sketchbook

Sketching at the John St. Roundhouse this afternoon. Wearing black might make me look artsy, but it is not good attire for sketching especially without cover. Spent a few hours getting this down and burning my head.
The great thing was this sight was so close to the Skydome that I heard the roar of the crowd when the Jays did something good (they won over the Boston Red Sox and we're one game behind. The rubber match is tomorrow.)

sketchbook

I decided today to broaden my horizons and sketch at the Yorkville Library. It definitely has a different vibe from the Bloor Gladstone branch. One thing I noticed immediately was the toddler's sing along program that was happening as I was there. I would hear the lyrics (scribbled on the bottom of the page) sung by the librarian and the kids singing after her.

Opening night, "Come Togther", Propellor Gallery

 Tonight was the opening night of the "Come Together" group show at the Propellor Gallery. This is my submission to ti. It's my "A-Z" piece depicting the hands of 26 of my friends, each showing a character in American sign language.

 Jane and I in front of her piece, a Frida themed collage. One of the more colourful pieces in the show and one of my favourites. She was the artist who invited me to my very fist show at this gallery. Thanks, Jane!

The marquee (or just signage?) outside of the gallery. Who cares, because that's me! ;-)

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 08/04/10

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 08/01/10

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 07/18/10

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 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!

literally, the last images I drew for the show

sketchbook 05/20/10

The view of the CN Tower from The Grange Park.

sketchbook 05/19/10

A beautiful day spent sketching at the Distillery District.

sketchbook 05/18/10

More micros from the ROM.

sketchbook 05/15/10

Is it really surf and turf if the surf part also inhabits the land?


A few hours at the ROM drawing. I was fortunate that someone else had that same thought!

Blondies

Blondies is a cafe during the day and club during the night. It's quite evident what it was with the disco ball and strippers pole in the back. I particularly liked the antler chandeliers.

All Things Tea

I did this drawing a few days ago and just finished colouring a few minutes ago. I had fun doing it and found out that the green tea I ordered should be steeped for two minutes in 170ºC water. Well I did just that and it tasted like… green tea. The gentleman in this image was on the first day of his job. The three hours I was there he acquitted himself well with the customers coming in. Good job!

I also continued using the minion pro typeface. Had a hell of a time eyeballing all those letters and I found that it was ok that each letter that was repeated didn't have to be identical to the previously drawn one...gives it some character.

Belljar Café

This is another little cafe off the beaten track. It's just east of the trendy Roncesvalle neighbourhood in the west end of the city and it's a relatively new cafe. It has a 1950's feel to it, even though I didn't capture it in this image, it screams of chilling out.

Apparently the name was gotten from Sylvia Plath's novel and instead of having the negative connotation applied to this cafe, the owner wanted this a place to be an incubator of ideas. Works for me.