Cold Phone Check

February 27th, 2015

Quick sketch of woman slumped in the subway for warmth. Bloor Line...is this line 2 now?

Late February Sketch

I was holding this mini sketchbook while waiting for a prescription, just noticed how many products line the shelves at your typical Shoppers, it is crazy. Also, there is a sale on Immodium... i'm thinking when you need that stuff, you gonna buy, sale or not.

Upcoming Exhibition

Slowly getting myself ready for some new/old work to be put on display, details to follow.

Here is a sample: 10 years of sketches made in the Cabbagetown neighbourhood where my studio is located.

Paint the Halls

Fundraiser at women's college hospital, the place is being torn down and rebuilt. Toronto is certainly changing. My friend Margaret Cresswell was one of 75 artists who painted on the walls in a kind of 'paint off' Personally, hospitals are creepy places and to distract myself I took to sketching the patrons on the walls with a sharpie

NOW magazine

It seems a bit odd, but here is me in a photo shoot.

Well, that is me in the background anyways. For Fashion week, Now Magazine, created a shoot with the idea of the "artist and muse"....Look, I was just drawing not making up the ideas.

You can see the story on Now Magazine's website

The fashion influences the way you draw I guess, these earrings and tight hairline made me think of a flapper.

It did give me a great chance to draw the model, Queenette.

I feel like there is always a great tension when drawing a person, focusing on their muscle and structure and, at the same time, giving attention to the clothes as well.

It was also really interesting for me, someone who is not in the fashion world to have a bit of an outsider perspective on the clothing styles.

Give me a break, she was 6 foot 1 and wearing heels!

drawings of Scotty

This is a pastel drawing I did using old Grumbacher pastels on a piece of thick carton board like I'm some contemporary of Toulouse-Lautrec dans la Belle Epoque! I love looking at that style of drawing- the strength in the lines.

Scotty was sitting in the studio for a haircut for some video thingy and it gave me a chance to do some drawing, like this portrait of him and a double portrait of Duncan cutting his hair, I took the theme further and gave Scotty some dog tags like he was a GI being sent to Viet Nam.

Sketchbook Images, 2006-2011

This old piece of luggage, I cannot remember where I got it from, I store a whack of old sketchbooks in it, its handy. With the quality and condition of the studio, I should use a pelican case.

Here is a stack of aforementioned sketchbooks, notebooks and random junk around, that one would expect if you've been to my studio.

So, from all this, I have put a whack of scans online on the blog, click each year and you will see the sketches on the day they were sketched.


2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

New York 2012

Yes, it was freezing. Yes, there were line ups galore in front of every major art gallery or Museum but, New York is still a great time.

My friend Alan and I started with a coffee.

Yup, even in the sweaty subway people were all bundled up. I drew this sketch while overhearing some heinous teens talking. I think if you grew up in NYC you would be a sleazier more foul version of yourself....just a thought.

At the Guggenheim- the Maurizo Cattelan retrospective, ALL.

You can see the herds of people in line that you are trying to avoid at all costs, it was an amazing thing to take in but at the end of it all, I am no longer sure what I think of the artist- it was a lot of one liners, winks and leg pulling. Not much gravitas when you have a minature Hitler floating by a cord, sizzle si!, but any substantial steak....????

I caught the JFK piece about a year and a half ago at the New Museum in NYC, you went around a corner, its dark, and boom, a dead man in a coffin- and it is JFK! This was not just all denouement seeing it again, it also made you see how things looked silly and just too pop-shebang-fizz (to borrow from Gainsbourg)

The New Museum now? Forget about it! about a 3 hour wait in the -9 told me to move on.

But you can look at the mammoth undertaking it was for the museum to install a slide in the gallery, they cut a hole in the floor:



I stopped at the Sperone Westwater, just down the street in the Bowery. A show of sculptural work, old and new, not much of a focus but it was interesting stuff and the building is a massive structure which has work in the elevator on display. Most apartments could fit in this elevator mind you.

A sort of Gorilla John the Baptist with rubber gloves and disposable cups, all made out of marble, an ironic tour de force I suppose.

By evening fall, it was even colder, I slipped into this bar not far Chinatown, called Home sweet Home. Loud, but warm! I relaxed and drew some of the characters.

This was before it got too packed.


Also, dropped in on Caroline Falby, she is an ex-pat who is working on her Masters at Hunter College in city. Her studio is close to Times Square, it is this massive building which just feels like an old art building.

You can check out some her work here


She is working on some new stuff at the moment- she seems very interested in the War of 1812 and what it means to Canada and the United States. In the meantime, you can see her multi referential work which employs a breezy technique to inject joy and a seemingly carefree element to the work.


I drew this double drawing of the bartender while having a boozey afternoon, at the back of this place called Bread.

I really did leave the canal/chinatown area!

The Neue gallerie had some beautiful Egon Schiele drawings on display, more than you see if you go to the Albertina drawing gallery in Vienna ( but that was based on my trip in the early 90s, might have been one of those things when you go and everything is closed), so that was a treat.

If you go to NYC soon, you have to go to the Neue Gallerie, its focus is Austrian/German work -- amazing stuff. Also, have a coffee in the Cafe Sabarsky, it is a highly regarded dinner spot. I was there on Saturday and the lineups to eat were astounding.

A little sketch I made about a year and half ago while drinking a $6 Viennese coffee, it was good but six dollars? I know, I know, its New York baby.

Loop General Meeting

Bartender at Bread, circa 2012

I have a drawing in my 2010 grouping of a male bartender at the front of this restaurant, this is at the back. We were having some afternoon drinks.

New Studies

I have been working a little bit in the studio and to get back in the groove and loosen up the arm, I started doing these conte sketches from an old photo album.

A friend of mine loaned me this album, I need to get it back to him, but I just fall in love with these images every time I open it up. I need to do some scans so he can get some prints done.


These pictures are like 100 years old, it is just amazing.

Looking at old pictures is so much fun, there is a world in each image.

I have some old pictures I bought on Queen East, at Gadabout and I just love how when you don't know anyone in the picture, you can look at the picture more objectively and just appreciate them for their beauty.

quick sketch

I'm thinking that i'll upload sketches for the days that I do them on. This was a sketch I did at Jet Fuel using conte with this awesome pen tool/holder my brother got me in Spain in 1992 at the Seville Expo.

This guys was on the phone with his hoodie.

As far as the Expo 1992 goes, you can find more here yup, it was to be a celebration of the 500 years since Columbus 'discovered' the Americas and all the fun that has ensued, they took a more upbeat look on it, when I say upbeat, I mean they glossed over what indigenous people of the Americas have endured.

But it was the 90s you might say.

working sketches

working in the sketchbook on some ideas for an upcoming show at Loop. Here are just a few of the things I'm playing with at the moment.





These sketches are my thoughts and creating the type of short hand that my new work will come out of in the next few weeks. With these pictures, I was thinking of British-Portuguese artist, Paula Rego. Her work about childhood and her handling of materials is always an inspiration.




On a totally different note, when I was in the market on Sunday I painted a few small sketches in watercolour of people, this is one of them. This guy gives a tango show, I won't bore you with the details, but he starts the music people all come together and then nothing happens for awhile and everyone leaves, or sometimes he dances, hard to figure out the reason.

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

Randomly at the Bar

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.

November third, 2008.

Before the show began