Writing and sketches from a writer/illustrator. Alternative comic, film-TV, art, and literature-related things.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
New Occupation for Caleche Horses?
Sadly, it seems that the building project in Griffintown is going ahead, without consulting the residents it's affecting. That's what we were marching about on the weekend. Read about it in this CBC news story here.
So after the project (and the neighbourhood!) is finished, I think the displaced caleche horses will have to find new jobs, like the above!
Toronto's Hot Docs, which finished up on Sunday, is Canada's largest Documentary Film Festival. On the advice of friends, I went down there for a couple of days. Quite overwhelming. At the industry centre, you could find people exchanging cards, meeting each other and pitching projects. This guy had the right idea:
I chatted and gave out some cards. It seemed to be the thing to do. Met many interesting people.
(UPDATE: Oh yeah, I also ran into a former editor of mine, Meg Hewings, and she was on her bike (because of the threat of a transit strike in T.O. - which came to pass!), and watching films in the dark all week. Her web diary on HOUR.CA talks about all the cool films I was missing.)
Drew some sketches. That woman was standing near me, and looked striking. The worried guy is out of the Hot Docs Catalog, and is a hockey player from the film Junior. Then, R. Crumb, because I bought a DVD of the movie Crumb cheap.
Had an interesting afternoon today. Walked in the March for Griffintown, which was kind of a funeral cortege for a neighbourhood. It's been rezoned and slated for development, and most of the residents are going to be expropriated so that they can build big box stores and apartment towers. Anyhow, read more about it here.
I took shots all through the march. Easiest to start by clicking on this picture above, of the "Horse Palace" (video here) on Ottawa street, and then follow the march by clicking through the pics on flickr (in the flickr photo set, they go backwards). Over the next while I'm going to try to add descriptions, and others are invited to contribute names, when possible.
I also took video, which you can watch on Youtube. 8 different snippets, several of which are below (click on my "user name" Magelly7 for the rest). This took much longer to upload than I hoped it would, thanks to recalcitrant software, and lack of computer memory. Still, it's a souvenir of a pleasant, warm Sunday afternoon in Montreal, marching (one hopes) for the betterment of a small part of the world.
Drew this guy in Toronto sometime, during my late visit. Didn't put a background behind him, then was inspired by some of the rest stops I saw while inside the bus during the trip. So, he gets a squeegee (hard to put in, because this is drawn mainly with pen, and I had to white out a bit to add the squeegee and hand), and he becomes a gas jockey. My post about Hot Docs is still coming up.
Finally opened up this big watercolour book of mine, which has been sitting around untouched. It feels really good to splash paint around inside it. The legend above is a song lyric I was listening to while painting that.
Apologies for interrupting the usual rhythm of posting here. I've been distracted and working hard, and generally worrying about job stuff. Friend Richard was off visiting family. Not sketching tons, which is a shame.
Anyhow, last night, the city went a little crazy. Lots of horns honking and shouting. I took a trip on my bike to check it out and collected the pocket camera movie above, on Sherbrooke Street near Jeanne Mance. There were many more exciting things happening further downtown, such as rioting and burning, and police attacks, but I decided to forgo that (you can check it out [here] from a much braver correspondent). There will be lots on youtube soon, if you click on the above.
Kids were already a little belligerent as they were walking past my place on their way to the game, shouting at old folks, and being generally rowdy. I suppose they take advantage of such events (this was the last game in the first round of hockey playoffs between the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, and the Canadiens won) to raise some hell. Rioting used to happen on Victoria Day. Anyhow, God knows what they're going to do if they actually win the cup.
To cleanse the palate, and return to business as usual, here're drawings of a horse and a couple of girls.
This is looking over the river from Montreal's Old Port towards the old Expo site, on Ile Sainte Heléne. It isn't the greatest sketch in the world. But it was a warm afternoon, and after doing it, I had another meeting about TV writing which went fairly well, I hope.
So, afterward, I wandered around Old Montreal and took photos. There was a bracing hint of coolness in the wind, and off the water, because though it was t-shirt weather, the ice hadn't melted out of the marinas. There were still heaps of snow around, though beaten down and dwindling.
I had a chance to talk about a project I have never mentioned to another soul before, and it seemed to stand up, even under pressure. And it's not an easy sell! But I'm having fun playing with it, and will talk more about it, less cryptically maybe, in the future.
Please check out my set of Old Montreal photos, if you have a mind to. It was "magic hour," and a nearly full moon out, to boot.
Kind of a fractious night last evening at the Cock N' Bull, even though there weren't as many people as usual. Still, Rick Gagnon and I collaborated on a number of cool drawings. Got him to slickly ink the glamour girl above, and then work as quickly as he could on the gambling girl below.
I like this drag racer, which we collaborated on, all in pencil, with some photoshop tint I threw in today. (Rick had shown me some of the car comics he has been collecting on Ebay:)
People on Facebook liked my pictures of the Boggedy Cats greeting the sun with their morning orisions. So, I'm putting them up here, and on Flickr. Click on this shot to see the whole set, as they rock the kyute.
Meanwhile, the CBC news website has an article about a study done about bloggers, and people who read blogs. Obvious, much? Or just to us?
Watching Sex in the City, for work research (that's the thing about writing TV!). Happy about my little corner video store, which has some shows, and is not too expensive. While watching, and noting scene lengths and act breaks, and what they're doing, drawing lots of slick pics. So, I'm practicing my scenes, and my darks and lights, at the same time.
(Caption thought of, much later (April 23): "Wow! That was the most fun I've had without moving.")
Nothing too ambitious-looking but trying stuff. Above is a drawing which is basically me as a kid. I tried to construct it with underdrawing and guide lines.
Below. an R. Crumb-like character, but done without the benefit of LSD (but I did manage to spill ginger ale on it, and smear a couple of lines):
Back to my own stuff again. Doing action, an animal, perspective, and trying to get it all to look right without using a reference is tough. Bit of a switch from all those people just standing around.
Old men, cats, and strange characters in bars. What could it mean? Only that Gagnon Friday is back, after a week hiatus (because Gagnon was puttering around buying CDs in Brooklyn, while I stayed here and worried about the future, as usual). These are more collaborations, with my pencil drawings and his inkings over them, which we perform during a more or less regular meet at a bar on Friday afternoon.
In something of a low point as far as posting at the moment. But the visits are up, which is gratifying. I hope I'll have new, exciting stuff to do and show, soon.
I've been working on research for a writing project. In the meantime, doing lots of pencil sketches, which generally get worked on with ink or colour before I put them up here. But this one's a little more developed, though the shading looks smoother on the page than the scanner, or this monitor, seems to make it [insert further excuses here].
These feel creepy to me, mainly because there's little personality in them. They're too tight. I like the slightly goofier drawings. The girl below seems more real, since she was copied from a real person (a face in the bad artist bio-film Modigliani.)
The other is simply 'standard woman's face,' from my imagination. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood. (Actually, making her green probably has a lot to do with it. Don't contrast complimentary colours, the graphic artists tell me!)
Defective Yeti (For the
longest time, I had it confused with the one above. Actually, now
that's not so true, since I fixed the alphabetical order a little.)
