Momo

On the train ride to Montreal I read this book in one sitting. Momo is an absolutely perfect, brilliant book. It's by German author Michael Ende who is best known for writing 'The Neverending Story'. This story is also a fantasy tale using fantasy elements to talk about important things in mundane life, in this case the value of time and the dangers of consumerism. I was shocked when I discovered this book was written in 1973 because it seems to be about today.
The story is about a girl called Momo who moves into some old ruins near an town in Italy. She befriends the people in the town but everything goes wrong when mysterious agents start visiting the town and people start to change for the worse.
This book has never done well in the North American children's market most likely because it's so dark and sophisticated. If it was released now I think it would do extremely well.
It has been called "one of the most remarkable novels of the late twentieth century"
and I'd have to agree.
Thanks so much to the wonderful Julia Schukel for insisting I read this book. You have amazing taste Julia!

Borrowing From Mr.M

Here's a sketch I did last week. It's heavily influenced by Dave McKean, an artist whose work I love and who I try and whose work I try and follow. And he does a lot of stuff and he keeps trying new things, he seems to reinvent himself every few months.
I recently ordered his book of ink drawings called Squink and it's my favorite collection of his work, I ended up ordering it from France and spending more then I should have but it was really worth it, it's one of the most inspired and inspiring art books I own. You might know Mckean's work from his illustrations in Coraline and The Graveyard Book. He's a frequent collaborator with Neil Gaiman. The odds that too such talents have met and worked together must be astronomical.
This drawing was done with pen and ink,brush and ink, watercolour and photoshop.

Two Pages From My Sketchbook

Playing with brushpens and sharpies. I have to admit it's a relief to stop drawing dot eyes. That was such a crutch for me. Now I draw eyes how they're meant to be, expressing what they express.

Addendum: This is in no way an indictment of dot eye drawings, which I love!! I meant that it was a relief to give up something I was using as a crutch.

Faery Sketches

Sketches inspired by the likes of Brian Froud, Tony Diterlizzi, Arthur Rackham and other faery artists. Also the sketchy quality of newspaper art.

Brush Sketch

Here's another sketch I did with the sable brush. This is on a hot pressed Arches paper so it's much less rough then the cold pressed stuff(in the previous post). I find this drawing less successful though. I think it's the anatomy specifically around the face. I still quite like this one, it seems old to me, like a 1950's illustration from a magazine.

Bedouin

This is a drawing of a Bedouin woman from a very old school book. I did the drawing with a Rembrandt Kolinsky sable brush, number 3 round ( on a recommendation from Michael Cho ) and I really love the brush. I did it on a cold pressed paper so I found the bumpy surface a bit tricky. But the control and fluidness of drawing in ink with a high quality brush is remarkable, a pure joy to draw with. I went into the black ink after with some opaque white ink. At this point it started to really remind me of painting with oil or acrylic. I also did some toothbrush spatter for stars. I'm really happy with this drawing on a number of levels. A big way in which I feel this picture is successful is the narrative quality, the chiaroscuro gives it a cinematic feeling I love. Another aspect I'm pleased with is the fact that it still looks drawn by me. It's always been a challenge for me to work in high contrast and retain my style, which is what I want. I think here I'm more successful at that.

Kevin Nowlan

A huge and unexpected thrill for me during my visit to New York City was the chance to meet and get a sketch by Kevin Nowlan. I grew up admiring Mr.Nowlan's work, he is one of a handful of cartoonists whose work looks better now than it did when I was a kid. Now that I "know" how to draw his work amazes me even more. I mostly remember his work for Marvel from when I was a kid but my favorite story by him is the lavishly drawn story for the first Batman Black&White anthology. Thus, I asked for a Batman sketch. He's probably best known for the Jack B. Quick stories He did with Alan Moore for America's Best Comics. This sketch was done at the Javitt Center during the New York City Comic Convention.

Little Henry

A very tiny drawing of Henry. I think it really captures his sometimes serious attitude.

Amtrack

A sketch from out the window of a train. I really love the Amtrack uniforms. Something I love about using a brush to draw is the way it forces you to consider the composition, unlike when I use a lot of hatching with pen I can't hide from some of the more fundamental aspects of good drawing because everything is pared down to it's simplest aspects ; every line and every dropped black counts and has obvious weight.
Thanks for all the encouragement yesterday. It really helps.

