Studies from the Musee Rodin, Paris

A piece I had only seen in pictures, I am Beautiful captivated me even more in real life (as of course could be expected but when confronted in real life, the impact seems even greater than I would have thought). Situated in a corner by a busy door, it did not allow for much uninterrupted contemplation or study from as many angles as I would have wished, but I was able to do some quick pen studies from a spot mostly out of the way of the circulating crowds.

The museum of his work is a beautiful building with grounds that again were unexpected despite what I had read in advance. But most astounding to me was the work inside. I can't pretend to have ever been a great admirer of Rodin. It is only lately that I have been drawn more and more to the outer power and inner grace of his work. Had I had more time I would have visited the joint Rodin Matisse exhibition where I would have no doubt seen many drawings by both, but I couldn't pull myself away from the sculptures. I'm sure I missed out on an impressive show of both masters together, but one can only do so much if one really wishes to absorb and not just see.

Royal Winter Fair 2009

Some of the sketches from today.

Body Worlds

Went with a few of my Seneca Digital Animation students to Body Worlds at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto today. This is my first visit to this show and probably won't be my last given there is so much to learn despite the spectacle feel of the place and my disgust at the way they will not allow you to re-enter the exhibit unless of course you are in dire need of the washrooms. It's utterly rediculous if this is an educational venue that one is not allowed to take a break and return. Last time we visited we had to get PRESS passes to be able to draw....another absurdity. This time they did come around and ask if we had permission. I assumed we did. Again, if this educational then one should be allowed notes and sketches. But at least it is here and we can get some insight into the muscles as they lie over and intersect throughout the body. Enought grumbling....here are my sketches.








Tomorrow it is off to the Royal Winter Fair.

It's been a while since I posted...a whole summer. It wasn't without drawing or painting although not as much as I wish, but only myself to blame for that.

My garden in Lion's Head provided me with endless facination of the colours and particularly the green of the plants and the trees. Here's one of the summer sketches:

a day in class

over the years of teaching I've been portrayed many ways by my students, most of them amusing and quite good (the drawing quality that is...as for depictions of me not always flattering, but that's ok, I get a chuckle out of them all.)

I came across this one today searching for another file and thought I would post it. Regretably I didn't not the creator's name in the file. Please email if it's yours or you know who did it.

Ollie Merlo did this one the other day when he witnessed one particularly frustrating day. thankfully they are not always like that.

Playing with photoshop

I've been busy creating images for a Summer Reading program that will be part of libraries all across Canada this summer. Part of it will be a web game. These are some of the elements that I put together for the fun of it (one has to have some fun!) even though I am sure the game will look quite differently. I'm almost done and then it's on to a book that has to be finished for release this fall. For the book it's traditional pencil and watercolour, but for the reading club it's been a mix of traditional, photoshop, painter and sketchbook pro. Oh so many toys!

Easter Bunnies

It's that time of year again: bunnies, coloured eggs and chocolate. How the three got mixed up together I'll never know. I just enjoy drawing the bunnies.

Dreaming of Palm Trees

I love snow but the weather of yesterday and today, and probably tomorrow too has me dreaming of palm trees. I did this sketch too many years ago on my last trip to Montserrat. I think it is time to go back again and paint more palms....or anything green and warm and preferably of the plant variety.

Old Man

the other day in Toronto I saw an old woman in a door way. She was bent over, held up by two canes and looking like she was afraid to come out into the light for fear of being blown over by a breeze. It was sad. I never got to sketch her, being once again in a rush as usual, but I came across this sketch of mine the other day of a similar old man. I can't help but feel sorry for anyone trapped by age and circumstance with only canes to hold them up in a world rushing by. Rembrandt stopped to draw these people, and gave them dignity in his paintings as prophets and sages. I have a small etching by him, a restrike I bought in Amsterdam, and when I look at it I can't help but feel awe for the power of that man and his hand's ability as well as his empathy for the poor in the doorways.

