Bill the Butcher

This is a sketch I did of Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York. I get a real kick out of that movie, it has a gritty violent atmosphere but the world created is so vibrant. The costumes are very colourful but covered in a film of dirt and grime. The characters are just as colourful as the costumes, especially Bill the Butcher the Gang leader of the Five Points, played by Daniel Day-Lewis

I sketched this up just after watching the movie and still have the intention of doing a couple of other characters. Stay Tuned to see who they will be.

Media used was watercolour and india ink on brown recycled paper.

Fangfish

This is a sketch I did a while back using a sumi brush. I am becoming more fond of using them, I think they bring a great expressive quality to pieces they are used on. I have scanned in more sketches and will be posting a bit more frequently.

On a side note, I have just finished a Harry Potter movie marathon and it was awesome. And I do not believe that I am misusing the word awesome. The Grand Canyon is "Awesome" and so is watching all 6 Harry Potter movies in a row. "Expecto Patronum!"

The New Year approaches as does the latest Soap Scum presentation. Here is the poster with time, date and price. Please check out their blog at www.scumsoap.blogspot.com

I hope everybody has a very happy holidays and encroyable New Year.

Cheers!

FolkFest Fella

I keep seeing this guy at FolkFest every year. He is pretty much the quintessential FolkFest guy. We snapped a shot of him a couple of years back and I just did a painting of him. the background and white outline are done in gouache and the main figure is done in oils. This sparks the need to do an entirely FolkFest enspired group of paintings, the next up is a painting of Beth pregnant at FolkFest. I'm aiming to do about 10 or 12 all together. This one and the C.R. Avery are already spoken for.

Vintage Olympic Hockey Jersey's

Here are some desktop images of vintage olympic hockey jerseys. I was asked to do the illustrations for a poster that The Beaver was going to produce but it was cut for financial reasons. Same thing with the beer coasters we were going to put these on. Finally the idea of free online desktops was put on the table. Not quite as satisfying as a physical product to hold. But it is pretty cool to think people all over the country may have my desktop on their computer during the Winter Olympics.
The jersey's were produced in Adobe Illustrator, I then imported them into Photoshop to blend them with the background and then back into Illustrator to work with the type.

Sheeeesh!

If you are interested in the desktops you can download them from thebeaver.ca look for them under the heading More of a good thing...

Climate Change

Great post on climate change from E. Sawyer financial today. It gives you all the links you need to start moving towards an informed decision. There are links to extremist climate change supporters and extremist ostriches with their heads in the sand. You can probably tell whom I support. I'll let you know it's not the fellas and gals pumping shit into the atmosphere and fucking with my cross country skiing season.

All kidding aside Please read the post it is very balanced and well written.

If you are too busy checking your emails on your blackberry or iphone here is

video scary "truth",

here is video "rich industrialist telling you not to worry",

here is a petition,

and here is David Suzuki's solution to getting the government to listen.

Peace out

Where The Wild Thing Is

Hey everyone!

Been a while, but as all of you parent know having babies is time consuming. This is a little doodle I did months ago and I just scanned it in and painted it in photoshop.
Work and being a father has taken priority over many other things in life right now. My apologies to anyone who has noticed my absence. Nothing personal I just have a ton of stuff to sort out. I still have stuff to scan and post I will try to get on that and I will try to post a little more regularly. Broken record you say? Well maybe but I'm going to try extra hard this time.