sketchbook 30/09/09

I took advantage of a free pass I got for the Bata Show Museum. I wasn't too sure what to expect, but I was really drawn to the native Indian footwear exhibit. The last time I spent this much time looking at shoes was when I was 10 (I think) when my mom had to get a new pair for a wedding… fortunately I didn't throw a fit this time.

As a side note the Bata Shoe Museum was designed by Moriyama Architects, a Toronto based firm. It's really an eye opener of a building. I've passed by it several times, but this was my first time going into it. The concept for the building was basing it on a shoe box (makes sense, right) with a lot of skewed cuts and angled walls to accommodate the programmatic aspects of a building.

sketchbook 29/09/09

I went to the newly renovated Bloor/Gladstone Library branch and it blew my mind away. It had a Indigo feel to it and there were big, orange, comfy seats to sit in on the second floor overlooking the 2 storey foyer area. I chose to sketch my fellow orange seat sitters and this is the result.

Random Thoughts

I did the Lola sketch yesterday but didn't feel the spread was finished. So I finished it with the first thing that came into my mnd: Run Lola Run and Franka Potente, the main character of that movie.

sketchbook 27/09/09

Today was Toronto's Word on the Street. It's a books and magazine festival where authours, publishers and independents sell their books and magazines. It's also where authors have book readings of their most recent work. What was new this year, was the demo kitchen and this was where I drew this image of Marilyn Smith, a cookbook author, who demonstrated how to make chocolate chip muffins, a recipe in her most recent cookbook. She was informative with a lot of nutritional facts but also hilarious. She made the 45 minutes zoom by.

As a side note, due to the limited time that each author had on stage, it gave me a reason not to be so uptight about everything I put on the page. It simply was a case of slapping lines down and trying to get enough information down to convey what the space was like.


The crowd from above. Inevitably I attempt to draw every figure. Not the smartest approach to drawing crowds. I'll have to learn a better method of drawing large groups of people.


Author John Bemrose, reading an excerpt from his most recent book, "The Last Woman". I'm not a big literary reader, so he and his book were news to me, but it did give me a chance to sketch a person.


My father. He's the hardest person I've ever tried sketching and I'm still not happy with these images. I guess it's because I know what he looks like intimately and anything out of place in these images really is blown up in my mind.

sketchbook 25/09/09

As serendipity would have it, I was grabbing a drink with a friend right by the St.Lawrence Market tonight, so as sketching habit dictates, I went down a few hours earlier and sketched. I happened to find another like minded person and decided to sketch her while she was sketching a fish (i think). I never did get the opportunity talk to her because she left before I finished my drawing, but if mame, you do happen to stumble onto this blogger account and you are reading this, I thank you for not freaking out and being a perfect model for me.

sketchbook 24/09/09

Started a new sketchbook today and it's going to take a few days to get used to a new kind of paper.

I was wondering what kind of sketchbooks you all used? Any recommendations for a SB that takes watercolour and other wet mediums well?

Nudes

The Ben Navaee Gallery holds free figure drawing classes every Wednesday night for two hours. Sounds like a deal to me!

It's been a while since I drew the human figure from a model and here are some of the less embarrassing pages I did tonight.

sketchbook 23/09/09

While waiting for the figure drawing class to start I had a coffee at the Tango Palace Coffee Company Cafe on Dundas East. Great little shop with a dark, wood paneled interior reminiscent Victorian interiors. Lots to draw and I'll be sure to get to figure drawing class a few hours earlier so i could sketch here again.


The last spread of my current sketchbook. A really quick sketch I did after Tango Palace and before figure drawing. I like it for some reason.

sketchbook 21/09/09

A rainy day in Toronto = a few hours in a coffee shop sketching. Happy.

sketchbook 20/09/09

I didn't realize how much energy it takes to draw daily. I took yesterday off and it felt pretty good. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy drawing, and this is what I think I was meant to do, but damn, it's pretty energy consuming. However, I think like anything I want to do well, I have to practice. So I got back to drawing today.

Today I attended the West Queen West Art Crawl, a art show held in Trinity Bellwoods Park for the last 7 years. Artists of all stripes were selling their work during this two day event and I was totally impressed (and a bit disheartened) to see so many talented artists who call Toronto their home town.

However, in the background there was music constantly being played and I found out it was Mr. Something Something playing live, literally on Queen West. The group occupied two parking spaces along the street which they paid for and played for the Trinity Bellwood's crowd. Despite, the constant car and street car traffic that drove between the group and the audience, they were putting out an amzing energy. Front man Johan Hultqvist was a spastic (in a good way) dancer who engaged the audience and passing cars, when stopping for a red light, alike. Unfortunately my drawing fails to capture the energy of the afternoon. But you get the idea of what was happening.

sketchbook 03/09/09

Ok, so I received James Jean's latest book, Process Recess 3, The Hallowed Seam. It's a gorgeous collection of select pages from his sketch books. In fact, it's his work that inspired me to start drawing in a serious way with a regular ball point pen. Anyways, as an ode to him, I put away my micron pen and pulled out my papermate and sketched the interior of Wanda's Pie in the Sky Cafe, a place I sketched previously. As a side note, I had a delicious slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream and a nice dark coffee. Yum!

