Drawing Nov.9th

Yes! At last! Engineer/Cartoonist Tim Hunkin tells it like it really is! Click here.

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Life drawing Nov. 2nd

After putting together the book of Vancouver Island watercolours, I've found myself doing a couple of 'survey' life drawing workshops. I put a fair bit of effort into planning them, and then decided to go a step further and take my notes, examples, and some drawings and put them together into another book that I hope to finish editing in the next couple of weeks and then post on Blurb. It was kind of fun, and a way of brushing up on basic ideas. I took a lot of time trying to design interesting pages to put the text on. It will be a modest book, should be reasonably priced, and at the very least a few of my workshop participants might be interested in it for review or preview. I have such a dreadful memory myself that it will actually be useful for me to review in advance of another workshop, or to carry with me when giving a workshop so that I can show examples of exercises to individuals during one on one instruction. Here's some of the 80 pages.

Life drawing Oct. 26

I don't do a lot of animation jobs any more, but there's been a bit of work come my way over the late summer and fall. Many jobs are pretty tedious, but for some reason I found this one unfettered fun to do. I was provided with some great layout drawings to paint and some great classic bgs for style and colour reference.

Life drawing Oct.19th

A group exhibition on the subject of crows is happening at the Magnolia Gallery in Cumberland next week. Lovely poster design by Sue Pyper of Emagination Design
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Life drawing resumes for the winter

The life drawing group that I belong to is having an exhibition of figurative drawings and paintings here in Cumberland. Click on the invite above to read info more clearly.

Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour Annual Juried Exhibition at The Leighton Centre for the Arts, Calgary, Alberta

This painting, 'Grocery', was accepted into the annual juried show of the CSPWC that will be hanging shortly. Poster below, click on it for more info and a link to the The Leighton Centre.

As well, it was fortunate enough to receive the D. L. Stevenson Award. I use, and have used, a lot of Steven watercolour paint over the years. Don't get awards to often, in fact, often don't get into shows, so delighted to have selected a winner for the show.


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Book

I've just published a book of watercolour paintings that were done over the past several years. All are landscapes from Vancouver Island as the title indicates.

'Canadian watercolour painter Clive Powsey lives and paints on Vancouver Island, a topography that is evocative of nineteenth century landscape paintings. This book is a selection of his watercolours casually grouped into three elemental themes. It contains 82 separate images on 72 colour plates and the majority of those images are 7.5"x5.25".'

It's printed on a 'premium' paper, so pages are opaque with a nice finish and good resolution. Click on the image of the book cover above to link to the Blurb (publisher) page at which you can preview the first 15 pages of the book.

...heeeeeeere's Ronny...!





Great to see Ron Morrison again after many moons, at the local Originals Only art fair. Trapper Ron had trekked down the coast from Seal Bay region to attend. Other artists had struggled through the icy wastes from beyond Cannibal River for this beautiful weekend event to luxuriate in the mild summer sleet and ice pellets that were blowing in off the pack ice on Comox Bay and warming the tundra. With the bleating of seals on the ice and the thump thump of sealers swiling for pelts in the distance we exhibited our contrivances amongst our fellow hominids. Chewing on pemmican, nibbling a lemming-on-a-stick from the nearby concession, and drinking smoky tea, we got caught up on all the bad news. Ron's watercolours looked marvellous as usual, new work that I have only seen on his blog.


Watercolourist Teresa L'Hirondelle


Watercolourist and printmaker Marg Burns hunkering down from the icey summer breeze.


My neighbour, painter and sculptor Elijah Juhala.


Went for a paddle on Denman last week and found this deer skull on the beach. No evidence of any human skulls. Once a happy little dear eating, defecating and copulating, now a piece of sculptural bleached calcium. Should provide material for drawing and contemplation and motivation to pour a calmer-downer and relax more.

Publish Post

It still gives me great pleasure to copy master drawings from books.

Sometime over the summer I painted a bg for a commercial.

Some stuff that was submitted to the local arts council to put on pins they manufactured and sold this summer for fund raising. Several were used, I think, and there were dozens upon dozens of other images by local artists that were used, many of which made superb little pins for the lapel.

Almost all the summer workshops I had on the agenda fell through, so more time for climbing and berry picking... However, a life drawing intensive flew and I demoed a bunch of the exercises...some from books and some fabrications of my own...that the participants were expected to do, as well, also drew some scribbles to briefly cover the matter of proportions in the human body. Despite not doing much work of late, preparing for the workshop... reading Edwards, Nicolaides, Hale, etc. and drawing out the backside of my brain got me all fired up about the pure act of drawing.

I was involved with an art show and sale in Cumberland this weekend in the gardens of artist's John Mortenson and April Lafferty this past weekend and John is an accomplished guitarist who took to playing on Sunday afternoon. I took the opportunity to sketch him.

