Illustration Friday - Pioneers

Little Richard, one of the pioneers of Rock and Roll. A whop bop-a-lu a whop bam boo!

Illustration Friday - Undone

it's amazing how quickly everything can come undone

Illustration Friday - Hatch

judging by the bottles it looks as if these guys have poured a few "down the hatch". Yes, it is a bit of a stretch for the topic, I just wanted to draw another accordion player

Illustration Friday - Crunchy

some nice crispy and crunchy vegetables

Illustration Friday - Entangled

spiders depend on insects getting entangled in their webs for their survival - and they also seem to trigger some primal fears within us

Illustration Friday - Music

this topic was easy, I've been reading E. Annie Proulx's Accordion crimes and I love the drawings of accordion playes on Coreopsis' Blog Occasional Musings and Scratchings so I knew I needed to draw an accordion player - this is actually a bandoneon but I'm not sure of the difference. This is based on the wonderful photograph on FLICKR by jovivebo

Illustration Friday - Unbalanced

had a very hard time coming up with anything for this topic, well, you have to deliberately unbalance a seesaw for it to be any fun.

Illustration Friday - Blur

we recently went to Chicago mainly to see the recently completed Contemporary Gallery part of the Art Institute Of Chicago. Like the rest of the museum it was wonderful, one of the best art museums I've seen. There was a room of works by Gerhard Richter including some of his blurred out of focus paintings based on black and white photos. This is a quick pen and brush portrait of Richter touched up in Gimp with the Gaussian Blur filter

Illustration Friday - Skinny

The first person I thought of for this topic was Twiggy, as it says on her website - Twiggy was the world's first supermodel: a skinny kid with the face of an angel who became an icon.

Illustration Friday - Fast

Gandhi was one of the most interesting political figures of the 20th Century. He used fasting extensively as a non violent means to attain political goals as shown in these excerpts from a biographical timeline

1932 - In September, while still in jail, Gandhi begins a "fast unto death" to improve the status of the Untouchable caste. The fast ends after six days when the British Government accepts a settlement agreement between the Untouchables and higher caste Indians.

1933 - In April Gandhi fasts for 21 days to again focus attention on the plight of the Untouchables. He is released from jail during this fast but rearrested with his wife and 30 followers on 31 July after commencing a new "individual" civil disobedience campaign and sentenced to a year in jail.

1943 - On 10 February Gandhi begins a 21-day fast to win his freedom. The British are unmoved and refuse to release him from custody.

1947 - Sectarian riots erupt as Muslims in India flee to Pakistan while Hindus in the Pakistan flee the opposite way. As many as two million die in north India, at least 12 million become refugees, and a limited war over the incorporation of Kashmir into India breaks out between the two nation states. Gandhi pleas for peace, using fasts to shame rioting mobs into order.

"If the peace is broken again I will come back and undertake a fast unto the death and die if necessary," he warns.

1948 - On 30 January Gandhi is assassinated in New Delhi while on his way to his evening prayer meeting. His assassin is a Hindu extremist who opposes Gandhi's willingness to engage in dialogue with Muslims.

Illustration Friday - Frozen

Icicle formations by Lake Ontario, winter is coming, this year I'm determined to enjoy it

Illustration Friday - Flying

there is very little more beautiful than large birds of prey soaring in the sky

Illustration Friday - Germs

based on what I've been reading in the papers about Swine flu and what not else they are coming to get us, wash your hands, folks

Illustration Friday - Pattern

I wasn't sure what to do for this topic, too many possibilities really, but I think this works quite well

Illustration Friday - Infinite

I will be away most of next week so I am posting this older oil painting for the topic. Watching a beautiful sunset is one of those moments when I feel that I perhaps get a small glimpse of infinity

Illustration Friday - Welcome

it was a pleasure to welcome back my favourite TV show for a third season. Mad Men has great writing, an amazing cast and top notch production values. One of the best shows ever

Illustration Friday - Strong

I was looking through some old sketchbooks and these 2 coloured pencil efforts from 1984 seemed to fit this week's topic very well

Illustration Friday - Magnify

sometimes magnification shows us things we'd rather not see, this is loosely based on a photo of a splash of seawater from the ocean off Hawaii, the crab-like thing is the size of a grain of rice. Anyone want to go swimming?

Illustration Friday - Caution

always use caution when cooking with hot peppers, a little goes a long way

Illustration Friday - Wrapped

Christo and Jean-Claude are famous for their large scale art projects many of which involve wrapping buildings or landscapes such as a Paris bridge and the Berlin Reichstag. They are controversial but I love their work, I was fortunate to be able to see the Gates installation in Central Park

Illustration Friday - Impatience

We have all heard the term "Impatient As A Flamingo", have we not?
Well, probably not, I just made it up since I couldn't think of anything else for this topic.

