I am just testing out embedding an Instagram post on my blog:
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You can find me on Instagram these days
I find it much easier at the moment to post my sketches on Instagram, so please find me there if you are interested. I may revive this blog again at some point because I enjoy writing as well as drawing.
A quick sketch while on my bike doing an errand. Well, I did get off the bike for half an hour to do this drawing.
At Pallet Coffee Roasters in my neighbourhood.
This was drawn during a Vancouver Urban Sketchers meetup at the Convention Centre. The group I started in March 2013 is now over 4 years old and has 1917 members as of today! Yes, that is correct — nineteen hundred seventeen.
A video about my sketching technique by Opus Art Supplies
Opus Art Supplies asked me to demonstrate my urban sketching approach, specifically my panorama drawing technique. It was challenging for me to think about what it is I actually do when I draw, but I came up with something that I hope is helpful. Everyone has their own methods. I do know about traditional perspective drawing but I don’t tend to use those principles every often. Mostly I use the pen measuring method as shown here, but with the twist of holding it really close to my eye and sitting close to my subject — this is how I seem to get a bit of a fish eye effect that reflects closely what my eye sees.
Read MoreIndulging in yellow
My sketching friend B. and I had a long-hedged plan to go and use up a lot of yellow paint, for the sheer fun of the colour. So we met at the Yellow Cab depot in Vancouver and politely asked for permission to draw there. The weather played along, and we cracked open the yellow paint.
We learned that the depot is also being rented out to food trucks, a car wash, and a repair shop. Various people involved in some of these other businesses, as well as cabbies, stopped to chat. It was thoroughly enjoyable.
I believe in blasphemy
I drew my vision of the Last Supper after the big 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I think it really shows what’s wrong with the world, and all of us.
The killings of cartoonists and staff at Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris by religious extremists last week, and the other related shootings, affected me more than most news do. It’s probably because I identify with other artists, especially with people who draw. And I’ve been to Paris just last May for the first time in 22 years, and will return there this spring, so the place is often in my mind.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the shootings, and what they mean. About how someone could get killed over a drawing. Obviously, it was a barbaric act by people who may or may not care as much about religion as they say, by people who may be violent, unstable, disenfranchised, misguided, unfulfilled in their aspirations, looking for belonging, or just ignorant tools in a greater plot for dominance. I don’t know, and I can’t relate to, or even understand their motives.
But most of all, I want to make a case for blasphemy. I am all for it. I think it is important as a tool to criticize organized religion. Religion should not be above criticism. I have no problem per se with the big prophets: Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha — they were all searching and finding a lot of wisdom to share. It’s what people have made of their wisdom, how they’ve been interpreted, that is the problem. So even if you cover yourself with the mantle of religion and belief, it should by no means give you a free pass to be above criticism, and yes, satire and parody. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What you must not do, is physically injure, enslave or bully others.
While I personally would not take on Islam to criticize and parody, since it is not my religion, nor my background, and I don’t know that much about it, I feel completely entitled to make fun of Christianity, which is part of the culture I grew up in. I participated in the Christian religion for a while. But I don’t go to church any more because I realized it was dysfunctional, and moreover, I disagree with the whole patriarchal system that shockingly, most evangelical churches still follow to this day! So as I have been getting older, I have returned to existentialism as my preferred life philosophy. But I admit that I don’t have the final answers, and I firmly believe that you don’t either.
Here’s some blasphemy (or as close as I can get) that I’ve been sketching over the last few years. Yay for blasphemy, and uncensored art and writing!
Watercolour workshop with Shari Blaukopf
In early June, one of my Meetup group members had arranged for the the Montreal urban sketcher and watercolour artist Shari Blaukopf to host a watercolour workshop in Vancouver. This took place on June 5 and 6; there were 12 of us, we only had a little bit of drizzle, and Shari did a great job.
The rule for me is, I don’t get much done in a workshop. I am slow, especially if I have to absorb new information. So my hope is always that something has sunk in anyway.
