letter to my brother

A letter to my brother.

Dear Patric,
I’ve gained a lot of weight in the last 4 years. When I first moved here, I was 164 pounds. The other day I weighed myself and I was 186.5 pounds. It was a digital scale. The girl who owns the scale, I adore. The woman in my kitchen, I barely know.
She is leaving Wednesday, and I don’t plan on getting to know her.
Earlier this evening I was out with Zartosht, and shortly I will disconnect my computer from its power cord, place it atop a wooden box in my closet and post my napkin sketches of this evening.

p.s. the woman in the kitchen keeps coughing, it is so annoying.
p.p.s she also just blew her nose and is texting on her I phone.
p.p.p.s. I hope she is using a Kleenex and not my jacket.

Hope all is well in Saskatoon,
Love,
Philip

Thursday Toasties animation

One day soon I plan to compile all these random Toasties animations and burn them onto some DVD's. Then I'll head over there on a Thursday or Friday and have a couple of pints at $2.25 each (between 6 and 8pm). I'll leave a stack of them on a table, with the title TOASTIES ANIMATIONS. Then I'll watch to see if anyone takes one. After a couple of more pints, probably with Bryan, I'll take the subway home and wonder just what people will think when they watch minutes of nonsensical animation. Then I will probably head to Canal Bar, for just one more.

Tuesday

I’ve never been able to draw my friend Sean McBride accurately, and this time around is no exception, although I think I’m getting closer and closer. Watch out my friend.
Zartosht , Sean and I ended up in the lower East side on Tuesday evening, drinking wine and listening to Flamenco (I think, I should really know this). Paz, our lovely bartender is the girl, and I believe I posted sketches of the subway ride home as well.

Art Show this friday

As I type this blog entry I notice that the tips of my fingers are blue and my left palm has about three blue streaks running across it. No, I did not get beat up again for trying to kiss a girl in front of her boyfriend, that's so 2007. Rather, I've been drawing away with Tombo markers in my room, while the woman in the kitchen types away at her I phone. I will talk more about the woman in the kitchen next week, when I have more time. Click on the title of this entry to view this neat little write up in Time Out New York, and thank you to Tami for getting the word out there!

First post of '09

I once worked at a petrol station on the outskirts of my hometown, no not in South Africa, in Richmond , B.C, Canada. I just figure petrol station sounds a lot cooler than gas station. One day a man with long hair and shaggy clothing walked up to us and asked us for some help, he said he needed gasoline for his car that was up the road, as he held out an empty soda can. We flatly refused to fill his can up, it was against the rules, he had to pay for a federally approved plastic gas container. He didn't have enough money in his pockets. Later on that day I saw my boss and the man with the shaggy hair, this time he had his car with him. After the man and his car went on their way we received quite a tongue lashing from our boss. Some family pulled in and I hastily went over to serve them. I suppose then, for me to be angry at the girl who threw aside the last two napkin drawings below onto the floor near the bar, would be hypocritical of me, wouldn't you say?

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.