sketchbook 17/09/09

Found a laneway near the dojo right before practice and I quickly put it down on paper. The monotone wash was my quick way of trying to capture the late afternoon shadows.

sketchbook 16/09/09

West Queen West, Cork Town and Riverdale were some of the neighbourhoods I walked through to get to Leslieville. It's in the east part of the city which I haven't been to in quite a while. My original intention was to attend a free figure drawing class at a gallery, but apparently the model strained his back, and I didn't get the email notifying me of this. However, it gave me an opportunity to sketch in a new neighbourhood, which definitely has a grittier feel to it than my 'hood. I actually walked by someone being arrested for selling drugs...pretty cool.

sketchbook 15/09/09

Another day in sunny Toronto. I went down to Kensington Market, one of my usual haunts, and sketched Herbivore, a vegetarian restaurant. As I was staring at this building side, nothing of interest really jumped out at me about it and I was about to sketch something else. However, I guess, in the majority of my previous sketches I wanted to sketch some that was unique, something different. I had to remind myself that I probably won't be able to draw something different everytime and I resigned myself to draw this image and make it interesting to me in some way... the saying, if you're sitting, then you're drawing kept on popping into my head.

Shameless promotion

So I was notified yesterday that I was featured on Drawn.ca. I'm really happy about that, and I guess that was my 7.5 minutes of fame!


However, I soon got an email from the Harbourfront Centre, where I sketch quite often, that they had finally posted an image I had drawn of Nico and Rachel, two glass blowers, at work. I guess that was the second 7.5 minutes of fame.

Now it's back to drawing!

sketchbook 14/09/09

Today I had planned to go to a gallery a friend recommended, but they were closed and I found myself in the Yorkville area of the city. At this particular time of year, The Toronto International Film Festival is running, and this area is a known place for celebrity viewing. So why not! I returned to the Yorkville/Cumberland park and perched myself on the mammoth rock and sketched people from above. I did a previous sketch of the rock which you could view here.

As I was sketching a group of "kids" walked by the base of the rock and I heard my name called. It was Nadia. She was a former classmate and now professor of a studio group at the U of T's Faculty of Landscape Architecture. Ohhh, how we all grow up! Unfortunately, the "kids" didn't hold still for me, so they were left out of the final drawing.

sketchbook 13/09/09

I went to an open house for The School of Ballet Creole, a dance troop that centres around Caribbean, African and Contemporary dance forms. They were holding 50 minute sessions where anybody could join in and learn basic dance steps from each of the disciplines. Plus, they had live drummers for all the mini master classes. Quite powerful!

sketchbook 12/09/09

As I was walking home without a sketch yet, I walked through Little Italy and passed by this cafe. It had a great big window out to the street and a few people sitting on the benches out front. No need to hit me over the head and tell me that was a sketching opportunity!

So I went in and discovered, through the numerous customers coming in, that this truly was a neighbourhood cafe. Gina, the counter woman pretty much knew all the names of the customers coming in and they her. She also added a few personal touches like giving a free canoli to a lady who was working in an adjacent restaurant or givng an extra helping of pasta salad to Ronald at no extra charge, who seemed like another local to the neighbourhood.

This definitely was a place where everybody knew your name.

sketchbook 11/09/09

This was my entry for this past week's Illustration Friday theme of "Strong", but I was a little too late with it so I'll just post it as a sketchbook entry.

sketchbook 10/09/09

I keep on passing Old City Hall, and I've always wanted to go in and check out the scene. This is where all the court cases are held and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to sketch... afterall, I do have a "captive" audience... (ouch, I just threw a "father" joke out there). The image I drew shows an undercover detective on the witness stand recounting how he set up a drug bust. Two men were were held for intent to traffic cocaine. Apparently, I caught the tail end of this cross examination from the accuseds' lawyer, which carried over from yesterday as well as three hours today. The lawyer went over every minute detail and I didn't realize how boring this was. Hollywood certainly has distorted reality.

Also, note to self: turn cell phone off unless you want a lecture from the judge and stares from everyone else.

sketchbook 09/09/09

Sketching at Dufferin Mall today and I forgot how many older, retired gentlemen go there and chew the fat with each other. Prime sketching territory.

sketchbook 18/09/09

sketchbook 07/09/09

Trying to get through this sketching rut, I throwing in some acrylic painting into the mix. I've used it before, however, this is the first time I attempted to use it in a painterly way.

Sketchbook 06/09/09

Been in a rut lately and to me everything I put on paper doesn't pop out to me. However, the only way out of a rut is to keep on drawing.

sketchbook 04/09/09

I'm always interested and curious to see what other people's work space loosk like. So instead of taking a photo (I can't anyways because my camera is busted), i thought i'd draw my space where all the magic happens. Plus I didn't have a chance to sketch on site today, so i copped out with a home image. ;-)

sketchbook 03/09/09

Illustration Friday -- Magnify

sketchbook 02/09/09

Toronto is experiencing a bit of an Indian summer. People were out and about in Kensington Market and many stopped by this particular fruit/vegetable vendor.

sketchbook 01/09/09

I had no intention to sketch two forms of transportation, but they were the most interesting things I saw today.

sketchbook 31/08/09

I think it looks better on the web than it does in real life. Oh, the web masks so many of my mistakes...

