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.

sketchbook 05/06/10

I didn't realize the art show could be so physically draining, but it was and I only got the chance to do this drawing post-show.

Hopefully I'll do some more in the coming days.

Sunnyside Art Show 2010

Suzanne, myself and Amy a fine photographer in the booth next to ours joined in for the final pose on the final day. Sunburned, tired and ready to go home.



Suzanne and I matting our art work the night before the first night of the show.


My Tent finally set up on Friday afternoon.



Martha gave me and my art a lift on the first day and helped me set up. Thanks a ton, Martha!!


It's finally over. What seemed like a life time away came and went in a flash. A very rewarding experience. I met a lot of great artists. Learned how to talk about my art with the public and got sunburned.

literally, the last images I drew for the show

Micro sketchbook compilation.

There's an artist I greatly admire. His name's Wil Freeborn and he's gotten into the habit of compiling all his spreads when he's finished with his moleskine. I thought that was a great idea so I adapted it to this my current "micros sketchbook". All the drawing shown in this compilation will be shown at the show.

sketchbook 05/25/10

The last two pages from my 6x9in. sketchbook (the micro sketchbook). Onto microsketchbook number 2. Hopefully I'll be able to complete 20-25 more drawings before Friday. I foresee little sleep in my near future.

Omen?

Not that I believe in this stuff, but this certainly was a timely omen for my art show.

sketchbook 05/24/10

sketchbook 05/22/10

More people at Starbucks and another micro drawing... Need about 40 good ones for Friday...gulp...so much to do.