Here’s Shari doing her demo and leaving us in awe.
I enjoyed practicing grey-scale value sketching in pencil.
Practicing watercolour sketches with a palette restricted to only three colours.
Delayed gratification sushi
Back in September, a fellow Vancouver urban sketcher, and old family friend, Bob, and I went out for a morning coffee to sketch, and then had sushi for lunch, to sketch. Seriously, we drew our lovely sushi plates for about 15 minutes, and only then did we eat. Looking at food and not eating it is pretty unheard of for me. But we did it, it was fun, I didn’t starve, and best of all, sushi doesn’t get cold if you wait, just iffy.
Read MoreA full day sketch crawl on Granville Island
It’s been so long that I’ve posted to my blog, that I had to review how to do it.
I have no excuse not to post at the moment — I have a total lull in my workload. And I am currently visiting my parents in Maui; they are here for a month. I won’t be here that long, but happy to arrive here just as the rainy season hits Vancouver and while I seem to have a week off before a large scheduled project comes in.
This sketch is from October 19 (I’ve misdated it on the sketch). For the first time ever, I had set up a full-day sketch crawl for my Vancouver Urban Sketchers meetup group. I asked the sketchers to check in with me and each other any or all of three times: at 10 a.m., at 1 p.m., and at 5 p.m. This meant that in between I had lots of time to draw. For example, here I sat at a counter outside my favourite fish shack, “Go Fish”, just off Granville Island, and started this drawing while waiting for my food, and finished it afterwards. It took about 2 1/2 hrs to draw this complex scene.
Having forced myself to spend a full day drawing and socializing with other sketchers was wonderful. I knew my year-end business bookkeeping was waiting for me in the office, but it waited patiently while I drew.
Never delay drawing (or having fun). The work and chores will wait. And those things are seriously overrated anyway.
Read MoreThe limited edition book with my etchings is done!
From May to December 2013, about one day a week, I worked with New Leaf Editions on a limited edition, handprinted poetry book. I made 9 copper etchings and also designed the book which contains 18 poems about Vancouver by the poet Christopher Levenson. The abstract cover etching was done by Andrea, assistant printmaker.
19 of the 30 books pre-sold for $200 each, in large part via a successful crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.com. The remaining 11 are being sold at $300 each. We are having a book launch open to the public at the Vancouver Public Library in the Alice MacKay Room on Sunday, September 21 at 3 pm.
This post from December 5, 2013 describes the project in detail and also features a video with Chris reading one of his poems.
The etchings can be seen in this post from January 11, 2014.
I showed the book layout on January 10, 2014.
And I described the etching process in this January 9, 2014 post.
Shown above is the amazing printmaking team at New Leaf Editions on Granville Island. From left to right: Peter Braune, Master Printmaker, with his assistant printmakers Diana and Andrea, who are also artists. I had no idea how much knowledge and work goes into a project like this. I learned a few things, I hope. And it was wonderful to spend one day a week working in the exciting environment of a traditional, high-quality printmaking studio. I got to meet a few well-known Canadian artists who pop by to also work with Peter, and whom I had admired for years. I inhaled it deeply.
And here I finally get to hold a copy of the book!
“By all means create” — video
Earlier this year, I was asked to participate in a video by Opus Art Supplies here in Vancouver. A number of artists were asked to illustrate a word each to make up a quote by Vincent Van Gogh — watch the video to learn what the quote is. I was thrilled to be assigned the word “draw”!
Thanks Opus, and a nice job was done on the video by Ryan Mund. He filmed me back in March, when it was chilly and rainy. I did an outdoor drawing near the Vancouver Convention Centre, squeezing in the filming before I headed off to Northern England. You can see me drawing away from 0:34-0:36.
Drawings from my spring visit to Northern England and Scotland to come soon.
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I'm an urban sketcher
Vancouver Urban Sketchers