sketchbook 12/21/10

Laura Crickett

A friend asked me to draw her portrait as a gift for her parents. I had a bit of trepidation starting this drawing because my track record with drawing friends and family isn't that great. But I have to say I'm OK with the end result. I hope Laura is too!

sketchbook 12/18/10

I find it really difficult sketching family. This is another attempt at sketching my dad. Some parts are bang on, yet others are so far from what he really looks like. However, there is some overall resemblance.

Christmas Sale of my giclée cafe drawings

Tis the season! Wouldn't this make a great present?!!
I had a few giclée prints left over from my art shows this past summer, so I thought I'd put them up for sale here on my blogger site.

Here are the details of each print:
- They are all printed on German Etching paper (same texture and feel like the original watercolour paper I painted them on).
- measurements: 12x9 inches. with a .25 in. white border.
- number of prints available:
Darkhorse: 1
Rooster: 1
Naco: 2
I Deal:1
NIche: 3

Each piece is stamped with my wood chop and signed.
Each giclée is $90 CDN + shipping.

If you're interested in one or more, please email me..

Thanks for your continued support.

Merry Christmas all.
WIl

sketchbook 11/24/10

sketchbook 11/15/10

sketchbook 11/11/10

Jerry and Jiles were my models for my 15 min. breaks at Starbucks.

sketchbook 11/9/10

Some more acrylic painting practice in my sketchbook. I find the smaller area of my sketchbook elicits a much more looser approach to laying down the paint. That's what I wan with my larger scale stuff, but it doesn't happen that way for some reason. I'll keep on truckin'.javascript:void(0)

sketchbook 11/8/10

I'm still working on the large acrylic painting, but it's discouraging to see that what I want and envision in my mind's eye is not coming out on the canvas. So in the meantime, I'm drawing more people in my sketchbook. It's what I need at this point in time to allay the fears that I have about my lack of artistic abilities.

sketchbook 10/5/10

Another acrylic trial, this time in my sketchbook. I basically manhandled the acrylic paint for this spread. I'm looking forward to the day when I could lay down some acrylic on the first or second pass and make it look like the way I envisioned it in my mind.

My next big test is an acrylic painting I plan to do of the Rooster Cafe, the last cafe drawing I did, but this time on an 2x3 foot canvas. Frightening and exciting all at the same time!

Acrylic trial

Here's the final painting by itself. Hopefully you could get a closer look at it when it's not group with the other stages.


My first attempt at a full acrylic painting. I included the different stages of its development. I decided today to buy a palette knife, so you could see how that was used on the last stage of this drawing. Although my desire to apply paint with the knife really goes against entire painting, but like I said, it's an experiment.

I have decided to work at a larger scale from this point on so my uploads will be far more infrequent because it just takes more time to complete a larger drawing/painting.

Queen West Art Crawl Art Show 2010

Well the Queen West Art Crawl Art Show is over for another year and it being my second art show that I've been in since I started this crazy journey as an artist, I have to say it was inspiring and humbling all at the same time. I met a lot of terrific people who I was privileged to have stop by my booth and chat for a while. I also met a lot of talented artists who gave me a bit of insight into this art game and its rules (or no rules, to be precise). Hopefully I'll be seeing all the people and artists I met this year, next year!

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Stephen Job and Stephen and Christy Richards for liking my art so much that you thought it'd look good in your respective homes.

The last 4…

In 5 hours I'll be getting up and starting my trek to the Queen West Art Crawl Art Show. These are the last 4 image/type vignettes I've been working on for the last little bit.

I had to use a different part of my brain to produce these images, for the most part which were from my imagination. I didn't realize it would have been so tough, but I guess sketching from real life and sketching from the imagination come from two different sources of the brain… at least for me.

I'd like to hear what your thoughts are for the "Spinning a Yarn" image. I just "finished" it a few minutes ago but it doesn't feel as completed as the others. Feed back would be appreciated.

Thanks all.

Urban Chariot

Here's number three of my image/type images for the show. I'm gunning for 10 pieces before Sept.18th. Panic has descended onto the Wong household.

sketchbook 09/31/10

Buggered revisited

Here's one more addition to the colour/type vignettes I'm working on for my upcoming show.

1 cent gumball

I'll be in the West Queen West Art Crawl Show in September and I've been trying to come up with images that will be priced at a lower price point than my cafe drawings.

This "1 cent gumball" drawing is my first attempt at this lower priced drawing. It's done in watercolour and micron pen and I'm not too sure it should have been done in this medium. I think it would have been better painted in gouache because I was envisioning flatter, more solid colours. In addition the drawing is done on a 10x15 inch sheet and this scan really doesn't give you a true read of the final composition of the drawing.

Tel me what you think about the composition, colour and execution.

