Another page, another sketch

Waited for 15 minutes on the Broadview streetcar before it left, I started sketching this guy and he ended up running out and getting a different streetcar that left sooner, I could not figure out when the next ones but it gave me time to sketch, when he left I noticed he was wearing slippers. Slippers: for a comfy night. 

Sketches from TTC

A rare night out and coming home on the TTC to see the people going about their biz. So many headphones.  

The Beach

I hung this picture up at Rooster in the East End if you are around Broadview and need a coffee and to look at a picture of a beach in black and white.

Sketches for New Graphic Novella Story

I say new story but really this has been plopping around in my head since about 2003?

Well, lets just say that it is definitely after Nelly's seminal 2002 hit, "(its getting) Hot in herre"

So with that non sequitur in mind, here is the video

But enough of that.

This story is about seeing photographs of Lee Millar at the Getty Museum. Basically, being the best at anything she touched, despite the photos being 70 years old, they hit me in the face like a brick.

A real Satori moment, where I started to connect the dots between Lee Millar, the Getty's controversial Kouros boy, Ayn Rand's The Fountain Head and the stunning Betty Page-esque visitor to the exhibition. Lets be clear, this may have been an imagined enlightenment but it held for like 18-20 hours, till I was snapped out of it by another photograph.

So, to celebrate the bewitching seductive power of the photograph, I offer you some quick water colour sketches....I know, Right?

Airport Cafe

Again with the waiting, this time waiting on a plane.

Love playing with a fat tipped marker, lots of edges to draw with especially when you have the right kind of paper.

Waiting Room

I saw these people about a month back, would have preferred to use the inkling digital file to post but the dang thing doesn't work, I had to order a new battery...we shall see.

looking at this now my interest in drawing the central character exaggerated her scale. I really liked the way that guy on the left was leaning back, he looked like he should be on a porch somewhere- like he had been sitting there for days.

I guess that is how you feel sometimes in a waiting room, might as well be comfy.

Throng of men at the Airport

These guys looked like they were having a last meal together, definitely the end of a trip or an experience together, all seemed a bit worn around the edges.

Automatic TV Sketching

I was watching Annie Hall, haven't really seen it in years-the movie depressed me more than anything else.

After much stress, drawings from Atlanta

A simple thought: I'm up why not scan some sketchbook drawings. 

Foolish idea. 

As it turns out, if its 4 in the morning and the scanner isn't working, you really are lacking the capacity to trouble shoot the thing. 

Or you can, but it will take you to almost 6am. 

I digress, here is a picture of my brother working on some files in Atlanta in April

Cold Phone Check

February 27th, 2015

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

Multi-coloured cold coffee drinkers

With the relative warmth of early spring these people look so incredibly bundled...especially if you consider that they were indoors. Again, with the Faber-Castell markers. But the paper is too rough so you can just feel the nib of the marker being needlessly destroyed by the paper's tooth. I know, use a different sketchbook, but whatever it was there.

Sketching on the Street Car

I was drawing a few months back some afternoon on the College Streetcar. I have had this tiny sketchbook since 2007, I think it is a DeSerres. I use it, misplace it, forget it, find it, get annoyed with the paper quality and do some drawings in it.

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.

English Portrait

Just found this on the Tate Website, the damn thing is beautiful.

Not sure who this long dead man reminds me of but for some reason, it looks fascinating and in its own way, utterly modern. 

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.

CIA Report

With this damning CIA report, I thought I would go through the archive and find some images of the Bush admin.

I did a couple of images for an imagined Tarot card deck that had W.Bush as the fool walking off the edge into Iraq. You have Gitmo as the Tower card, incorrectly I made Rumsfeld the devil card and Cheney the Hermit, based on the way he was always hidden from view like the Emperor in Star Wars.

Japanese Cultural Centre Toronto

Located on Bloor street, the Japanese Cultural Centre has a library and is close to the ROM. They have rotating art shows and have something to check out. I was there recently and although I was let down that the prints on display were not real woodcuts but poor digital copies, I found they had selected some interesting monster images and made some sketches all the same.

I love the weirdness of this 'Ass face' guy with the balls as nose, you just don't see that. It is interesting to imagine how restrictive western art would have been at the same era.


Sure you have your Aubrey Beardsley but that is pretty underground in its era

.
Ha! I remember my cousin having this picture with a suite of Beardsley images screen printed onto mirrors in his room.

This was a detail from a complex Japanese wood block print, I liked the hand was rising up in the sun rise and a different scale to the other information.

Here is a link to the cultural centre if you want to check them out.

Urban Architecture Circa 1997

This is a drawing I gave a friend of mine back in 1997 before I drove around North America for 3 months. Back then, as I am still, I was very interested in old buildings, disused buildings and the way that light would play on them.

I lived in the area of Queen and Sherbourne and it was a lot rougher then, most everything was derelict (please no Zoolander references) and even the hoarding that was up around abandoned lots advertised business and investment that had clearly gone bust 5 plus years earlier.

The images from that time were based on observations gleaned as one of the unemployed (who had no need for subways) wandering around Queen, Richmond St, Adelaide and over to Temperance Street around the (at the time) defunct Bay Adelaide centre.

Man the city has changed quite a bit, that long afternoon light appears in less spaces as there is so much more development.

Out Drawing on Bloor Street Before Getting Soaked

As always, a long pause from making posts, and never a great reason except the drawings and art making are few and far between.

Anyhoo, here are a few drawings I made the other night at Mark Laliberte's art hootenany held at the Rustic Owl over by Bloor and Dovercourt.

The last time I did any drawing I was interested in making marks on old paper so I tried that with this old cerlox bound ukelele book in French my mom used to use as a teaching guide. I have accepted that although I am 43 and prime for learning uke at an evening event in a coffee shop, this holds little interest for me, let alone in French, so surplus paper with musical context galore. 

Mostly I was clearing the cob webs and chatting with Mr.Larry as per. 

Rustic Owl is a great place with sandwiches, yes they are yummy but no beer it being a coffee shop, so to that end, to 3 Speed I went to quaff a beer. Lots of people, but holy fuck, so much plaid. I honestly was trying to remember if it was Kurt Cobain week on Discovery Channel!

I was doing this fast drawing from the bar in the dark and the more I looked the more the plaid would reveal itself, this defacto clothing item on guys and they always look like they need a wash. 

Anyways, that beer took up enough time for me to leave and get uber soaked from Dufferin all the way home on the bike.