From the archives
I recently recovered these two gems from a box of saved drawings. I distinctly remember being incredibly frustrated painting this chickadee because the only brush I had was caked in dried paint. Now, however, I quite like the effect.
This second image was from a high school project called “7 Ways”. We were to choose a subject and represent it in 7 different media, coming up with a final consolidated project. I choose corn and designed a book made from hand-made paper out of corn husks (a smelly job I don’t care to repeat). Each page held a different representation of corn through photography, pen & ink, pastels, pencil, painting, and finally print making. This print is all that remains of the project.
Sunday Drawings
Lazy, rainy, Sunday morning drawings.
Chickadee
Yesterday’s doodle.
Rose
It’s a good year for roses. The peace rose in my front yard is has been producing incredibly fragrant blooms for months now. And outside my studio window, a climbing rose has hundreds of buds ready to open up.
While the roses may be thriving, the tomatoes unfortunately are not happy…
Another Portrait
A sketch based on Albrecht Dürer’s Saint-Jerome (1521)
Blanca & 8th
The trolley lines at the corner of Blanca and 8th, an intersection I ride my bike past regularly, reimagined…
Oakridge Building Types
I spent a lot of time around Oakridge Mall this January. I wandered the neighbourhoods nostalgically remembering past summers when I worked as a landscaper at a residential complex behind the mall.
The neighbourhoods surrounding the mall were developed in the 40s and 50s and are composed of mostly post-war, featureless bungalows and 1980s monster houses on lots where the original housing was torn down.
The area adjacent to the mall is far more interesting. It sat abandoned, as a marshland, until after the mall was constructed in the late 1950s. The housing stock is an eclectic mix of influences including asian woodwork and roof details that filtered back from the post-war occupation of Japan, cinderblock concrete walls and ‘futuristic’ houses from the 1970s jet age/transportation era, the blue mosaic tile characteristic of many apartment buildings around Vancouver developed by the Wosk family, rustic/unfinished siding bringing to life an idea of a simple cottage living, tudor-style exposed cross bracing, and finally, neo-traditional brickwork on a brand-new row house complex.
The graphic above is an analysis of the building typologies around Oakridge. The styles are ordered in a timeline from the 1950s (when Oakridge was first developed) to the present day. The grid at the bottom represents the intersection of 41st Ave and Cambie Street with the shaded quadrants indicating where the building types are found.
Oakridge Site Visit
The images below are samples from my sketchbook, drawn during a few visits to the neighbourhoods around Oakridge Mall, Vancouver. Click on an image to see it larger or view in a slideshow.
Hatter
Doodling inspired by a Lewis Carroll quote.
Dart
A simple sketches and contour line drawing of my favourite pup, Dart.
Lviv: Patterns of Influence
Located on a crossroads of trade routes in Western Ukraine, the city of Lviv is an important node of cultural exchange between Eastern and Central Europe. Known as Leopolis (the Lion’s city) in Latin, Lemberg in German, Lwów in Polish, Lvov in Russian, and finally Lviv in Ukrainian, the city has been “tossed back and forth at the mercy of military and political conquests of which it had no part.”. A diversity of ethnicities have settled in Lviv with the intense rivalry between them resulting in the creation of many architectural and artistic masterpieces.
Ever since visiting the city in 2006, I have been fascinated with the history and architecture and created these pen & ink drawings as part of a research project at UBC:
Richard
I met Richard in an alley in Vancouver’s downtown east side. I was looking at the backsides of the buildings in Chinatown for an architecture project, trying (failing) to look inconspicuous.
Richard was by far the most interesting part of my day. The above sketch was drawn from the memories of our conversation after I returned to the studio.
Bedroom Foliage
A lopsided plant and an equally lopsided lamp in my bedroom in Whistler.
Words of Wisdom
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.”
Joe Girard
87 Sketches
This is a selection from a student project. We were challenged to draw 87 sketches (all to scale and all on 18×24″ paper). The results were mostly disastrous, somewhat whimsical, and definitely random as I scoured the house (and my roommate’s bedrooms) looking for anything interesting to draw.
Click on a thumbnail below to see a sampling of what was produced (scanning all of them was not an option!).
Jericho
An ideas sketch for a student project at Jericho Beach, Vancouver.
Wee Free Men
A drawing of one of Terry Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men”.
Portraits
Continually fascinated by faces and expressions…
Sketch to Tattoo
While working at Briarpatch magazine, the editor asked if I would do a sketch of an old gnarled tree. Shortly thereafter, it appeared on his shoulder.