Baconator

I drew this last night. It is my special project for the upcoming House Gallery "Bacon - The king of cured meats" exhibition.  I was a vegetarian for over 8 years, then one birthday I caved and tried some home made bacon, that was it for me no more veggie. Damn you bacon!!!

What better than combining my favourite things?! I sketched up some star wars on a canvas I had eagerly awaiting art making in my studio.

I boldly go in with my Copic multi-liner Brush pen where no rookie has gone before. Look at that cute little Ewok hiding behind chewy's leg.

You know what this needs………. a decapitated storm trooper helmet!

A bit more inking and the addition of a shield satellite and a Death Star.

Inking complete, next step adding colour.

This piece will be on exhibition at House Gallery.
Saturday November 16.
2607 35 St SW, Calgary, AB
info@housegallery.ca

I guarantee it will be auctioned off at the show, so if you want it you will need to go to the show and place a bid, otherwise somebody else will win this epic fan art piece and just in time for the holidays.

Exquisite corpse - teen cartooning class

I love my Saturdays now that I have to be responsible Friday night in order to be up early in the morning Saturday to teach two classes at ACAD. This week, in my Adult Drawing class, we worked on proportions while drawing a still life.

 We set up two lights and a bunch of stuff from ACAD's still life room.

 I also brought my guitar, banjo, a cow skull and a few other items to add to the collection.

The students did a very good job sketching the objects into space in the proper proportions.

After lunch, I teach a teen cartooning course at ACAD. One of the days activities was my favourite surrealist drawing game the Exquisite corpse. To do this a piece of paper is folded up and passed around so that each panel can't be seen by one another. I gave each student 15 min. to draw the head, body and lower half of a body. Here is what they came up with in the time given.

There are some really good and sometimes funny creative solutions.  A few looked like they were thematic or stylistically planned out, and yet nobody knew what anyone else was drawing. Cool, eh?!

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

It certainly was nice out.  It was also the day voters were out and about walking to the voting station. I had many people stop by and talk to me while I got the tiniest bit of sun painting the Ramsay mural on the side of my neighbors garage.

This is the lettering I drew in my sketchbook for the design and took a photo of to get it into the computer to help me get it up on the wall quickly.

This is where we left off previously. My neighbor got into his coveralls and began blocking in the taped off lettering.

Most of the bold black shadow was filled in, in the bulky areas with a 1 inch painters brush. He eagerly awaits me to come finish the piece. Alas, I had to recover in bed licking my wounds and then it was wet and rainy the day I was supposed to finish up.

The next morning, after breakfast at Reds and being one of the first people to Vote in Ramsay that morning.......... I got out my lettering brushes and began fixing up the details and outlining the letters so they would pop more. It was tedious with the quality of paint we were using, but it is water soluble and not sticky enamel that is a pain to clean up and hazardous to ones health. But man, my one shot black lettering paint is way more velvety than this water based product. Difference in price was $11 in favor of the more health conscious variety.

I got down to it at about 11 and I finished around 6. I ended up outlining the lower letters in white and managed to snap a picture with me in it while the sun was still up.

I did some more details by adding darts to the lower letters but the sun was quickly falling and it is time to call it a night. Pack up my gear and clean up my brushes and gander on with a job well done.

Next step is to clear coat it with a satin or mat finish to unify the entire piece and protect it in the off chance it gets damaged or vandalized in the months and years to come.

Ramsay Mural - daytime

Taping has begun

I'm glad it is fairly nice out, the next stage can happen without freezing ones ass off. You can see the glint of the lettering outlines better in this lighting.

Getting there. Its cold out and a bit hard on the hands but this green frog tape is the bomb!

Here is is a few hours later and a few Cognac's in. The taping will help make the next few steps crisp and clean. Next, 3 coats of white in the taped lettering.

Ramsay garage mural - night session

My buddy and across the street neighbor just finished a ton of renovations on his place. Including a fresh coat of paint. He doesn't want graffiti tags on it and approached me about doing a very specific mural. His family has owned the property since the neighborhood of Ramsay was established in 1914.

Late in the night we bombed the side of his garage. I spent some time the day before getting some files prepped for the design and booking a projector out. I figured this was going to save us time and energy, and boy was I right. From start to finish, it took us 1 hr. to get the line work of the design completed. Normally this could take an entire day.

It was freezing out and the set up was definitely make shift. I put my laptop on an inverted trash can, we leveled out the projector with scraps from the recycling and borrowed the saw stand from my room mate who was cleaning out his garage across the street. With some minor adjustments the image was set and we got to work with pencils and charcoal outlining the image.

This gives you an idea of the scale of the operation. my neighbor, Greg, helped me do the outlining of the lettering. The garage we were set up in front of opened right before we were finished as the other neighbor returned from work. We did manage to finish luckily!

Here it is the next day. The pencil lines are harder to see. This is where the white paint will be taped off and filled in with a few coats of white paint. Below the charcoal outlines are where I will hand paint black lettering. So, once it warms up a bit we can get the show on the road!