I just finished this Piece off for the ‘Mmmmm… Pop’ show at Hangman Gallery. The opening night for the exhibit is this Thursday, January 21 from 7-9pm @ Hangman Gallery (756 Queen Street East, Toronto Ontario).

Here’s the finished piece from last week. It’s my expression of Joanna Newsom’s album Ys. I’m trying to bring some of what I’m doing in my abstract painting class into my illustrations.

This is a progress shot of a piece I’m working on for illustration Friday.  As I’ve said before, I like to use Illustration as a push to try something outside of my comfort zone. This piece is in a completely different style than anything I’ve done before.  It’s not quite finished yet though but it’s almost Friday so I thought I’d post what I’ve got so far and finish it up at leisure over the weekend.
So what’s it all about. This is a portrait/mock cover of Joanna Newsom’s album Ys. Joanna Newsom, for those that don’t know is an indie folk harp player. Her songs are crest from beautifully innocent to mournfully sad and back again. ‘Ys’, the title of her most recent album, is the name of a mythical city, said have been inbetween England and France before it one day sank into the sea.
Anyhow, as I said there’s still many more layers of paint to go, this is really just under-painting right now, but I did it for Illustration Friday and so I though I should post it before Friday passes.

I spent a little more playing around on the computer time this week – motivated by the Illustration Friday site.  For this week’s topic, ‘unbalanced’, I decided to continue along both the stylistic and conceptual themes which came out of last week’s IF piece. This illustration approaches ‘unbalanced’ from the ‘emotionally unbalanced’ angle. I wanted to illustrate the internal and external contradiction of those chemically imbalanced individuals who, though may say kind words, rage within. Thanks to Ann Marie who encouraged me to continue this line of exploration last week, I think it’s moving forward. It’s now time though to put the computer away, break out the paints, and get back to work.

I’ve been off my illustration Friday hoarse for a while and it’s a shame since it provides such a stress free push to try something new and different – with out any pressures on producing a quality final product. This week’s is a good example of that. I was running through some ideas for this week’s topic ‘blur’ and decided to go with a ‘blurring the lines’ slant which eventually led me to the final theme of the blurred moral distinction which resides somewhere  in between truth and lie, the morally ambiguous ‘white lie’

I’m surprised and pleased with how this turned out, it’s completely different than anything else I’ve ever done. It’s really just the bi-product of some non-premeditated playtime on the computer.

’til next Friday then.

An afternoon at the Paradiso Lounge with a complementary piña colada. cheers.

I’ve been going to life drawing and painting studio sessions lately. I’ve also been playing on the computer a lot lately. This piece is a combo of both.

1.Day.

2.Eve.

3.Night.

4.Morn.

This series is done from a pen and ink drawing I did in my sketchbook while on vacation in Cuba. I’ve been playing a little with Photoshop recently -getting a portfolio of digital work together. Right now I’m Just learning the tools while I colour in some backgrounds, but I like this one and thought I’d share. There will probably be more of these digital colourings going up over the next little while. I’ve got some time before I lay into my next book and this computer thing makes painting fast!

Just finishing up my new business card design then it’s off to the printers!

The first book out of Kid Can Press’ ‘Have You Ever Seen’ series has just been published. “Have You Ever Seen a Duck in a Raincoat” is a fun, colorful, learning aid for 4 to 7 year olds. It’s a sort of non-fiction / picture-book hybrid, designed to be an exciting, entertaining way to get them learning young. Oh, and I painted it.

Here’s how the people at Kids Can describe it:
“The Have You Ever Seen? series uses lighthearted human-animal comparisons to teach primary-level children about animals. Each informational picture book features a variety of animals familiar to children, such as lobsters, eagles and whales, and compares human and animal activities. With read-aloud, friendly text and bright colors, each book also contains an activity suitable for home or classroom to summarize the lessons learned. Have You Ever Seen a Duck in a Raincoat? compares human clothing, footwear and headgear with the equivalent animal adaptations. Have you ever seen a lobster in a helmet? No? That’s because lobsters don’t need helmets because they have a hard shell to protect their heads and bodies.”

Book number two is set to be out soon, and book number three is in the works.

If you’d like to pick up a copy you can do so here – I get a better cut if you go through the link ;)
Here are some spreads to look at until you get your own copy (wink face again)

Opening night has run it’s course and after a moment of respite I am back at the easel. I’d like to thank everyone for coming out and helped in making Roxane such a success. The feedback so far has been great.
For those of you who would like to understand the concept farther, here are a couple links to sites who have more words to say about me than I do: jeff szuc on ‘things of desire’, and jeff szuc on ’she does the city’.
Also, for those of you who couldn’t attend, some photos from the gallery.
The show continues to run until May 10th at O’connor Gallery.

For months now I’ve been working on my super-top-secret project, keeping the specific details from all, save that it involved identity theft, portraits of people I don’t know by someone who doesn’t exist, and Facebook.

The basic process involved creating a fake Facebook account for a non-existent person (Roxane Xeres), and then making as many Facebook friends as possible (315 to date). Roxane and I then made art work about these people – my own being contemporary traditional portrait paintings, and Roxane’s existing as documentary art. The show also contains one collaborative piece created by both Roxane Xeres and myself.

Show runs April 14th to May 10th, 2009
@ O’Connor Gallery
145 Berkeley St.
Toronto, ON

OPENING RECEPTION THURSDAY, APRIL 16th, 7:30pm – 10:30pm
both artists in attendance

I’ve just finished up this self promo-piece to go into a compendium book being published by my agent. I’ll be making nice little promo bookmarks out of it soon so let me know if you’d like one.

I just finished this little piece of holiday cheer. Merry Christmas.

A lovely little book is on the poetry shelves of your more literary bookstores everywhere. Angela Szczepaniak, a fan since my days of selling prints at Butler’s Pantry, contacted me and asked if she could use one of my paintings for her poetry book.