dragon from Dino

after that last entry today I started wondering what a dragon based on one of the dinos would look like. After a few minutes with photoshop this is what I came up with. It's pretty messy but fun anyway.

Dinos a the ROM

Fascinating in the way so much is similar to what we see now, and only a few million years apart. Wish I could be there for weeks, first study drawing what I see, then playing with it. Don't know why bones fascinate me so much?

conte on 18x24" newsprint

Armour at the ROM

My first semester students along with their other instructor Todd Sullivan and I spent the afternoon at the Royal Ontario Museum. It started with Dino's but for me ended at the armour display. Fun just drawing those elaborate cans men wrapped themselves in to do battle or just look tough. Can't help but think of the incredible skill of the craftsmen. Also can't help but see the similarities to the dryer pipes in my basement!

figure studies with a soccer ball

On the Opinicon Road

I was visiting Smiths Falls this week and on the way home from friends who live on the Rideau Canal at beautiful Chaffey's Locks I stopped to sketch a quick watercolour of an island I've passed before. Not satisfied with the results I played with it in Photoshop and volia: not what I saw but how it felt.

Things I think you need for animation.

I'm putting this entry into both my book and art blog because I get asked this often and I think it is important. I met a young lady, one of the winners of the Toronto Library Book Mark Awards last week. She wrote to me regarding what is needed to get in to animation. Her goal is Sheridan, and although I no longer teach there I think this applies to any other college or animation school.

My letter:

Dear Edith,

Thank you for your email. It was a pleasure to meet you at the awards ceremony. Congratulations once again.

In regard to your question about entry to Sheridan (or any other college) and to particular courses you need in high school for entry your guidance (if they are still called that) people at school would know that best. As to what would be valuable for animation I strongly suggest you get as much good drawing in as possible. Many schools offer a lot of digital studies, but since computer programs change so rapidly it is not the program that matters but the principles of good art behind them: design, observation, basic drawing skills with pencil and conte, and colour studies.

I suggest you do things such as watch your favorite animated shows in b/w without any colour or sound. Watch how they use design to keep your eye in the picture and not off to the fridge or phone. Learn to draw what you see as much as what you imagine. Learn structure through skeletons. Draw from life and not from pictures. Go to the ROM or any museum and draw animals. Go to the zoo or a farm and draw them live. Or draw your pet. Go to the AGO and discover how artists 'animated' their work through time and how they keep your attention in the picture. Draw boxes spinning through space. Learn perspective. Sculpt. Paint real and abstract: all realism is based on abstract principles, and all abstraction is based on reality.

That should give you lots to do while getting the requisite courses together. I think you would be a prime candidate if you can do it all. And oh yes, read books - to fill your head with ideas and see the world through other eyes.

Finally- learn to write a good letter. You will need it.

Good luck and keep in touch.

Werner

Dear Readers: correct me if I am wrong or if you have other suggestions.

Group of 7 day

After a very poor showing of snow this winter we finally got a bit of a blast of white stuff, enough to make the trees outside my window look like a painting from the Group of 7. It's somewhat fitting in that I am reading a fascinating little book "A Painter's Country", the autobiography of A.Y. Jackson. Jackson was one of the founders of the Group and though I knew his paintings I confess I knew little about him as a painter or simply person. I highly recommend this book if you can find it or get it from a library (my copy is a used paperback from the '60's); it is one I can hardly put down.


And so to wake up this morning and see the pines and spruces outside my window as were they painted by A.Y. or his colleagues makes me feel like I fell into and woke inside the book. A very pleasant feeling indeed.

Tofino Long Beach 06 / 10

With the games on in Vancouver, my thoughts go a bit further out the coast to the other side of Vancouver Island, to Tofino and Long Beach. I've been fortunate to get out there many times over the years, the last being 06 when I did this sketch of a sunlit log on Long Beach. I wasn't satisfied with it and it remained in a pile of papers until today when after an email from a friend out on the island I came across it again. With nothing to lose except perhaps the memory I threw paint all over it trying to get the feeling of the day when the sky would break open and shafts of sunlight would hit parts of the beach. So what started on the beach in 06 got finished in snowy Guelph in 10. Not bad. I've been slower. (so now I want to get back out there!)

