Sketch: New Black Bird Painting

A sketch for a new painting, already underway!



I first scribbled this on a piece of scrap newspaper, when I realized that I had forgotten my sketchbook. I then scanned it, and tightened up the drawing in Photoshop, using my Wacom tablet.

I use these little thumbnails as roughs to plan out the major elements of my paintings, and they rarely see the light of day themselves. This one, however, appealed to me on its own, so I'm posting it here as a preview for the painting to come!

Upcoming events

Once again, I've been so hard at work that the blog here has been on hold for a bit. Now, however, I can tell you what all the work's been about! I've been creating pieces for the following events:

Fan Expo and The Launch of Holmes Inc.
I will signing at Fan Expo on Friday, August 27th, from 6pm to 8pm. Find me at the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop/Holmes Inc booth, and pick up a copy of the new book! Each story in the book is written by a different author, and illustrated by a different artist. Come buy one! Or five! I'll sign them all.
The Fan Expo site, with tickets, times, etc., is here: http://www.fanexpocanada.com

Art Opening at Insomnia Cafe
I'm showing new original artwork -- all from or related to my Koi Fish series -- at Insomnia (near the corner of Bloor and Bathurst) throughout most of September. The art will be going up on September 7th, and there will be a party there that evening. Come join us! The Facebook event page is here; add yourself!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=126385524074456

The Queen West Art Crawl
From Friday, September 17 through until Sunday, September 19, I will be selling original artwork and signed prints in Trinity Bellwoods Park. My booth will be located near the southeast end of the park. I'll have original artwork available from all of my various series, in a wide range of price points. Please come by and say hi, and check out the vast multitide of amazing artists showing and selling their work! This show is on par with the Outdoor Art Exhibition for number and variety, and is one not to miss! Information is here:
http://www.parkdaleliberty.com/show_info.php?page_id=99

Cafe Taste
My artwork will be up for display and sale during the month of October at this lovely wine and cheese bar and restaurant near Queen and Dufferin. The opening night is TBA, so stay tuned for updates! Meanwhile, check out their site here:
http://www.cafetaste.ca

That's it for the moment, but there will be even MORE announced soon, so stay tuned! (To those of you wondering where I've been hiding all summer, it should now be self-explanatory!)

Fit to Print -- comics page!

Tonight I completed the seventh and final page for the Fit to Print project with Toronto Cartoonists Workshop. This page was easily the most challenging piece of comics art I've had to draw, but I'm pretty happy over all with the end result!

The whole piece was drawn in pencil from start to finish. No inking, no digital colour. Just me getting messy with traditional media.

Bloop.

More comics work in progress!

Who's been busy? That would be me! Check out a (mostly) finished page I've been working on for a comic script by the lovely Alison Kooistra. The first panel is still in the works, and a few more details may happen on the existing ones, but for the most part it's inked and done!



I should add: this is actually the first time I've attempted a full inked page. I've drawn and shaded full pages in pencil before, and I've inked individual panels (usually on separate pieces of paper, and assembled and coloured as layers after, digitally), but I've never before attempted to ink over pencils all on one page. So... slow... but in the words of Calvin's father, "It builds character."

Rough stuff!

It's funny: every time I let this blog go a while without posting anything, you'd think it was because I haven't been working on anything. Au contraire. It's when I get busiest with projects that I forget to update! But not this time! This time: I update.

I often get asked about my process for working on things. I've always been someone who prefers to keep my rough ideas hidden, and who waits for the finished product before I'll let people take a look. I'm the person doodling stuff in the coffee shop or on the bus who will snap the sketchbook shut if you get too close. But I'm trying not to be!

So, for the moment, I'm going to post some of what I've been working away at over the weekend. These are for a comics project that just got underway a couple of weeks ago. I'll stay mum on the details for the moment, but it's shaping up to be something really exciting, and is so far a pretty amazing collaborative effort by a large number of contributors.

Anyhow, back to my process. My process is itself a work in process. These layouts were figured out, first, as individual panels sketched out and repeatedly drawn and redrawn in pencil before I decided I was happy enough with them to sketch them into a layout template. I then scanned them and did some resizing and redrawing using photoshop and my wacom tablet. Many many... many... hours later, and they still look mostly like an indecipherable sloppy mess, but from this indecipherable mess will come finished pencils, inks, toning, lettering... and a comic is born.

Here are just a couple of the seven pages I roughed out this weekend:

Death and the Maiden

Sketched in pencil, without photo reference, so it may have some... idiosyncrasies? I'm happy with the mood though, which is the main thing for me.

Based on Gaston Leroux's original novel's description of the Erik and Christine characters. No Gerard Butler in the house here. Though I think this could potentially be a standalone piece, without the context of it being an illustration for a book.