green stars #2

I think this drawing (from one of my art journals) was actually created before green stars #1. The image is made with Crayola wax crayons and black china marker.

I love working in an art journal, because as I write and draw on future pages, the colours from earlier, adjacent pages become imprinted upon each other, adding to the visual complexity and rhythm to the images.

increase

This is another drawing based on an I Ching reading. The image was created the same way as that in yesterday's post.

unity

This is one of the earliest drawings I made in my first art journal. I was very interested in the I Ching at the time, and decided to "draw" my reading - the hexagram called "Unity." I started by scribbling blobs of colour on the page, and then drawing an outline of the image that was suggested by the shapes - in this case, a bird diving downwards.

The drawing is created with Crayola wax crayons and black china marker.

apple #3

This is one of my all-time favorite drawings of mine. I don't normally like to make overly realistic drawings, but sometimes everything just works. That apple on the left looks like it wants to pop right off the page. I can almost feel its texture against my teeth. I can taste it...

The drawing started out with some colour laid down with Crayola washable markers. I sprayed the ink with water to make it run, and after it was dry I went in with coloured pencils and added all the details.

mangoes

This drawing actually started out as a watercolour painting. After doing an initial wash with some yellow and red, I let the painting dry and then went in with coloured pencils and added cross-hatching and other details.

pear

Another from the coloured-pencil fruit series. This is one of my favorites, because of the deep, saturated colour of the pear.

grapefruit

I did a whole series of coloured-pencil fruit during this period, but these are some of my favorites. The drawing was done on the back of a recycled photocopy, and the dark areas of toner can be seen through the page.

banana

I've found that bananas are one of the hardest fruits for me to draw. Perfectly yellow ones don't have a lot of colour gradation for me to play with (my selection of green and yellow coloured pencils is pretty limited), and once bananas start to brown they're too complicated for me to be interested.

This drawing was made with coloured and soft graphite pencil.

tumbling fruit

I went through a period of drawing lots of fruit with coloured pencil. This is one of my favorite works from that time.

self portrait #2 - photoshopped

I don't normally do much manipulating of my images in Photoshop - just some basic cropping and colour adjustment. But one day I took this drawing (first seen in yesterday's post) and had some fun playing around with Photoshop filters. The end result reminded me of a Kirlian photograph.

self portrait #2

This drawing was done during the period of the green and purple men's faces. I look kind of like a hobbit, but I love the sense of joy and playfulness in my face.

Again, this drawing was made with Crayola washable marker, then sprayed with water to make the ink run.

woman's face #1 (brown)

This drawing was created a couple of years after the previous two, but is in the same style, with the same technique. I used a Crayola washable marker and sprayed the drawing with water to make the ink run. I love the dreamy expression it gives the woman's face.

man's face #2 (green)

Here's another drawing from yesterday's series. I love the laughter in this face. It was drawn with a Crayola washable marker and then sprayed with water to make the ink run.

man's face #1 (purple)

Here's the original drawing from which my last post was created. It was made with Crayola washable markers, and then sprayed with water to make the ink bleed.

man's face #1 (black and white)

This is actually a black and white inkjet printout (on watercolour paper) of a drawing I originally made with Crayola washable markers. The marker ink will run if you wet it, so I made a series of drawings which I sprayed with water to make them look more like watercolour paintings.

This image was a controversial one in my family. My father really disliked it (and others of the same series) because he found the faces macabre for some reason. I was really saddened at the time, because I thought they were some of my most beautiful, sensitive and haunting work.

leaf #2

This leaf was drawn at the same time as the one in yesterday's post. Slightly more realistic, again in Crayola washable marker with coloured pencil.

happy canada day

I drew this leaf several years ago. I started by outlining the leaf shape with washable Crayola markers, and spraying the page with water so that the ink bled. After the image had dried I then went in with coloured pencil and added details. The paper is a used photocopy from a child's school handout.

apple #2

This apple was actually created before apple #1; if you look closely, you'll see that the apple image in the latter is actually a computer-generated print of this drawing. I frequently use a print of this original image on the front of my handmade art cards.

The drawing was one in a series of coloured pencil works I did of fruit. I stopped half-way through, unhappy with the way I'd rendered the reflection in the lower half of the apple, and made notes to myself about what I would have done differently.

glenn gould

I was a huge fan of Glenn Gould in my late twenties. I had just started to learn the piano, and went looking for recordings of Bach keyboard music because I enjoyed the "List A" pieces in my conservatory piano books.

I found something called the Goldberg Variations, and played it on the stereo one night when I was alone in a huge, empty house. Part-way through the recording I was frightened by the sounds of a male voice mumbling nearby. I got up and looked out the windows, peering into the blackness unable to see anything, my heart beating rapidly.

Then I realized that the "mumbling" was coming from the stereo speakers. I later read that Gould always sang as he played, and his singing is audible in all his studio recordings.

The Goldberg Variations (especially Gould's 1981 version) became one of my favorite works, and when my sister got married I suggested she use the quodlibet (variation 30) as her wedding march. (Listen to it here - scroll down to track 31)

I did a series of sketches of Gould performing at the piano, using videotapes of his recording sessions and TV shows. Gould was an eccentric musician, constantly swaying, rocking, and conducting himself with closed eyes as he played. There was something restless and driven about him, and I like this particular drawing because it seems to catch him in a freeze-frame.

self portrait

I remember a drawing instructor once asked my class, "Why are there so many self-portraits in art history?" We tried to think up intellectual reasons - something along the lines of "the self-reflexivity of the artistic process since the renaissance," and were brought up short when the teacher pointed out that the artist is often the cheapest and most convenient model for him- or herself.

I went through a phase where I drew my face, hands or feet incessantly, and after a time I could even recreate my face from memory, without consulting the mirror.

This drawing is created with black markers in varying thicknesses, as well as soft (dark) pencil.