Happy New Years

It's been an interesting year. A really strange year to say the least, and I'm sure the 7 or 8 people who check up on my blog would nod their heads in agreement, then take a sip from their wine goblet or pint glass. This is because I'm imagining us all sitting around the corner of Canal Bar, eating popcorn, and having a few laughs. Then I picture myself slowly retreating from the conversation, my left hand searching for my brush pen as my right hand ushers in the next batch of napkins. As I would begin to sketch out some imaginary visage, I may add to the conversation, or simply, nod my head in agreement, take the last sip of my Brooklyn Lager, and quietly back away from my bar stool, into the cold Gowanus midnight.

more experiments with ink

I've committed many crimes with my brush pen. I've vandalized more than a couple of bathroom walls in bars across Brooklyn and Manhattan. This doesn't make me feel good about myself, well, perhaps it used to -but I must grow out of this behavior, thus I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to those establishments, namely Union Hall,Canal Bar, The Cherry Tree Tavern, 4th ave.Pub and The Bell House. I promise to stop drawing girl's faces above the urinals and sinks, rather to focus my energy in a positive , constructive manner, and to make my mark on canvas boards from now on. If this apology isn't enough, I will scrub your walls for free. Cheers.

The sketch was done at the bell house over a beer with some friends. I used Faye's hairstyle as inspiration for this one.

diner napkin 2 and painting

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at the diner on 4th and Union drawing the people at the table across from me. This one girl happened to be particularly large, and I exaggerated every roll and fold associated to her shapely form. Then the waitress asked if she could have the drawing, she liked it so much she told me. Even though I was actually going to use this as a research sketch for my short film, I gave it to her since she was really enthusiastic about it. I never expected her to walk over to the girl I'd been drawing and show her! Man Alive!, was I ever blushing at that moment. I hope she wasn't insulted. Fortunately the last two weeks I've been able to get the window table, and these are from this morning. I thought I'd also post up a sample of some of the paintings (well- markers and some watercolours) that I've been experimenting with in the last two weeks.

diner napkin

This napkin drawing was done this past Sunday afternoon, after finishing up my breakfast and waiting for my orange juice that never arrived. The wind was blowing the leaves in every which way but I guess you’ll have to take my word for it since there are none depicted in this quick sketch. I never bothered to ask for my orange juice, by the way…but she did re-fill my coffee cup with fresh coffee. Then I went for a walk on a beautiful windy fall day.

Sketching in Gowanus

I'm fascinated by water towers. I don't recall ever seeing any growing up on the West Coast, nor when I was living in Montreal. Before I moved here I had a few dreams of strange buildings adorned with water towers and helicopters flying high above, which seemed odd at the time because I'd never see that many helicopters where I was living, until I moved here, and anyone who lives in Brooklyn or Manhattan probably never notices them anymore since it is such a common occurrence to see a police helicopter fly overhead. Maybe I'm just trying to say simply : follow your dreams, write them down, paint them, draw them, whatever..... just be true to yourself.
These two towers are just around the corner from my place on 3rd Avenue, I am totally infatuated by the one on the top, since I pass it everyday to and from work, no matter how bad the weather is, how much rain, ice or frost it has to endure, it is still standing strong. I aspire to be like that water tower.

Comic Jam

getting something rough up for this comic jam beats being visited by 3 ghosts......
if it comes around again I'd like to spend more time on it.
check out the preceding panels at
http://siemasko.blogspot.com/2008/10/scary-choices.html

Halloween_08

Just a little something I did last night, with the aid of a couple of beers.
Happy Halloween everybody!
BEWARE OF COCK-BLOKULA.

Doodles part 1

Doodling. What does it mean? I’m not exactly sure myself. If I were to guess Its definition , at least what it means to me….I’d say it’s straight ahead drawing with few construction lines, after all I never know how it’s going to end up, I have no particular goal in mind when I doodle other than to enjoy myself. So, I decided to post a few doodles from my sketchbook. I started doodling pretty young (2 weeks old)
Just kidding.
My dad would doodle constantly while on the phone, and probably still does. At the end of his conversation I’d look at his latest creation, usually that of a name in capital letters, surrounded by a rectangle, underlined, with arrows darting every which way. I suppose if he ever doodled any women surrounded by arrows he would have hidden those from me, and that’s quite all right. Having seen those at a young age may have stopped me from pursuing a career in art.

Most of these are from the last couple of weeks. There is even one from 15 minutes ago but I won’t tell you which one it is. Unless you buy me 24 beers. by midnight.