New York Public Library Pigeon

Here's a sketch of one of the lions outside of the New York public library in Manhattan. that pigeon really was sitting on his head. I love this building but I found it really confusing. I didn't get to explore until the end of my trip and I was pretty tired at that point. The building seemed to have Escher-like staircases that would drop me off at arbitrary locations.
I'm feeling pretty crappy at the moment. I'm pretty unmotivated and stressed about all the work I have to do and Henry's up half the night and Julie and I are getting pretty cranky with each other and we're both really stressed about moving to Toronto. This is one of those really tough times. Like my friend Brad said times like this are like squeezing through a very small aperture. I'm trying really hard to get stuff back on track.
I've been reading a lot of ghost stories and that's been cheering me up for some reason. I've always loved ghost stories and it's like returning to a familiar place. A creepy, familiar place.

Esther, Henry and the Inca god

Still playing with different types of line and tone.

Fleet Foxes, White Winter Hymnal

I just can't get enough of this wonderful band.

Mister Miracle

One last Jack Kirby Fourth World sketch. This is my favorite Kirby hero of all, Mister Miracle. Mister Miracle is a super escape artist from another world, who uses a sort of sentient computer to help him. If you're interested in these books at all please check them out, they are seriously some of the most fun comics I've ever read.

Big Barda

Another favorite Jack Kirby character of mine is Big Barda, also from the Fourth world books. I'm still experimenting with brushes and ways to drop blacks. I've been working hard on this technique and I'll keep posting my experiments.

Mystivac!

On the train ride home from Montreal I read one of the omnibus editions of Jack Kirby's Fourth world comics he did in the 70's. I was really struck by this villain, mystivac. He's a south American idol/robot operated by a small alien with a super persuasive voice that sits in Mystivac's head. Kirby's Fourth World stuff for DC comics are some of my favorites comic books of all time, they were strange but a lot of fun and really written for all ages which is something that's really missing from superhero comics today.
I painted this using my travel watercolours over brushpen. I'm thinking of switching from watercolour tubes to half pans, I seem to waste so much paint using tubes.

Stone And Shadow

I've never been a fan of South American art like this. It always seemed too alien, too far from my comprehension to appreciate. Too far from my comfort zone. Celtic art is easy, as is the art of the Vikings because I recognize my past there, it's the art of my ancestors. The Museum of Natural History in New York provided the doorway I needed to appreciate this art. In the Museum hangs a quote from anthropologist and spiritual writer Margaret Meade which says "Be grounded in your own culture," She goes on to say that you need to have an understanding of your own society and it's beliefs and rituals before you can appreciate another culture. When I read that this artwork suddenly made sense to me. It still seems alien to me but now it has a context. I have a vantage point from which to appreciate this stuff.

Toth

"Simplicity is a great god. Truth. Throw out all the junk. There's a saying which says: "to add to truth subtracts from it." Make it so simple you can't cheat ,"
Alex Toth
P.S. I think it's a bit ironic that I'm quoting Mr. Toth. He's one of my favorite cartoonists but I do have a tendency to lavish a lot of detail in my work. My teachers in art school always tried to tell me that a drawing isn't necessarily better just because I spent a long time on it. Sometimes I would ruin a drawing by overdoing it. I always recall this quote as a way of ensuring I don't ruin a drawing.

Laptop

Another train sketch with brush pen and ballpoint.

Things I Brought Back

While I was in New york City I was exposed to so many new things and places and people and found so much thought was unexpected and a wonderful surprise. One thing was seeing all the modern art in person.It really floored me and whether I wanted it to or not it started creeping into my work and now I'm glad it did. Another big thing I brought home was a new approach to line and value. I ended up buying a bunch of brush pens because it was cold and I wanted to do quick sketches and brush pens force you to reduce everything to the simplest lines and values.When I began adding bits of subtler tone to these sketches I was really happy with where things are going.Another thing in New york that was a revelation to me was the Central and South American art work, it bowled me over with it's elegance and humour and strangeness. And finally there was the New York times Op-Ed page artwork. Incredible,funny and kinetic work. There's lot's more that affected me there but this is a list of the big ones. I'll be rambling on about this for some time.
These two pictures were done on the train. They were done with Faber-Castell brush pen and a set of Winsor-Newton travel watercolours. I love painting watercolour this way and may switch from the tubes
Thanks to everyone for for the well wishes while I traveled.

