Gowanus Yacht Club Napkins

After a great Memorial Day bbq at the Canal Bar on 3rd avenue, Josh, Wilbur and I walked up to Smith street with some Coconuts, left over from Friday's Carrol Street bbq. Thanks to the undercover cops for NOT giving us public drinking tickets/fines/jail time.

As we sat there and drank our black label beer, Zee and I started to sketch, as Josh and Wilbur cracked away at the remaining coconuts.

This girl sat very still and was an easy subject for both of us to sketch.

This is a great drawing by Zee. As the girl and her friends left we showed her the drawings and she seemed to really like them. She was visiting from Beirut(Lebanon) and hopefully she has a good stay in Brooklyn.

Canal Bar part 2

A couple of more napkins from the other night.

The Kingshead Pub

My brother and I started the evening at the Kingshead Pub in Vancouver, to meet up with some friends for a few beers and a few laughs. We ended our outing early the next day, scrambling in our parent's kitchen for cheese and water, anything to stave off the hangover that had already begun. Earlier on I'd sketched on quite a few napkins. I didn't keep any this time around, after all it was like my Christmas that I never had.

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

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.

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.)

Montreal Napkin

This napkin sketch, done a few weeks ago in Montreal at a bar called...well, I don't recall anymore. What a great weekend though! Jazz Festival, sketching outdoors, seeing friends I haven't seen in a while. I often wonder why I left that city so suddenly.

Napkin Drawings by popular request

Drawing in my local bar, Canal Bar, is one of my favorite pastimes. Always a steady flow of new and old faces to practice the art of caricature, which is something I would really like to get good at one day. The pool table provides some new gestures to draw from, but as challenging enough as it is to draw from a still life, I much prefer a person to sit as still as possible when I’m trying to capture their essence onto the napkin. The drink helps a lot too, a couple of Brooklyn lagers, some popcorn for sustenance, some elbow space and a stack of cocktail napkins. I’ll supply the pens and markers. Cheers!
note: most of these were done at Bar Great Harry on smith st.