On another note, one of the hazards of sketching on site are smokers. I sat down wind from two of them mid sketch...

sketchbook 30/08/09

Setsuko Sanagawa is a jewelry artist who is a resident crafts person at the Harbourfront Centre. Fortunately her workbench was right at the foot of the raised observational walkway so I had an opportunity to sketch her from this unique vantage point.

Her tackle box was filled with small canisters of different coloured powdered glass that she sprinkled on to the copper shapes and then she puts each piece into the kiln for 30seconds to melt. The result is a shiny piece of enameled copper from which she will string together all the individual pieces to make a necklace.

However, she was so busy with enameling her pieces that I didn't get a chance to talk to her a bit more. But please visit her Flickr pages where you'll find a beautiful array of work. (click on her name above)

sketchbook 28/08/09

With the threat of rain, I returned to the ROM for some guaranteed sketching in dry conditions.

I found another sketcher in the gallery that was to be my haunt for the next few hours and decided to sketch her. She was a really good sport about it, but she left before I got her name. So a big thanks to this sketcher girl for holding still for me on Aug. 28.

On another note, as I was working on another sketch, a girl came up to me and asked if I was being paid for all this sketching. I said no, but I think that's a great idea!!! So for any ROM employees who happen to read this, and have the power to hire me as an in-house artist, just email me... I won't bite.

sketchbook 27/08/09

Sketching Ronnie's Local bar. Great hole in the wall with a lot of character.

sketchbook 26/08/09

Wandering through the back lanes of the University of Toronto campus, I saw the cooling system of this building. Good enough to sketch, I thought. So I did.

sketchbook 25/08/09

I sat down in an urban park located at the edge of the business district. A lot of metal, bridges and a greenhouse thrown in there to boot!
This sketch got away from me, I think, with all the detail clutter. I tend to go micro when I encounter so much metal work...got to work on that.
What was really funny when I was finishing up this drawing, was a work out group of women, about 15, jogged into this park, led by a strict, bootcamp type trainer. They started doing wind sprints, jumping jacks, and other strenuous looking exercise. Being an armchair athlete, this make me crack up inside.

sketchbook 23/08/09

Today, Baldwin Street closed down two blocks for a street festival. It was a quiet, neighbourhood affair with the shops lining this block selling their wares to the Sunday crowd. They also had this chess set up with a large scale board and three tables set up for individual play. This I thought was perfect for me to sketch: Contemplative, statuesque chess players! Ideal.

Also, I'd like to make a shout out to Sharon, a budding artist in her own right, who stopped by to have a talk with me about her art, my art and life in general. Thanks for the talk, Sharon!

sketchbook 21/08/09

A few meters down from the sand sculptors, there was a stage where the Harmonicats were playing. As their name implies, they are a trio of harmonicaists (does that word exist?) who were really entertaining with their music and stage repartee. What really surprised me were the harmonica sizes. They ranged from a 1 inch to what looked like a foot and a half.

I also got the musicians to autograph my drawing. Quite nice of them.

sketchbook 21/08/09

The gates opened for the 131st Canadian National Exhibition and with the opening, for me, this means the summer is ending. It's been many years since I visited the grounds, and a lot has changed. New buildings, functions switched to different buildings and new food vendors selling their dishes to hungry crowds.

In one new building, they had 4 sand sculptors showing off their talents in a sand sculpting competition that will be judges on Sunday.I chose to sketch Melineige Beauregard, an artist from Quebec whose been sand sculpting for 10 years. Her piece is called "Rock On".

sketchbook 20/08/09

I had a craving for really bad Chinese food. I knew the perfect place and low and behold, it also happened to be where a group of older Chinese gentlemen gathered to play a form of Chinese chess. A lot of good natured posturing and bravado were exhibited by this group of men.

sketchbook 19/08/09

So today I didn't have the energy to search out something unique to sketch. No energy and the sun was pretty hot on my back. All I wanted was a bench, some shade and an everyday scene to put down on paper. I found it. When I sat down to this, I was slightly iffy about the post right smack dab in the middle of my field of view, but the saying "if you're sitting, you're drawing", came racing through my mind, so I drew!

sketchbook 18/08/09

Today I had the opportunity to sketch in Lubo and Scott's workshop. We all went to school together, but I didn't realize how talented they were until today when I saw the projects they were working on.

Scott is an artist/sculptor (hard to categorize) and Lubo is a furniture designer. Today, Lubo was working on a conference table that measured 21 ft. long. He basically described it as a small bridge that you could possibly find in a large backyard bridging over a swale or a gully. I definitely looked like one, with its massive pieces of timbre. Can't wait to see it finished.