River walk today

Today was one of those glorious winter days with brilliant sky and luminous shadows that makes you love winter. As I walked our dog along the banks of the Speed River here in town this morning I was captivated by the beauty of the shadows under the pines; the way the colour changes from cold to warm blues as shadows pass under the trees to the open fields beyond; and how the water, where it still flows openly in the place where the Speed meets the Eramosa it has an elusive darkness in a colour that still eludes me.

When I got home I took some scrap strips of watercolour paper and played.

Bernini at the AGO - pencil studies

Yesterday at the AGO my fascination once again with Bernini's crucifixion. It's not the religiousness of it, rather the poetry of his form.

Puppet Tree

When my kids were young we had a pole hanging from the ceiling with puppets and hats all over it. I came across a sketch and once again had fun in photoshop. It's like watercolour with lots of room to play and make changes. Doesn't replace watercolour, just adds another avenue of fun.

The sketch:

Thinking arctic

We seem to have a January thaw happening and since I love snow my mind goes north. I came across a sketch done years ago outside Povungnituk (as it was known then) and played with it in photoshop.

More studies of my cat

Cat on my desk

Cat on my desk as I work. Comforting.

So, after not getting anywhere with my work I decided to go for a walk and get fresh air. Then what do I do?... I look out my doors, see the shadows on the snow and the urn peeking out behind the beds and there goes the walk! But at least I have the sketch. Now, if I can still get out the door, there is still some light by the river....

Happy January Everyone. With Christmas Survival days out of the way it is back to work. I make a point of starting each year with a visit to a gallery or museum and this year it was the AGO. My spots to hit: the Berninis, the Van Dyke, Sargent, the mini carvings and the boats. This year I did it with Dr. Rick Pottruff who followed the AGO visit with a part of his 'Strange City Tour: Toronto' in which he reveals, just as in NYC a part of the city and galleries previously unknown (at least to me).

School starts next week and with the talk of Strike it makes me sick to think of what this is going to do to students.In 2010 there should be a better way than confrontation. But perhaps that is becoming more and more the way of the world.

On that note, and because I truly do love January and winter I leave you with this: a card I did for my niece.

two drawings from recent classes

Maybe because I just finished marking last semester's portfolios last night, or maybe simply because I like how these two drawings, as rough as they are, turned out, one by chance composition during quick gestures, and the other inspired but he chance pose of the two models, I decided to post them. Haven't thought of captions...I'll let the viewer decide. Hopefully with the Christmas season beginning now that school is done, my work will be a bit more festive from here on. That seems harder each year with the way the world seems to be going deeper into the dark and warmer as it gets there. Got to cheer up! Lovely doves outside my doors. Maybe I'll work on that.

today's drawing: Katrina

Spent the day with sculpture but took a bit of time for some sketching of Katrina, daughter of some friends.

While I sketched she watched 'UP' with our cat in her lap. I have to admit, even though I was thoroughly enjoying the sketching, it was hard not to watch too. UP is such an amazing piece.

Cat & fate?

I have a cat named MOUSE who is very elegant with a haughty look of disdain on all that is around him. Sort of regal and aloof. Next door my son has a cat named MEETCH who is the polar opposite. Meetch is twice Mouse's size, soft as a pillow and with the biggest eyes that one could assemble on a cat. His look is that of perpetual awe. I sketched this for my niece Natalie simply because I hit the tab on Sketchbook Pro and figured why waste the screen and it was time I sent her something.



This sketch is however one arising from the guilt of not getting out and walking as I should. I once passed a group of mall-walkers awaiting the opening of the mall. With something akin to a cold chill I thought "would that someday be me?" Luckily that will never never never happen but I still remember those faces and last evening, once again with the accidental screen of sketchbook in front of me (its on my menu bar) I started to doodle these guys. Aliens I say!

Sketches from the day

pencil and watercolour on copy paper.