Sketchbook

Some spreads that I did over a few days...jumping back and forth from one to the other with no rational reason for anything I drew on the two spreads.

Rooster Cafe

The Rooster Cafe, my latest cafe drawing and the toughest one I've done up to this point. I knew it would be a doozy to colour when I was black lining it and it was true.

sketchbook 08/05/10

I wasn't happy with the spread I produced of the Toronto Brickworks (the buildings in the background), so I thought I'd try my hand at acrylics again. I keep James Jean's acrylic work in my mind when I use this medium and it's always disappointing when it turns out nothing like his gracefully, light handed paintings. The other thing I have to remind myself whenever I feel down about my acrylic attempts is that he's a artistic god (in my mind) and I am just a mere mortal.

sketchbook 08/04/10

I got a nice, dark farmers tan to my revisit to Sugar Beach. This time I captured the really cool crane across the quay from the beach itself and a woman lounging in one of the many sun chairs.

sketchbook 08/03/10

Another spread consisting of people drawn during my meal breaks.

sketchbook 08/01/10

The newest addition to the Toronto's public spaces, Sugar Beach. It's be located on the old industrial lands, along the waterfront, across from the Redpath Sugar processing plant. There's still some construction to be done tot he space, but the actual beach is open to the public and was used by many today. I'm going to try to get down to this space when the tankers dock and unload their load. It'll be a great sketching opportunity!

St. Lawrence Market

I'm branching out from my coffee shop series and trying to capture a few other places in Toronto. This is the St. Lawrence MArket. A great people watching place and a lot of eye candy to sketch.
I thought I'd show the process of how one of these micron pen and watercolour drawings come to be. I've changed my process a bit and when I want to capture people I try to sketch them in with pencil quickly and then black line it.

sketchbook 07/21/10

Inspired by Dan, I broke out the arcylics that have been sitting in my apartment for a while.

I found a gargoyle on the web and thought it would be an appropriate first subject for my maiden voyage into acrylic paints. This image took a few days for me to get it to this point, and I think it's a bit heavy handed. In fact, the end result looks more like a painting that should have been done in oils because of the dense application of paint to the paper.

The learning curve was massive while I was painting this and I'm sure it's going to keeping on increasing as I continue to paint with acrylics.

I think I also have to invest in some better brushes. The set I used was a beginners set with 4 different types of hog bristles and 3 synthetic ones. The hog ones were falling apart and you could see some of the hairs embedded in the paint. I think I prefer the synthetics. They feel more like the watercolour brushes that I'm used to.

sketchbook 07/18/10

A view from my window and a spread that has a bit of everything.

Voulez-Vous Cafe

As I mentioned in the Good Neighbour post, anytime I invest a bit of time and energy into a drawing I remember certain conditions that surrounded me when I drew that image. For this drawing, it was the the proprietress' French accent and how she pronounced, "Vermeer". Made me slightly weak in the knees.

The Good Neighbour

Here's the Good Neighbour drawing, in part for M.B., but also I wanted to post something since it's been ages since my last one.

This image and the "Voulez-Vous Cafe" drawing were actually black lined quite a few weeks ago but I only finished colouring them yesterday. A slight burn out with the cafe drawings, but here they are. It's funny, but when I look at any drawing that I've invested some time in, I could remember exactly what was going around me when I drew it. With this one, there were two gentlemen sitting beside me talking about the nature of love. Actually it was the younger of the two men who was asking his friend what love was? Was he in love? I believe when they did leave, the younger man did think he was in love with his girlfriend. Isn't that sweet.

sketchbook 07/03/10

a face a day…

sketchbook 06/28/10

Boats.

sketchbook 06/27/10

sketchbook 06/20/10

I didn't realize how much energy setting up two shows can drain from me. I didn't have any desire to sketch after the Sunnyside show and I took a lazy man's hiatus after that. However, now that I think about it, as my aikido teacher says, it's at those times when you don't feel like practicing, is when you should be going to practice the most. I guess I slipped on the drawing and I should have been putting down the lines in my sketchbook.

So with that said, this is my first real sketch since that time and hopefully I'll be back on track and uploading something on a daily basis.

You are cordially invited…

They're up and ready to go. I chose the 7 strongest cafe images and hopefully the guests will enjoy them as much as I do. Apparently the gallery contacted all the cafe owners and they might even show up for the opening.


Well 7 of my cafe drawings are up and I received the invite to the show at the Freedom Clothing Collective. It's a small venue and I'll be showing with another artist, but I'm pretty excited!

Help please.

So I have the hard task of choosing two of the 4 images above to show at my next show. I like them all. I was wondering if all you kind folks could cast your votes for your top 2...the top two will then be framed and shown at my next art show which is next Thursday!

Gulp.