Back to black and white!

After a long time with watercolour paper, I got myself some nice smooth Bristol paper, because I missed making black and white drawings! I love the feeling of a steel nib skating across the surface of this paper. And brush drawing is silkier when the paper is not so absorbant.

This drawing was inspired by some imagery in Les Chants de Maldoror, a proto-surrealist book by Compte de Lautreamont from the mid 19th century. It's about an evil anti-heroic, satanic figure who does these strange little battles with angels and God, sometimes defending prostitutes and sinners, sometimes victimizing the innocent. To me it's kind of metal, and kind of disgusting, and super HILARIOUS. There are surprisingly beautiful descriptions that show a fascination and respect for natural history. There's a passage where Maldoror has not moved for hundreds of years, and as a result, various fungi have grown on him, while little creatures and amphibians have started living in his body and taking it over.

But this drawing is not about Maldoror as a character. It's another ambiguous myth, an origin story about humanity. I like the idea of the human race, in all its banality, being the offspring of gods, of the personification of a swamp (with the mushrooms and reeds and toads) and of the night sky (perching on the earth and with constellation hair). I will probably always return to the theme of two abnormal parents creating a normal child, in some way.

For a long time I've intentionally avoided specific cultural references in my myth-illustrations (or tried as best I can), and I realised this is kind of pathetic and arrogant in a way. Who is the intended audience for my artwork? An audience that has never heard any story, does not have its own mythology. I'm pretending that the story I tell is the first story ever told, as if the audience is a newborn baby, a tribe of innocents. That's kind of funny to me.

And this is just supposed to be a sweet little cartoon drawing. I really like the way the faces are angled, and the way the man's legs bend around, although it bugs the hell out of me that I forgot to draw the woman's other leg and foot!

I really enjoy the challenge of using a sable brush with ink. As well as mentally preparing for every long stroke before I make it, I have to really be conscious of how the bristles are twisting around when I turn it around a corner. If I had the inclination, I would probably wax on about how spiritual and special this process is :p

two new things

There seems to be a cerain type of around-1900s way to make cartoon faces, which inspired me to make this. I see it in Little Nemo comics (Winsor McCay) and on some retro lithographic posters in european-esque cafes. And I tried out some fancy shading on the woman's body, which is from a life-drawing sketch. Overall, I'm not sure thrilled with the colours.

The second picture is inspired by men who tell stories about their horribly bitchy ex-girlfriends. It's not really from my own personal experience. It's one of those drawings I made without pencilling or planning beforehand - I like to imagine that the awkwardness lends it the right type of charm. It's a tricky line to straddle, though, between "meaningfully naieve" and "shitty."

Another creepy drawing

I think I could do a few of these. They creep me out a little, but they express something. I think.

Gruesome Drawings

I was in a really emotional mood, and decided to just go with it, and comically exaggerate the way I felt.And then there are some minerals, and other things:

A rare, special, non-ass-containing drawing

The upper half of the picture is memories of the past, and the bottom represents a potential journey into death and rebirth - the animals gathered around are made of a malleable, claylike substance, half-formed denizens of the world beyond.

Atlin Lake art vacation

I went on a self-paid artist residency to Atlin Centre for the Arts. Basically, an art teacher bought and developed a lovely property halfway up a mountain near a tiny little gold-rush town in British Columbia, way up north, almost in the Yukon, and built cabins and tent platforms and ran a summer art school program.

I just wanted a bit of a getaway, in an artist-friendly place, where I could be alone and able to work on my drawings, pretending it's my full-time activity for a week. I wanted to be surrounded by nature, because nature is beautiful, and it's nice to see a tree right in front of you when you want to draw a tree.

Another artist couple from Australia was interested in the teaching aspect of the place, so Gernot ran a few workshop sessions that I attended. The general aim was for people to break down and re-invent their artistic processes, to let go of thinking and rationality (but still maintain your knowledge of what makes a good composition) and be more spontaneous, making art from within.

However, since I didn't come to this place with the aim of re-making my process, but rather just having time and space and the intention to make all the art that I haven't been making for the past six months, I wasn't ready to benefit from ideas like that. I don't respond well to religious or artistic evangelism. I'm not easily infected with a spirit of amazement and reinvention, and I feel like I don't get it. I'm too cynical, I don't believe that I contain within myself everything I need to just make spontaneous, emotional gestures on the page that would be interesting to anyone. I may be a bit deficient in this respect, but I think that since I know this about myself, and I know what kind of art I'm interested in making, I am better off continuing and striving in this vein, and leaving abstract spiritual art to others.

All of these drawings looked better before colour was added. When I compose an image, I'm constantly making decisions as to what density or interval of line is appropriate to convey the right information. I decide all of this with the lines, leaving no information for the colours to convey. I don't think ahead to the colour when I make the lines; if I did, I would need to hold back on some of the lines, and let the colours speak. The way I make pictures now, the colours are just confusing, and actually take clarity away from the image.

I am still continuing in the vein of self-invented mythology, using tropes and themes and symbols that are commonly found in many, many stories. I am making fairytale illustrations of psychological conditions, or fanciful ideas of people's place in the world. It's a formula, in a way. It's a bit dispassionate, because I am not a believer of myths (though I don't know if myths are traditionally "believed" literally anyway).


Every image i make is a little bit mocking, a bit self-aware. But at some point it crosses into naieve, goofy, sincerity. I also seem to include a lot of vulgarity in my drawings. I'm not sure if this is beneficial to any idea I might have, or if it's just a way to get attention.

watercolours in sketchbook