On The Train

A sketch I did with a brush pen of a fellow train passenger. I fell in love with brush pens in New York. I'm now posting from downtown Montreal and I just bought a tonne of brush pens, some are pretty high quality. I have a full day in Montreal. I'm going to have lunch with my cousin and try and catch Coraline, which was sold out in Times Square last night.

Highlights

New York Sketches

Some sketches from around town yesterday. I feel a bit rushed so I picked up a brush pen to do quicker work.The 1st two are from Moma, copies of de Chirico and Kirchner. The next 2 are from the Museum of Natural History and the last picture I drew while sitting in a Starbucks on Broadway looking out the window.

Coolest Place In The World...

I had a pretty full day off today. First I checked out Jim Hanley's Universe and forbidden Planet. Big, big comic book stores in the heart of Manhattan. And then I went to Moma. Moma is amazing, especially the 20th century paintings and sculpture and the display of 20th century design.

My favorite visit today and I think my favorite place in New York is The Museum of Natural history. The very coolest place ever. I was so inspired there.The south American sculpture was a total Revelation, just beautiful.And the Japanese puppets.And dinosaurs and outer space!I took almost 300 photographs there.so cool.

Tor and the Society.

Great day today! I got to visit Tor at the Flatiron building and hang out with the coolest people in the world and I got to see a brilliant lecture on Op-ed art in the New York Times. Amazing, both. The top picture is art director of Tor Irene Gallo, rightly famous for being the person responsible for some of the best art produced today. she is standing in her almost equally famous office filled with amazing, beautiful original artwork. I would pay for a ticket to see Irene's office. Gregory Manchess, Shaun Tan, John Jude Palencar just to name a few of the artists whose work is hanging there. I also finally got to meet Pablo,Liz,Torrie and Bridget at Tor who are all incredible people and the wonderful Gina at First Second. That building is probably the most creative place on Earth.

And tonight I went to a lecture at the Society of illustrators where I got several thrills: Seeing my work hanging on their walls, getting to hear brad Holland discuss his work and getting a compliment from Jarelle Kraus, former art director for the New York Times op-ed page. Great day.

Snowy New York

It's really snowy here and really beautiful. I have a pretty full day today so I'm filling up on coffee.

Books Of Wonder and the wonderful Timothy Bush.

Great day today. This city is really fun. I had lunch at a diner with a friend which was a blast. One of the best burgers I've ever had. I think it's called the Comfort Diner. The burger was definitely called the Comfort Burger. Afterwards I met the amazingly talented Timothy Bush at Books Of wonder, where I got a copy of Tim's book My Dad's Job which was written by the owner of Books Of Wonder! Crazy coincidence. That store has the best collection of kid's books I've seen(along with my hometown's Woozles, of course).They have a superb art book collection as well as old and rare kid's books. Just wonderful.It's also worth dropping in on them to see their original art.

I'm In New York! And It's Big!

I made it! I'm posting this from a coin operated computer in my hotel lobby. This hotel has the smallest hallways I've ever seen. Norther New York State is beautiful! It's a dark tangle of trees and miles of lakes dotted with fishing huts. I was half expecting to see the headless horseman riding along side. I arrived in New york City at about 9 last night, too dark to make details out but the city seemed to rise up out of nowhere. And the city is huge! The only way I can describe it is that it feels like the city did when I was very small; it rises up all around you and seems big and wonderfully mysterious. And the people are as interesting as the architecture. The faces and the clothes are all unique.

The 1st photo is of the north from my train. I loved Amtrack too. The uniforms are great! So much better then the modern Via Rail ones in Canada! These guys look like they walked out of the 1950's.

The 3rd photo is of 1st impressions. stumbling out of Penn Station and hitting a wall of people and being grabbed by someone and shoved into a cab.I'm still not sure what happened there...

And the 2nd picture is the view from my hotel room. Off to one side side I'm pretty sure I can see the Empire state Building.

Today I have a meeting nearby about a book and then I'm going to try and find Book of Wonder.