Illustration Friday - Modify

I started with a portrait in sepia ink of the late Irish novelist, John McGahern, a current favourite of mine. I modified it by reworking it with black ink and then I subsequently used an old Microsoft Paint It program and made 2 other modified versions

Illustration Friday - Hollow

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

from the poem by T.S. Eliot

Illustration Friday - Shaky

Ch-ch-ch-ee-ee-ee-r-s. Cheers!

Illustration Friday - Worn

Worn out, this sketch is based on one of Duane Hanson's great sculptures, this one's called "The Executive". It reminds me of many nights on the commuter train back from work, I used to think of it as the Night of the Living Dead

Illustration Friday - Drifting

I really had a hard time coming up with something for this topic, this is a quick sketch of a boat in the Havana harbour

Illustration Friday - Unfold

"The universe is unfolding as it should." Many would argue whether Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the greatest Prime Minister Canada ever had, but most would agree that he was the most intelligent. He famously used this quote from Desiderata on a number of occasions

Illustration Friday - Craving

I gave up cigarettes a long time ago and I finally gave up cigars a few years ago but the craving is still not completely gone

Illustration Friday - Adapt

It was Charles Darwin who said: "Survival is ultimately dependent on the ability to change and evolve". These days it is put a little more succinctly: "Adapt or die."

Illustration Friday - Cracked

the old style hard boiled private eyes like Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade usually cracked a few skulls before they cracked the case

Illustration Friday - Contagious

perhaps the most famous contagious disease is the plague that devastated Europe. The great sculptor Bernini lost a brother to the plague, his work Damned Soul, apparently a self portrait, evokes the horror the disease must have created

Illustration Friday - Parade

We've been having a lot of fun watching the rapidly growing baby geese in the conservation area behind our backyard so I made this quick Mothers Day card, I think it suits this topic as well

Illustration Friday - Hierarchy

Henry VIII's lust for Anne Boleyn ultimately led to his separating the Anglican church from the Roman hierarchy

Illustration Friday - Theater

my first experience of live theatre was when our 12th grade English class was bused to Toronto to see a touring production of Cabaret. It was great and one of only 2 musicals I've seen that I liked, the other being Fiddler on The Roof

Illustration Friday - Impossibility

Impossible Barbie. This is from an episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour: “If Barbie was a real person, she would be six feet tall and weigh only a hundred pounds. Her measurements would be 39-19-33. Her neck would be twice the length of an average person’s, and she would wear a size three children’s shoe. If she were life sized she wouldn’t be able to walk with those tiny feet and her top-heavy frame, and she couldn’t have both a trachea and an esophagus because her neck was too narrow. She would have to choose between breathing and eating. With a figure like that I’m guessing she’s gonna choose breathing.”

Illustration Friday - Fleeting

in the middle of a wonderful vacation in Pensacola Beach, I never tire of watching the waves roll in, that moment when they break and crash. This is a bit sloppy but maybe has a bit of that energy

Illustration Friday - Talisman

good luck charms and magic, we could all use them

Illustration Friday - Poise

leading the pool aerobics in Panama

Illustration Friday - Subtract

Take 2 popular children's stories and subtract 2 from each one and you end up with one blind mouse and one little pig

Illustration Friday - Legendary

The legendary actor Errol Flynn playing the legendary character Robin Hood

Illustration Friday - Intricate

these tulips seem simple until you try to draw them and then you realize how intricate they actually are

Illustration Friday - Breezy

Illustration Friday - Instinct

My first instinct when I see one of these creatures is to swat it and kill it but I'm sure that they are a useful and necessary part of our world

Illustration Friday - Celebrate

it's always nice to celebrate with a beverage, even if it's in a paper cup

Illustration Friday - Time

Salvador Dali's soft watches are still one of the most interesting images related to time.

Illustration Friday - Flawed

Tricky Dick. In classic and Shakespearean tragedies the protagonist falls victim to a tragic flaw in his character, I don't know if Nixon could be considered tragic but his extreme paranoia and the resulting Watergate mess overshadow everything else about his political career

Illustration Friday - Climbing

A quick sketch based on Jonathan Borofsky's sculpture "Man Walking To the Sky" which was installed at Documenta 9 in 1992

Illustration Friday - Pale

nobody much paler than a mime

Illustration Friday - Contained

When we went to the fall fair I felt very sorry for the birds contained in very small cages. We should treat animals better than we do

Illustration Friday - Resolve

this year I resolve to improve my short game, of course I make that resolution every year. Happy New Year everyone.