Another Nice Sketch Day

Hard to believe it's three days or so since my last post. But I was sitting in the park, drawing pictures, and clicking surreptitious photos. Drawing with the pad is much less intrusive-feeling than clicking with the camera. Maybe because drawing is more of a personal activity, and you could as well be drawing pictures of yourself as a muscled bararian, rather than recording the world around you.

Still, bizarre and interesting people going by, in Jeanne-Mance Park. I can't draw like a camera, so it's a matter of recording a few quick strokes, and then relying on memory, especially when adding the colour.



Of course, they're not the most totally detailed drawings, and no one really had their eyes on one side of the face.

Bird Guy

This is how you had to fly in the renaissance.

Space Dude

An astounding space guy, from the future!

No Comment

Something strange and funny I found while vacuuming behind a desk.

Cat Butt

"Ralph Wiggum" voice: 'My kitty's got a big butt. And his butt is big. It doesn't smell, except like a kitty, and except sometimes."

DVD watching

Drawing while watching DVDs and not really caring if anyone actually looks like who's on screen. She's less like Cher in Moonstruck, and more like the Wicked Witch of the West. "When the pan hits your eye, and you think you might die, that's amore."



The other one is supposed to be Robert Patrick from "Walk the Line." I enjoyed him in this movie, more than in "Terminator II."

I put the brush in his hand, so it doesn't look like he's about to commit suicide. Sorry for all the violence implied in these drawings. Everyone ended up fine.

Line Painting

As a public service, here's line-painting on my Montreal street, which they're getting to, early. It's an all woman crew, too. With my neighbour looking on.

I love how orange and bright the road cones are. (Oh, man, first cats, and now this. I'm sounding like that Bob Ross guy. Scary, huh?)

Rue Esplanade

Sitting in Jeanne-Mance Park, drawing one of the houses on rue Esplanade. I'll be especially brave and post a photo I took of the same subject after doing the picture. Shows you all the little discrepancies the eye adds in. Though, I was at a slightly different angle, and the pigeons on the branch were there. Also, all of the green seems to have left the scan.



Then went to Billy Mavreas's store Monastiriki, and bought one of his posters. Billy's doing an Artist in Residence thing at the Banff Centre for the Arts, my old stomping ground, way back When.

More !@#* Cats

I might be blogging a lot. Because the weather's finally nice, and I've finished for now a big job. I'm a success, and a heavy-hitting TV writer, yay! And people enjoy working with me.

Someday I'll spill all the dirty secrets, in the way some of these screenwriters do in their blogs, but of course, I won't have all that condescension and egotistic attitude. Right. I still haven't written about all my other oddball experiences, either. They're gathering dust in the back of my brain, as new things continue to happen!

Anyhow, on top is a sketch of the estimable Mr. B, one of my loyal cats. Wish he wasn't a tabby, because the markings take forever to get right. Even above, I've just quit, and hope it looks like a decent drawing.

When I had black cats, they were much easier to deal with in drawings. Now that I've got the miracle of digital photography at my service, I don't have excuses any more.




This is The King. Toughest cat on the block. How tough is he? Here he is hunting. My two are just pussies compared to him. Long live The King.

I'm enjoying seeing all the interesting places people come from who look at this blog. The counter keeps track. There are more visitors these days, and they're spending more time looking. A little creepy that I can see this, even if most of them aren't commenting (you don't have to comment), but that's the internet. It's very convenient and interesting, but always has an edge of creepy.

Sk8terz

Another nice day. I've got to make my watercolours darker if they're going to be posted here. I'm also ignoring the size issues with the template, just posting whatever size it comes out as. I wish my margins were wider! Again, getting that bleed effect, which I will pretend is an avant-garde design.



Happy. Bought a new bike today. Rode it all around. I hope it carries me as well as the bike it's replacing, now sadly rusted out. But I kept it indoors!