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Vancouver Island Music Fest

I was one of ten to twenty local visual artists given free passes and invited to work on location at VIMF this past weekend by arrangement through the Comox Valley Art Gallery and the the Comox Valley Arts Council. In exchange we were to provide an image for the festival to use, should they like it, in promotion. Some of us stayed put and worked on sustained pieces; I decided to just rove and sketch which was fitting for my marginal attention span. Had an absolute blast. Worked for 10 hours over the two days, really nice to get back to holding something in my hand other than a garden trowel, a berry bucket, a hiking stick or a crimpy hold on basalt. So much excellent music, songwriting and virtuoso performance. Usually managed to find a spot close to, and to the side of the stage and try and capture the musicians working their magic, which helped with detail. Visit the website for VIMF here.



Songwriters Circle; Steven Page and James Kelaghan among them.


Steven Page, at the songwriters circle.








Peter Huttlinger...explained why it is technically impossible to finger pick Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' and then proceeded to do so. Virtuoso performance.


Shane Koyczan; often appears with TOFU and CR Avery; spectacular solo appearance; woodland stage area full to the brim with an engaged audience listening to...poetry, here, in the 21st century, of all places.


Two ofThe Finest Kind.




Virtuoso Bluesman Sam Hurrie, formerly from Cumberland, much appreciated by the crowd for coming back to play.


Grupo Vocal Desamdan from Cuba



Peter Huttlinger again...


Snehasish Mozumder, another virtuoso, on Mandolin with Partha Sarathi on percussion.



Australia's David Ross McDonald, superb singer songwriter.



The Finest Kind again. Beautiful vocals.



Shamik. Ripping performance.


Shamik again.


and again.




Songwriter's circle


David Ross McDonald



Percussionist from Grupo Vocal Desamden


Shamik again. Lots of energy from a single performer, sped up the sketching...



David Ross McDonald


Snehasish Mozumber again...


David Ross McDonald

'untitled view of mainland', 11"x15", watercolour


'Steve's house', 11"x15", watercolour

Some life drawings with pastel reworked into them:










'pool on Perseverance Creek", 11"x15", watercolour

more conte crayon and watercolour on watercolour paper or Janson History of Art Tome handmade paper.

watercolour and conte crayon on watercolour paper or homemade Janson History of Art Tome paper.

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'water discharging from a canyon on Forbidden Plateau', 11"x15", watercolour

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conte crayon and watercolour

This past weekend I was part of an exhibition in our village which consisted of some local artists; John Mortensen, April Lafferty and myself, with some visiting artists from Vancouver. The visiting artists were from Vancouver's Taiwanese arts community; Shya-fen Billington, Wu-Tzanq Liaw, and Chih-Hsiung Chien. Chih-Hsiung Chien brought a nifty little printing press manufactured in Taiwan and Japan and spent part of the weekend producing lovely little prints. Apparently his friend in Taipei is importing some of the components from Japan, and making the little presses to sell in kits. Not for sale here, and apparently just starting up in Taiwan; considerable interest from elementary schools as a way of introducing kids to the printmaking process. He let me do a drawing and print it up; very nice postcard size arrangement. Apparently you can buy bigger outfits. It works similar to the old Gestetners of my childhood, however the paper is thinner and more sensitive to the pencil. It provides an interesting line quality, as you can see above, and drawing on the tissue isn't too awkward.


Chih-Hsiung with my finished drawing on the template.


Inking the drawing.


Printing the drawing.


You can make about 40 prints apparently.

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'Myra Falls', 11"x15", watercolour

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'Perseverance Creek one', 11"x15", watercolour

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'toward Union Bay from Courtenay', 11"x15", watercolour


'toward Comox Glacier and Mirren Lake', 11"x15", watercolour


'The Red Pillar from Black Cat Mountain', 15"x22", watercolour


'view to Comox from Courtenay', 11"x15", watercolour

went to see a fella from our life drawing group perform in town; he sang and played zither, harp and guitar; some of his own compositions and a lot of old folk songs from all around Europe and even Quebec; some of them sung in archaic English and German. Really old stuff, very enjoyable and pleasant to sketch him all the while.

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crayon on masonite

crayon on masonite drawings.

Summer is here with all it's distractions, so posting will be less frequent for the next few months.

second to last life drawing session of the season

'untitled view of mainland', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view of mainland', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view of mainland', 11"x15", watercolour

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'terrain from Mt. Frink', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view of the mainland', 11"x15", watercolour


'terrain from Mt. Frink toward Castelcraig', 11"x15", watercolour

drawings with watercolour

'Comox Lake and Boston Ridge', 11"x15", watercolour


'terrain toward Castlecraig', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view to mainland', 11"x15", watecolour

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'Albert Edward from near Ruth Masters Lake', 15"x22", watercolour

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'Kings Peak Glacier', 15"x22", watercolour


'Comox Glacier from Carey Ridge', 15"x22", watercolour


'Milla Lake from near Iceberg Peak', 15"x22", watercolour

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This weeks life drawing.

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Recent derivative figurative drawing with spraypaint on old handmade paper that I made as a student 30 years ago by tossing my Janson History of Art tome into the pulp making machine.

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'untitled view on west coast', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view of mainland', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view from Mt. Washington', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view of the mainland', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled west coast', 11"x15", watercolour


'island's end', 11"x15", watercolour


'untitled view of mainland', 11"z15", watercolour