posted: May 20, 2013

Out of the entire story, there was this one scene in the book where the main character was having a sort of 'wet dream' about a mysterious snake handler that was helping her out on her property while she is working on her house. A mysterious man; snakes; sex - you can do the math on this one. I decided to go for it with my sketches and Irene went with it. A few of them might have been a bit overt but sometimes, you have to take a chance and see what sticks.

This piece is a little tighter than I normally go. Lately, I've been in the mood to render and my vision for the piece required it. I've been combining a bit of rendering and graphic-ness to my work lately but I'm not sure if I'll continue doing it as I am starting to feel a bit restless and want to be more expressive as I normally am in my work. Still, I really love this piece and very happy it came out the way it did.

Thank you Irene at Tor! It was a fun job and got to watch quite a few reruns of Columbo while making all those scales.

Here are the sketches I sent in to Irene and below are some process shots during the course of the painting. I did have a false start there early on when I put a black texture down all over the piece. I couldn't see the transfer anymore. With some other paintings, its not so bad but since this painting was so involved I had to rethink how I needed to do the piece.

I ended up re-prepping the board and starting from scratch. It was no biggie - I thought I was going to save time, instead I spent more time. Such is life.

posted: April 29, 2013

I was invited by Dave Murray, illustrator and owner of the Garrison Creek Bat Company to create a custom bat for an upcoming celebrity charity event for the Toronto Blue Jays. Each bat is custom made by being turned on a 50 year old Rockwell lathe before being hand finished.

The auction happens at "The Curve Ball", which is the charity gala happening May 13th on the Rogers Centre field. It's a huge event with tickets running at $600.00 a piece with many of the baseball players themselves attending the event. Unfortunately, I have prior commitments and cannot be there in May but I am trying to set something up for July for a visit - check out a game and hang with my iller friends up in Canada.

The charity is the Jays Care Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Toronto Blue Jays. From their website: "Since 1992, Jays Care Foundation has created opportunities for children and youth in need by providing access to programs that promote regular physical activity, encourage the pursuit of higher education and impart fundamental life skills. The Foundation has made possible the building of dedicated, accessible, safe youth spaces for recreational programming, inspiring engagement through the sport of baseball. As the charitable arm of Canada's only Major League Baseball team, Jays Care is making a Major League effort to invest in Canadian children and communities from coast to coast."

There are 15 artists who created bats and I hope they all sell at the auction to help raise money for this amazing foundation.
My bat is called ‘Propulsion’ – named for that power one wants when they are up for bat - also connected to the concept of the foundation; having the power and help to succeed and thrive. As a teacher and long time advocate for student scholarships, I think programs and foundations such as this are immensly important to the future of so many young kids and I am honored to be part of this project.

Thank you Dave for the invitation and a special thanks to Kristina for being a sport and modeling for me.

A few process photos.

posted: January 31, 2013

Love makes the world go 'round.
Love is all you need.

In time for February's Valentine's Day and the season of love, is the new issue of Yoga Journal in which I was fortunate enough to get a call to do their feature story.

I had originally wanted the opener to be a darker and sadder piece. You may be able to get a sense of what I was thinking in the thumbnail. I thought that starting off the feature with a dark brooding non-love piece would be a nice contrast to the happier 'love-ly' ones later on in the article. 

In the end, lighter hearts prevailed and I eased up on the mood of the opener.

The article is about the practice of Bhakti yoga, which is about love; about healing yourself and filling your heart up. Two of the sections within the article are about filling your life with love through song and nature which ended up being the focus of the artwork.

posted: November 20, 2012

It's been a long while since I've posted anything from my sketchbooks. Usually, I'll post stuff from my work sketchbook along with the finsihed art. These are from my 'play' sketchbooks where I mess around and just let be whatever will be. Here's a sampling from Sketchbook #23.

Sometime during the end of this year into the New Year, I am going to be cleaning up my websites including my Drawger blog here and start making more use of the galleries which I haven't in ages. Until then, please enjoy my visual ramblings and Happy Thanksgiving!

My Mom last year on dialysis after quadruple heart bypass. Her blood was flowing through that machine.