City Dwellers...

Black prismacolour on moleskine, by John van Bruggen.

Oh phooey...

TCAF 2010...

Beauty left behind...

Kate McGarrigle 1946 – 2010

http://www.mcgarrigles.com/

another sketch in colour...

again in colour...

more sketches on the way to and from...

posted by John...

Kensington market walls...

Posted by John and Arna:
Saturday we visited The Beguiling bookstore for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. Had a nice chat with the talented Michael Cho and picked up tickets for Scott McCloud who spoke at OISE on Sunday night. Good weekend all round...

Saturday was also JANE JACOBS DAY in Toronto ( see Nick Sung's post on Jane Jacobs here) and we did our own walk from the Annex to Kensington Market and along Nassau Street which is full of funky cafes, music stores and a cool Tshirt shop called Hardboiled.

At the back of a store on the corner of Nassau and Augusta, we found this wall covered with collaged posters 'n graffiti that made fine photo material. John took these shots.

Considering December 6...

Two days ago was the 17th anniversary of the killing of 14 women, shot dead at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal.

Arna's son, illustrator and comic artist Max Douglas (Salgood Sam), posted a piece on the subject, and we think it's a good read:

SALGOOD SAM's WORK DIARY

Dorothy Van Bruggen

1934-2006

Sadly and suddenly, John's mother passed away on September 21st, in her 73rd year. We can't believe that you're gone and we miss you, Mom.

Storyboard goodies...

Click on the swordplay to go to fellow board artist Warren Leonhardt, speaking about his recent experience creating boards on the television series Jane And The Dragon. We think this one covers the subject very well, with plenty of personal anecdotes and Warren's typical energy. If you haven't already done so, go there now!

More ROM sketches with Smook...

Posted by Arna and John:

These are more drawings from the day we went sketching with our friend Mike Smukavic at the Royal Ontario Museum. They didn't make it into our earlier post so here they are now!

Harvey Chan's Skateboards

Posted by Arna:
Hi guys! Here's a peek at some of our friend Harvey Chan's gorgeous painted skateboards. Harvey is a noted Toronto illustrator and he was my first sculpture teacher at the Toronto School Of Art a few years back. Check out Harvey Chan's portfolio site for more terrific examples of his work.

These boards are part of a group show this weekend in Montreal:
Life Styles at Yves Laroche l'Autre Galerie

Enjoy!

ROM Sketches With Smook

Last week we took the opportunity to meet our friend Mike Smukavic at The Royal Ontario Museum for a sketch day. We took some snaps too, before our camera battery conked out! We had a great time with Mike, who's about as talented as they come, and also great company. Here's some images from the day (all from the main floor Chinese sculpture exhibit).

Check out Mike's (Smooks) ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) post here.

The totem pole in the main stairwell has always been one of my (Arna's) favourite things since I first visited the museum as a kid. Here's a shot taken half way up. The stairwell is four stories high, so that gives you an idea of the size of this pole:

Here's Smook snapping a shot. Notice the resemblance to some of the statues...?

Several of John's sketches:

One from Arna:
This next batch are John's:

John's brush marker sketch of one of the same wooden 'Luohan' monks from the grouping above:

Smook must have been a Buddha in a former life...

This griffin was a challenge to capture. I'd like to go back to work on him again. He's pretty spectacular, and the drawings don't quite capture his furious expression:

That's all for today. Thanks to Mike for joining us at the ROM. Wait till you see his sketches. Great stuff.

Cheers!

~Arna and John

Fresh art from Planet Of The Apes...

Here's some new art from Salgood Sam (aka Max Douglas, Arna's son): Enjoy!

BG Fun!

Because he does them so well, we can't resist posting this. It's a Clive Powsey bg. The image links to Clive's blog.