Doodles part 1

Open Mic night at The Root Hill cafe

I have to say, I really enjoy living in this neighbourhood, Gowanus, Brooklyn.
After a weekend full of walking around the Gowanus Art studios it has reaffirmed my love for this area. My favorite place is still Canal Bar. It has always been a safe haven for me to get away from all the noise and B.S. that is inherit in any big city, especially Manhattan. That said, Brooklyn isn’t by any means perfect. It smells, it’s not THAT safe ( I witnessed a mugging on my street early this year- apparently the dude had a gun with a silencer, I inadvertently scared him away by walking towards what I thought was a domestic dispute.) But that aside, and amidst the random gunshots, it’s all good.
Recently this new coffee shop opened up on the corner of 4th ave and Carroll Street.
It’s named The Root Hill Café and I’m sure that I’ll be hanging out there a lot more since my new schedule has me freed up to work on some personal ideas in between Tek Jansen.
They Have an open Mic night every Monday which I encourage people to check out. Hopefully I’ll have something to show in a few weeks, until then, I leave you with these sketches this past Monday….

The singer/guitarist played a song by bright eyes, it was very nice.
The comedian seemed like a funny person, but didn’t make me laugh.
The host is a riot, he has a voice like Tom Waits.
Mick was there performing with his band, he’s warming up his Didgeridoo in this sketch.

Political cartoon

The latest little project I've been working on at Flickerlab, which is this political cartoon, written and directed by
Harold Moss, designed by Z and Storyboards and animation by yours truly. I hope you enjoy!
All the facts are linked to Harold Moss' site, www.thinkmoss.com

Figure Drawings

As fall is now directly in front of us, summer is no longer. Instead of sketching in Prospect Park soon I'll have to find other places to draw during the daytime.
Figure drawing starts up again through ASIFA, which is great and I encourage everybody who works in the animation field to get to life drawing sessions, I know for myself they have always elevated my animation and character design. These gestures were drawn a couple of months back, and I've got a lot to improve on, but if I look back at my drawings from a year ago these ones have less line work and seem to have a bit more confidence about them. Hopefully I'll look back at these in a few months and see that I've improved a little.
The drawing of the cars and buildings was done at the entrance of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, damn was it ever hot that day!

Ottawa and why I draw women.

The last few months I've been drawing quite a bit more than usual, attending ASIFA
life drawing sessions, Michael Alan's Draw-a-thon, carrying a sketchbook nearly every day ( keys, cel phone, wallet, sketchbook) - it's what I remind myself every day before I rush off to work. So, spending the last week at the Ottawa Animation Festival I decided to take a break from my daily routine, which meant I would not be walking around sketching buildings and people, rather just sitting back , watching some films and presentations, and getting inspired while having some beers with old friends as well as new ones. But we all know that sooner or later, given a napkin and a marker I'm going to start doodling. If I'm sitting with someone,I will still be involved in our conversation, although I will occasionally look away to whoever it is I'm sketching.

Saturday night I took a break from the festival party scene and met up with old friends from growing up, namely Johnny and Andrew who live in Ottawa. I showed up a few minutes late , with a pen. It was obvious that it was not a heavily dominated animator crowd, because there were MORE (pretty) girls. ( I tried to talk to pretty girls at the Jail Hostel party on Friday but I think I creep them out for some reason so I gave up).
I'm not hiding the fact either that I chose to mainly draw women. Imagine If I kept drawing only dudes I don't know and giving them drawings then we'd be having more awkward situations like the Wednesday late night encounter with the 7 Eleven worker (Just because I have long hair and tight jeans.........)

I've mentioned before I usually give away my drawings which allows me to meet some really cool people, and at the very least see that person's reaction- usually positive, hardly ever negative unless you draw a penis tattoo on their back and they chase you for a block in tears, but let us save that story for another posting.
These napkins were also given away, I'm thrilled that Sara liked them enough to take them, and it was so nice of her to scan them in and e-mail them to me. The first one of her was done from Memory (every drawing is from memory) but- she was sitting with her friend around the corner from us, I noticed her on the way back from the lavatory so I sketched out what Impression I had of her. The second one does portray her much better I believe and by that time we had befriended them. I tried to capture her composed manner, her head tilted slightly with closed eyes. Her striking silky hair all bundled up under her hat led my quick glances around her earring which hovered ever so delicately over her neck. I was terrified to touch the drawing any more in fear of not doing her justice.

I then lost my bank card somewhere between this drawing and the Cab ride home.

