protests but not much was going on this day, I think it was a Sunday? Anyways, instead of a protest there were a group of people shooting some sort of revolutionary recreation type thing for TV. Go figure.



If you look on the left hand side of the image, you see the television crew: far left in red is the make-up girl who asked me about immigrating to Canada and if she should go to Montreal; some crew members; the actor is the guy with the outstretched arm and beard; to the right of that the camera person with a 5D and an old lens and sound.

To the right of all that is a group of American tourists who were sitting in the park (actually my starting point, worked the other way across the page) the tourists were de rigueur annoying in the way you expect people to be, lame comments about the city and a insane allegiance to an overuse of the words 'like' and 'dude'.

As an aside, I have to admit that the Moleskine Watercolor Sketchbook has been really terrific for me for the past year: Cuba, Morocco and now Buenos Aires, the paper is great which has been what has been lacking with other Moleskine products for 'arty' pursuits. At some point I will upload these really crude (read rudimentary) paintings I did in Cuba which sort of got me started on this style of character depiction with watercolours.

Buenos Aires - Watercolour

These are a few of some recent watercolour sketches I made while in Buenos Aires over the holidays. We went to the horse track, the Hippodromo to be exact. These Jockeys had incredible satin outfits and I had about a minute to paint them before they go on their horses and took off. I was taking a picture of these Jockeys and guards stopped me-saying no photos. I pulled out my watercolour set and started to work.



This is one of the riders as they prepared for a race. This guy is the second person in on the watercolour above- with one minute to work with, they are more of a suggestion than a painting. This was Dec 31st, it was 20 +C in Buenos Aires, just a great day, not to mention we bet on the last race of the day and won!



I sat in a little coffee shop near the Once district and watched people go about their week day, slowly painting this over the course of probably an hour, watching the changes in the end of day traffic.

The girl who is in the lower right corner of this painting is part of a group of people who collect all the cardboard and bottles in Buenos Aires, they go by the name cartoneros,. Mostly it is gruff weathered bachelors who push these immense nylon bags on rollers around town but this girl was part of a family who were scavenging. She stopped for a moment and looked around. I would have liked to follow these groups of people around and get to know who their life is, and I'm sure it ain't easy. There story is I'm sure about the suffering lower income people have suffered since the economic collapse.

Anyways, more paintings to follow.

Warhol can still wow

Well, I guess I should not be surprised but that old windbag Andy would still be pretty amazing over time. Here in Buenos Aires, there is a show of his work and the museum has these raws screen tests that were made over a period of years. Sure they are fascinating because you have people like Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Nico, Yoko Ono and Marcel Duchamp (and more) staring at the camera for a period of 4 silent minutes. But really, it is interesting, even amazing as people stare at the camera. The ones where people move around are not as engaging. Personally I found Susan Sontag's to be downright creepy as she shifted in her chair miming the word "CHEESE!" over and over again. Some of the ones I have put up have added music, just ignore that part.



The most compelling was Ann Buchanan, who barely moves but does not blink, she cries looking at the viewer, emotionless in her face, like French novel. Of course I can't find this one online to post.