Sunny Sketch Day

I guess I should do what I promised to on this blog, and post sketches. Actually, I prefer posting those bigger drawings, when they work out. Did some nice watercolours, but the scanner totally dropped out the midtones, and the fleshtones. Made it look like crumby felt marker, or a bad photoshop filter.

Oh well, sketching was nice, at least on the day it didn't rain, and wasn't halfway freezing. The park was filled with kids and parents, as above. That's a carnivourous squirrel in the front. Not quite from life.



Colour, this time. More from my head than anything in front. An idealised version of yours truly, though still with that stiffness I have to get rid of by drawing from life. Maybe a little narcissistic, drawing one's self a lot, but the subject is close at hand. Some time, if I get shameless enough, I'll post some funny head shots I've taken of myself with my little camera. Arm's-length seems to be the perfect range for these shots, though the auto-focus on this relatively cheap camera doesn't always serve. Again, the flesh tones are coarsened and dropped out by the scanner. I think I've drawn myself with wishfulfillment hair, as well. Still, guys usually have better self-images than girls, I'm told.

Bottom are two sketches from another park on that same Friday. I wanted to hang out in the park all Saturday, but the weather turned nasty. Lots of moms, and kids, and dogs. They've even got a skateboard park and basketball court, so lots of characters to capture. More punks and lowlifes in the park further away, which I'll probably blog about later.





There were skaters and hot moms I'll have to draw, later!

Channel Zero

Salgood Sam's podcast is up, as I intimated in an old post. Man, for a guy who sleeps until two, he has a lot of energy.

Awning

Cute photoshop trick done with this drawing of two kids in front of an awning. Is the old man in back really short, or what?

Outside my front door.

I think this one goes across the margins, but what's on the right is so insubstantial, it won't matter that much.

Literary Dispute

A literary dispute outside the halls of Oxford.

Front Door

The view out my front door looks like a scene from a Tim Burton movie.

Fairies

I'm afraid the little fairy was copied from a drawing by Régis Loisel. I hate doing that, because nothing's learned by me except the mechanical act of copying. I know lots of comic artists swipe all the time. I don't know why this anti-copying thing doesn't apply to photographs. Because when I draw from photos, my pictures are much less mannered. Still, I don't say these are the best methods, they're just where I am at the moment. At least the cat thing isn't at the head of the queue any more. And I'll be getting some more time, soon, where I can work on some watercolour drawings. They always please me when they're on top, but I'm trying to make this a blog about current stuff.

Still, I might scan in some my colour sketchbooks, when I have time, and put one up on flickr. Just for the record, or vanity, or whatever.

Cripes, I'm blogging cat pictures now.

This was on my doorstep this morning. Obviously, a warning from the bikers to pay up my paper subscription.


No, just kidding. Ain't he keyuute for an old cat?



I never thought I'd do this, and wonder about the types who do. But hey, I'm a social stereotype: guy working in the arts, who blogs, and takes photos with his digital camera. I'm actually really enjoying it, and snapping lots of things, which I can paint later.

De Seigneurs and Notre Dame

Felt depressed going to my blog, and reading about someone's death, but didn't have any cool new drawings to post. Been terribly busy with work. And actually, it was wildly successful, this script I wrote, with the story editors, but there are still a few things to do with it, and I hope I can make those additions, and still keep the script as wildly successful as it's been thought to be.

Still, I'm pretty happy with that. My career is going well, though lots of other things are a mess. But I'm solving those problems, so it's just a matter of applying one's self, and not despairing.

This is an old sketch, from 2001 or so, when I was actually taking out a little stool and paintbox, and sketching things outdoors. I remember this one, because I was doing it in Old Montreal, and a guy with a guitar case walked up to me, and asked me if I knew of any good places to jam. I didn't (the only one I knew about, The Blue Angel, had closed by then), and so I guess I lost my chance for a little minor hipness. He must have approached me, because I looked like an itinerant artist, someone in tune with the street, who would know the good places to play. Actually, this hardly is ever true.