Category: sketchbook blue 2012-14

blue sketchbook, pages 24 & 25

page24-25

Red winged blackbirds, male and female, and a giant bird head. This was the first sketch I made while thinking about a design for my chest tattoo. KEEP IT BEAUTIFUL was the slogan on Ontario license plates produced between 1976 and 1982 and I guess it’s about littering on the highways but I’ve always thought it was a good philosophy to live by and I don’t know how many people know where it comes from when they see it on my clavicle.

Ballpoint pen and gesso over top of an older drawing of ballpoint pen and coloured markers.

blue sketchbook, page 20 & 21

page20-21

Ballpoint pen, markers, white gel pen. Portrait of a random stranger, from their social media profile picture.

I remember drawing this page while working the midnight sessions at the bingo, listening to the ladies who ran bingos for various charities talking about the city’s cracking down on how many charities each of them could volunteer for. It was stupid and short sighted but, welcome to Windsor.

blue sketchbook, pages 18 & 19

page18-19

Ballpoint pen, blue highlighter marker, and crusty ancient Letraset letters. Everything else is bleed through from the preceding and following pages.

I drew this little cartoon of José Mourinho after one of his whiny press conferences where he accused the match officials of bias against his team, muttering “por qué, por qué” while shaking his head and rolling his eyes around. It may have been after the 5-0 defeat to FC Barcelona on Matchday 13 of the 2010/11 season, or after some other time Barça beat them. At one of those matches around that time, a Barça fan in the crowd help up a sign that said MOURINHO, HOY, MAÑANA, Y SIEMPRE: TRADUCTOR and I’m still laughing about it.

blue sketchbook pages 16 & 17

page16-17

Howdy friends, it’s been a while!

Here’s another spread from that blue sketchbook. Ballpoint pen, white gel pen, and colour markers of varying quality. Those floating rings reminded me of meat, mac, & cheese, something with which I had a sick fascination as a kid but which I have never eaten (because, ew).

“Peking Duck in Lotus Land” was the title of a painting by an unknown Chinese artist, one of a small collection that were for sale in a gallery I used to work at in the late 90s. The painting depicted a line of ducks zigzagging along a winding river between giant lotus plants and I desperately wanted it but couldn’t afford it because I was in my 20s and working several part-time jobs. I still regret not buying it but, oh well.

blue sketchbook pages 14 & 15

page14-15

A droopy eyebird, a gold lamé doughnut explosion in space, and a super sheen comet.

Ballpoint pen, markers, gesso, metallic gold paint pen, old wooden thread spool label.

Up in the attic I have a big sparkly round gold lamé tablecloth with a single cigarette burn in it, given to me 25 years ago by my cousin Chris back when he was working for a party rental company. I’ve been hanging onto it all this time waiting for the perfect project. Throwing it on as a cape and going as Rick Wakeman for Hallowe’en has always been high on my mental list of options, but my hair is all wrong and also, I can’t play piano.

blue sketchbook pages 10 & 11

page10-11

Mycelium everywhere, branching on the right and a worm-shaped spiral on the left, with a horned bird.

Ballpoint pen, markers, gesso, bingo dabber. Page 11 is a two-strip newsprint bingo card tipped into the book to create a new page. I used to collect and bring home all the cards our club paid out on during my volunteer shift at the bingo; some of them wound up in my mixed paper junk journals (my perennial bestselling item) and some travelled in my bag to Spanish class to get doodled on.