To sum up my week in Ottawa, from a commercial animation artists' perspective:

-Independent films are cool, and their creators way cooler
-New York has some very fine talent, as I had kinda figured but didn't quite know who they were (check out Dave Levy's blog post to find out who) http://animondays.blogspot.com/
-Ottawa is a great place to be in September
-Always good to bring $100 dollars in cash and stash it away in case you lose your Debit Card

Cougars and Napkins

Just posting a few drawings from this past week. When people ask me to show them the napkin drawings I have with me I never hesitate to, in fact I usually hand them away. Notice the tear in the napkin with the man on it. That was originally attached to the drawing of the woman above it until this crazy cougar at Canal bar (how's that for alliteration) ripped it in half without any warning. Not that these have any real value aside from the 2 dollars I spend every few days on brush pens, but "ca-mon!" Have a little respect! From now on I'll be a little more weary on sharing my napkin art with strangers, cougars, or strange cougars.

Revival Sketches

I was late for work the other day. It all stemmed from the night before, where Zartosht and I agreed to go for 'one beer' after work. There we were, at Revival, just minding our own business. There were these two girls sitting across the way that were, in fact, a little too loud, just a touch. Enough that is distracted us from our conversation. We made mention of this to them and one thing led to another. Before we knew it we were eating the food we had ordered with them, downing shots of Tequila and enjoying round after round. Somewhere along the way I sketched all of them, Tatiana, Julia, Ana and Ma Jo. Well, it's friday and, I'm going for a beer with Zartosht.
Later!

Sketchbook

some recent sketchbook drawings dating back to June. The guy in the middle was visiting from Boston and seemed pretty excited to be on the subway crossing the bridge because he wouldn't stop talking about it to his friends. I learned a lot about the differences between the Boston subway system and the MTA in those 10 mins between Atlantic and Canal street. The lady on the bottom right was having a rough day, she was swaying back and forth trying to light her cigarette. If I wasn't afraid of getting into a possible altercation I would have helped her, but I figured the safest thing to do was observe from a safe distance. The two people above her probably didn't know one another but I decided to tilt the woman's head a bit to the right, now it seems they're another happy couple having breakfast! O-righty then, thanks for checking in, and remember, napkins are for more than spills!

drawings from the rooftop

In the lifelong quest to come up with some nice sketches, these are compositional studies done on my rooftop two weeks ago atop a pink lawn chair that was found in the trash last year sometime.

Napkins saved from Laundry. Dollar bill wasn't so lucky.

Ahhh, to clean one's room! The many things you find, receipts from months ago, one in particular for sixty-five dollars and seventy-one cents. I can still remember that afternoon, sketching the roller skaters in Central Park and the dancers as well. Zartosht, Bryan and I then headed to the upper West side in search of a beer. We found that, along with some BBQ. I drew our lovely waitress on the menu, which doubled also as our tablecloth. She asked if she could have it and I obliged. Thus I cannot show you that lovely drawing, rather, these napkin and beer coaster sketches I found while cleaning my room -;) (Just in case my Mom reads this.)

Waffles and Sketchbooks

Have you ever eaten waffles for dinner? Well, I just did, then I scanned in this page of my sketchbook. The girl on the top left caught me drawing her but didn't mind at all. I was probably fuelling her "I need attention" tank. Time for a nap!

Open Mic night at Brooklyn Bean.

So after a sip and a bite and a nice little walk, Zartosht and I strolled into the two empty seats at the front of the packed cafe. It felt just like life drawing class, except they don't have their liquor license just yet so.... It was like life drawing was back in college. Canal Bar lies just an avenue south, and since I'd been there the two nights before, I had faith that it would still be standing there in an hour or so, stocked full of cold beer. Precisely at the aforementioned time, right at the beginning of an atrocious rendition of Ave Maria by a sweet, sweet woman, Z stumbled to the exit with his sketchpad leaving me alone with the rest of the crowd. I could hear him coughing as he passed me, but I knew all too well it wasn't a cough, in fact, I could picture him outside laughing to himself out loud while smoking a cigarette. Doing my best to disguise my impending laughter, I became overwhelmed with the markings on the coffee table, as if examining it for the first time. I studied them as I would a teenager laying his eyes on his first playgirl centerfold (one in ten folks, one in ten!!!)
I somehow managed to contain myself, but just barely. I didn't post any drawings of her, because, well, I didn't draw her. I was just pretending. These two, however played some great guitar and sang some beautiful songs!

Prospect Park sketches

Prospect Parc sketches from this month, trying to learn how to draw, more specifically how to draw trees and leaves and all that!