Ignaz Elhafen at the AGO

On a recent evening visit to the AGO I returned to the amazing ivory and wood carvings from the Thomson Collection. I forever am impressed at the ability of these carvers from Medieval to Baroque period for not only their ability to do such intricate work, but also the level of anatomical knowledge they possessed.

Ignaz Elhafen one just one of the many on display that caught my attention for his intricacy. He's not a common name, nor is he considered one of the greats since it seems he concentrated on the same theme over and over again (precursor to mass production?), but damn he was good. He must have had the hands of of brain surgeon, and perhaps the brain of one too to have such all encompassing grasp of form in space. To an expert Ignaz may not be impressive, but to me he is and once again I have to express my thanks to the late Ken Thomson for his inclusion of Ignaz' work in his collection.

Skeleton Gestures

Haven't been able to do any life drawing lately, and when I came across this study it just made me want to get back at it even more.

I should add that although this hardly seems like 'life drawing' I find doing these kind of quick studies keeps me tuned in to the inner structure. When I pull the skin over the underlying bone structure, the skeleton effect on the surface form is a kind of punctuation that holds and moves the eye over, around and about the figure itself, holding it here and moving it there so that a sense of timing in the movement of the eye and the message to the mind is created.

Study of a Bird Skull

Cheap Paper sketching

With all the paper I have in my studios you would think I would pick a sheet of good stuff, but instead I find myself drawing on envelopes and cheap copy paper. I think it goes way back to when I was young and really couldn't afford good art supplies. Good paper was special and not for just any sketch or doodle. So I still find myself grabbing anything near, the cheaper the better, and happily sketching on it. It's not that I don't love great papers, but a roll of kraft wrapping paper is oh so wonderful to draw on. 'Just not permanent.

My other failing is buying sketchbooks and never really filling them before I buy another. I guess all that matters is just drawing, and not worrying on what, unless of course it belongs to someone else. Never a good idea.

Meanwhile I end up struggling with lots of sheets of cheap paper, rolls of kraft, boxes of envelopes, and shelves of great papers just waiting to be used. Ah, will I ever get it right?

Studies of Arms

I was just looking at some old journals and found my scrawled notes from when I was taking human anatomy at the University of Guelph. I was desperately trying to make sense of the shoulder and all the muscles that overlap, go around, go under, go anywhere except where I could understand them. Top that off with all the plumbing: arteries, veins, nerves and lymphatic system and you may as well have tossed me into one of those manholes with cables cut and wires all over....I was just as lost.

Years later, all those extras aside (and a healthy respect for any MD) it makes sense and I find myself trying to bring some sort of simplicity of understanding to my students at Seneca. I can tell by their blank looks that much of it zooms by and disappears into the ether. But they also seem to come back and show a level of understanding that I wish I had had at their age.

All that anatomy is more than bone and muscle inventory and so important in my eyes to an understanding that can be visually conveyed in drawings of the figure. So if you are interested in drawing the figure, don't give up. Every time you take another stab at it, you'll understand a bit more, and just like the drop of water that can crack rock, you'll break through. I did, even if it took a bit of time. I'm sure you'll do it faster.



The studies above are some drawings for understanding the movement of the shoulders and the changes in form as they do. My suggestion: learn the skeleton first. Try to study from a real one and not copy from a book or a cheap model. Both will screw you up. You have to visit the real thing first and then books are good. My suggestion (and not because I can read German but because it probably is the best for the diagrams) is Gottfried Bammes' Die Gestalt des Menschen. It's not cheap but worth every penny. (I'll do a list of the best books I've found later). Don't worry about reading....the diagrams tell it all.



After you've studied the skeleton (without one we would be an amoeba) treat the muscles as cables. Leonardo did. Or at least he seemed to prefer the thinner cadaver. When I took human anatomy my cadaver was an old lady (I thank her soul for her contribution) who's muscles were cable. The other cadavers were huge and the muscles slabs. I didn't find much understanding in looking at them. Just looking at her muscles implied their use and movement.





Something I found useful with my students both at school and privately is laying on the muscles as plasticine cables. Our fingers seem to have a level of understanding and memory and doing this way has always been effective.

