december dreaming

hey

i have a blog?

yes apparently i do. the girlfriend reminds me every now and then.

alright so lets do this! *cracks knuckles*

how is everyone doing? it is cold here in Toronto. snowing and whatnot.

Christmas crap in every corner, shoppers shopping and

being filled with "holiday spirit" as they honk their horns and shove shopping carts... haha festive! i think i'm too Charlie Brown for the season. oh brother.

so a few things have been going on... here, let me tell you.

the other day while watching Scrooged on tv i decided i should do a nice Christmas drawing or something to make an e-card or whatever out of it... because lets face it its too late for ME to figure out printing and mailing before the date. this is what i came up with:

yea a bit darker than i had expected. hence i will have to make another.

for those of you that have extra money and time kicking around, here is my Wish List for this year. :) on the top of the list is a crossbow.. or a recurve bow. unfortunately there was an incident in the city not too long ago about a murder involving a crossbow, putting a damper on my crossbow excitement. in reality if an individual wishes to harm another individual he/she will do so with whatever instruments are available to them.

eg. Ms.Scarlet with the Lead Pipe in the Billiard room. anyways.... list:

here is a commission piece i did for a talented photographer in California. who just happens to be my cousin. it was a wedding gift for a friend of his.

here is what is going on at Galerie D'Este in Montreal. go check it out.

here is what is going on at SleepingGiant Gallery in Toronto. go check it out. very fun stuff.

also i will be part of the AdventShow again at Fine&Dandy Gallery in Toronto. be sure to check that out as well!

lets see... that sums stuff up yea? i will hopefully snap out of whatever daze i am in soon and get posting... also updating that website of mine... also that facebook page i made.

til then... hope everyone is doing well and having good holiday happy family friends fun time.

peace.

the show

this is the solo show. i have been working mighty hard and highly recommend you come visit me.
if you live in Toronto you will probably run into one of these. they will be everywhere.
details for the opening are as follows.
click here for facebook event

Start Time:	Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 6:00pm
End Time:	Friday, April 23, 2010 at 12:00pm
Location:	sleeping giant gallery
Street:	789 dundas st w
City/Town:	Toronto, ON

time machine-o

greetings!

soon to be seasons greetings i suppose, though really i do not know what that means. but anyways... the other day i was at SLEEPINGGIANTGALLERY at the reception for Different Strokes for Different Folks, i was talking with fellow artists Jacob Hughes and Mark Burnham. for obvious reasons the conversation turned to age, to the fact that Jacob was 17, Mark 32 and myself 24. three different generations in the same place at the same time. which got me thinking about what i was up to at 17, because sometimes to get a better idea of what the future holds one has to look into the past.
after taking a trip back in time in my amazing time machine i came to realize that although much has changed much has remained the same. many themes and subjects have stayed with me through the years. the more evident ones are as follow; figures, teeth, angel wings, outlines, white figures, superheroes, muscles, distortion of said figures, and darkness. haha looking at this short list i can't help but feel like i should have many more issues than i do (i got none baby!).

at the moment i don't care enough to dig up pre-highschool images so we wil make do with these:

these two images here are from gr.11. it was the first time having to create a "series" of work. for whatever reason my series was on phobias. above we have fear of public speaking and below we have fear of being alone. its pretty crazy looking back into old sketchbooks. i had "meanings" and "reasons" for every element in the paintings. haha and as much as they suggested i avoid outlining things.... i clearly couldn't help myself.

these two here are from a much longer series that came up from a strange dream and metaphors class i had in... first year at OCAD i believe. so i was... 19? i really liked these and stuck with them for a bit. the first one came before OCAD i think, while i was messing with some paint in trying to be a "rougher" painting... i think thats where the buildings came about. the one above here is actually the first piece i ever had in a showed outside of a classroom. it was for a square foot show. which was really open to anyone but it still made me feel very special. especially when i saw that little red dot on the wall beside it haha. good times.

ok so now we come to the present. which all began with much smaller ink on paper drawings in a 4th year class with Ed Pien. the idea was to challenge ourselves by working like one of the artists he showed us slideshows of. i think i actually went with Ed's approach to some of his works which was to begin with a random stroke of ink on the empty paper and draw from it and with it. my first reactions was to draw from inkblots but to draw superheroes. so i had a batman here, a superman there. Ed saw potential in it and told me to keep trying but to not use copyrighted images that the world recognize as such. which led to small random images which ithen decided would be fractions of stories, as they were based on random titles i pulled from books. eventually i tried out mylar as it would allow me to use layers much like i do in Photoshop. time passed... and here we are. the image above is actually one of the first mylar pieces that i regarded as a success. it remains one of my favorites and is the image on my business cards! the image below is much more recent and is currently in a juried show at StationGallery in Whitby.
the current series is doing pretty awesome for me. people seem to like it. which of course is all i can ask for haha. but as any good artist knows, i can keep doing the same thing for only so long. already its begun to evolve in leaps and bounds, at this point i can only guess where i will go. as much as i hate it... i think the plan is to go BIGGER!

watermelon seeds

it has been a few days, if not weeks, since i have decided to dedicate a few minutes of my very affordable time to sit down and type down a few thoughts... that is in the past now. much like my desire to see the new Wolverine movie.

anyways.
much has been going on. there was an art show, my mother aged another year, my first bike ride of the summer, a drawing here, a drawing there. i have been surprisingly busy. as busy as an unemployed person could be. i have come to embrace the possibility of "volunteer work" and "free" art eventually leading to much needed cash money. so far... so good? sure why not. i have been learning/trying/googling how to fix my bike. i'm not what you would call a "bike-guy". but i want to be, it seems like a good idea. heaven knows that running can only take a man so far.

time passes, and will pass, regardless of what one does with the time they have. often we find ourselves investing hour after hour into activities and projects that others deem pointless and wasteful. the important thing is to not surrender to the judgments of others. time is the only thing we have a lot of. your life will always be considered short by those you leave behind. what matters is that we don't forget that there is always something to gain, to learn from a new experience, no matter how futile... as such no time is wasted. it is all necessary in the long run.

as i type this i am eating a deliciously sweet watermelon. seedless. been a while since i have had one with seeds, the option really seems pointless.

i have family that love to sit outside in the summer and feast on a watermelon or two, always spitting the seeds in the same plot of dirt. one spring they noticed new life stirring in what was once an empty patch of earth. in time the seedling began to grow what resembled a small watermelon. it was an amazing discovery for us all. not so much because the environment was unsuitable for such fruit but because it was completely unintentional. no one could have foreseen that something would actually rise up through untreated dry dirt laced with cigarette butts. but it happened. similarly one simply lacks the foresight to know what every minuscule decision and minute spent will lead to. in the end, its all good.

i am a contributing illustrator to a new online magazine entitled THE LEMON LIFE.
please check it out!

i am also taking part in a group show at THE SLEEPING GIANT.
please come say hi!

random sketch, felt like sharing.

random sketch. i dunno.my dog is a jerk. really.