Arm Rotations

These have been posted for my students at Seneca. Apologies for the quality.

Don't have time to paint the light on the snow in the yard outside my studio doors. Something magical about how light plays on snow and how it reflects moods with the changing daylight hours into the night. These are digital sketches done when I had time.

At the AGO and even at the National Gallery in Ottawa, some of the paintings that captivate me most are the studies of snow by the Group of Seven. I may be doing a book tour to Flin Flon in Northern Manitoba in late February (my 3rd visit) and I will be looking forward to sketching the black spruce and snow. The north may not be an easy place to survive in (speaking of -47 with wind chill today) but you cannot beat it for poetry of light, line and form.

Speaking of black spruce and the north, I highly recommend Joseph Boyden's "Through Black Spruce." Perhaps because I used to fly north through Moosonee to Povungnituk, and even spent a few days there on a reading tour, I find that book beautifully written, so evocative of the place. I could feel the cold, see the ice on the Moose River or the light over James Bay. Wonderful characters, beautifully written (reapeating myself). Oh how I want to return if only it were not so expensive! Soon I hope.

I wish we coud send every school child north to experience it at least once in their life, to meet the people and to feel the land.


I left the trees out of this sketch...made me feel the light more.

'Squirrels are outside again this morning. It's just too easy to sit and watch them. Fun to sketch them as a warm up. The black squirrels are very plump but their tails are thin, so unlike the grey squirrel who's tail is thick and fluffy and obviously quite warm to wrap up in.

While I was sketching the squirrels, my cat Mouse jumped up on my desk and decided the best place to sit was on the paper. It left me no alternative than to draw Mouse. Must have been his plan all along.

Outside my window

It's hard to work today and not be distracted watching the squirrels outside my windows feasting on bird seed. They can be terribly aggravating (they chewed through wiring and insulation under our roof) and yet so pretty to watch in their fluffy fur and cute eyes. Arrrgh!! Back to work!

First day of 2009 at the AGO

If you live in the Toronto area or visit the city you must, and I emphasize MUST, visit the new Art Gallery of Ontario. We decided to start our year with a visit today and we came away tired but thoroughly impressed with the new building and the collection on display. Toronto has finally joined the world of great art galleries. Matthew Teitelbaum, Frank Gehry and the late Ken Thomson must all be congratulated on what has been achieved here. I wouldn't know where to start with the praises. The building is beautiful. And it works. It invites, it holds the art well, beautifully in fact. The building is art. And the art inside is captivating in it's breadth and beauty.

I admit I am a sucker for the Group of Seven, and the collection is beautifully rich in works. The section on drawing is wonderful. The curators have done an excellent job of hanging, with the flow of one area into the next feeling like going from one section of a marvelous treasure cave to the next. But a cave it definitely is not since the rooms feel open and yet intimate at the same time. We bought memberships so that we can return again and again, and so we will.

The visit cannot help but inspire. I wanted to return and draw, but since I will leave that to tomorrow I've posted a small sketch from my Ungava works that was inspired not by a gallery, but by the land itself.

Happy 2009! It feels good.

couldn't help but play with the sketch...

Gee, it doesn't take much to make me happy!

2nd Advent sketch

2nd Sunday of December, 2nd Advent before Christmas. Makes me think back to childhood when there was a fuss over these days before the 24th.

Quick sketch of the lights over the breakfast nook. Brought some cedar in and laid it on...smells lovely. Not much time for better drawing due to the last of marking this morning. Never a fun time judging the work of students. Some tried hard and just didn't get there, others with tons of ability just did not push it. Others surprise me, and some sadly disappoint me. I have never found putting a number on something so complex easy and even frustrating. Part of marking is science, the other alchemy. The science part is the math, the numbers. When added up they don't always reflect the complete picture. That's when the alchemy as I like to call it kicks in. I stand back, take in the big picture and go with my gut. My gut has been correct more times than the math. I balance the two. With all these years of teaching, you would think it gets easier, but instead it becomes more complex as I am aware of subtlies that experience reveals.