art blog

The Dr. is dead. but the drawing lives on.

2011-01-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

I spent yesterday inking and coloring my drawings from the now ended Dr. Sketchy's Toronto. It made me realize how much I'm going to miss drawing exciting people on a regular basis.

Mena Von Fleisch
and her twin passengers

Billy Black

Obskyura

Mina LaFleur

Christabel

Pyromeo
dressed as Krampus for our Christmas session
wich was our last session.

There were a lot of fantastic models that I didn't get the chance to draw during our 4 year run.
I still want to draw them, but for now I'm keeping it low key
My friend J. and I will be privately sketching as many exciting models we can get our hands on.
The fact that so far our list of potential models, consists of only super hot guys, doesn't seem bother either of us.

Me & J.
reference photo taken from a photo shoot by Greg Wong a.k.a Wrong Note Rusty

New sketches

2010-10-29T00:39:00.000-07:00

more fightclub girls
painted on oval mat board
they're really small
so far it takes me about a day to finish one.
that might just be because I'm easily distracted.

gearing up for new paintings

2010-10-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

These are the sketches for a new group of paintings.

and some pics from the reference photo shoot.

Undressed

2010-08-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

"Undressed" - Art of the Figure
August 27th - 29th
Sunnyside Pavilion
1755 Lakeshore blvd

what do I mean I've never done nudes?! shit!

2010-08-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

I was approached a couple weeks ago, to be in a show at the end of August at Sunnyside Pavilion.
the title of the show is "Undressed" and they asked specifically for nudes.
I said yes immediately and then went home and realized that I didn't have any nudes, in fact I had never painted nudes before.
I pictured what I thought an art show of nudes would consist of - mainly tasteful nudes of white women. I was a bit board at the thought of it, and I realized that I wanted to draw men. Men as colorful as I could get my hands...uh...brush on.
I decided that instead of embarrassing myself and possibly my models, that I wouldn't use my regular models. I'd find models experienced at being naked. Luckily I know a whole slue of attractive people who make it their business to get naked.
I wound up with two very beautiful men, Kendal and Patrick, both members of Boylesque TO,
and my friend Greg, another member of Boylesque, who offered up his loft building, lighting kit, and photography knowhow. This Neapolitan Ice cream combination of boys gave me the images I needed to get to work.

...and I'm still working.
The image below was painted last night after hurling a painting of a naked man across the room in frustration. I complained to Brett that I needed a break from painting naked men, he checked my forehead to see if I was running a fever.

Today I'm back to painting men. Images coming soon. Art show coming sooner. Aaaagh!

100

2010-06-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.katherine-piro.com/100.html

Emergency Fund Raiser!

100 original drawings 4"x6" drawn over 13 days.

On display Thursday June 24th
at 306 Gladstone ave 2nd floor.
5pm to 10pm

All pieces will be framed and are all selling for $20

If you would like to pre-buy any of them please email despotovich(at)gmail.com
a small paypal charge will apply, and shipping is extra.

Any work is left over at the end of the show will be burned!

I have new work on show now at Perival Gallery

2010-06-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

These are two of the paintings I sent up to Perivale gallery this year.
I finished them just before they were taken up there
so I never had any time to step back and look at them.
unfortunately everything was so rushed
that I wasn't able to get them properly photographed either.
but you can still get a sense of them.

spring time. time to pick myself up after several hard falls.

2010-04-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

this is my illustration for DANCE DANCE EVOLUTION.
the Toronto Burlesque Festival fund raiser
originally called burlesque through the ages
the new name was my idea.
Ive been wanting to do a drawing like this for a long time.
I've always loved the evolution drawing
and making it pretty and girlie was just too much temptation.
especially after watching Blonde Venus.

As for my wood work.
I have been given an assortment of wood panels
This is lace wood. Ink sticks to it in a very exciting way
making large areas of shadow look like scales.
so I decided to go back to drawing fish.
I love drawing fish.

starting a business

2010-03-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

So I have recently become unemployed.
This means that instead of being payed to sit around and let my mind rot, I have be working day and night on different projects for little or no pay.

One of these projects is particularly exciting.
I am joining forces with my friend Adam Brandejs and we are starting our own company.
We tried doing something like this a couple years ago but we lacked the skills and the determination to stick with it.
But now both of us are sick of working for other people, and being unemployed we can commit the time and energy into making something for ourselves.

Adam is the technical expert, I'm the creative, and Brett is going to be our P.R. person because both Adam and I are anti social.

We're making monstrous sculpture for electronics.
Today was spent prototyping

Exciting things are coming soon...

so much unfinished work.

2010-01-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

I have four unfinished painting sitting in my living room.
If I could finish just two of them this weekend I would be soo happy.
I was sick all of last weekend and today I hoped I'd be able to work,
but I used up all my energy getting up, making breakfast, and taking a shower then I had to go strait back to bed.
I woke up an hour ago and decided that I might just have enough energy to write a blog post.

This is a detail shoot of one of those unfinished paintings taunting me from the other side of the room.
This is the only part of the painting I am happy with.

This is the first painting I've use a male and femal model for.
My female model, Jenn, flows onto the wood like she was made for it.
That's her hand there looking fantastic, and just like I wanted it to.

However it has been a pitched battle trying to get Kevin's likeness to stick to the wood grain. That's his neck there looking nice and fluid, the rest of him is... not looking right yet.

But this is all probubly because I've painted Jenn more than I've painted myself and I've never painted Kevin before. I am also really rusty at painting men.

To make maters even worse for myself I thought "wouldn't it look great if I put a frame of ivy leaves around them." not realizing that if you're going to paint ivy it's suddenly not just a portrait of a boy and a girl, it's a portrait of a boy and a girl and 200 fucking leaves! every one of them needing special attention.

It was in the middle of painting all those leaves that I realized I was sick.
What is really frustrating is the realization that this illness means I probably won't finish this piece on time for the competition that I was painting it for.

paper

2010-01-04T23:20:00.000-08:00

I attempted watercolor on paper instead of wood today.
I found out that I don't like painting on paper.
This is what turned out.
Two paintings of Jenn.

I will probubly repaint them properly on wood,
but it was a good excercize, even though it was extremely frustrating.

Sketchy's Calender 10% sold!

2009-12-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

I got my calender's from the printer yesterday.
They look just how I wanted them to.
A lot more work went into the images this year and I think it was worth it, even though the text work for me is like having teeth pulled.

I am not a graphic designer, I have no training in layout or text work and I sure feel it when I'm trying to make something like this.

To tie all the illustrations together in a cohesive look I scanned in old beat up sci-fi paperback book covers to set as the background, and then I hand drew most of the text so that the performers name would be part of the image itself. I'll never be a graphic designer but I'm still happy with what turned out.

I sent them out to have them professionally printed instead of trying to print it myself and running all over town like I did last year. So this years calender is much more slick.

I premiered sales Last night at Skin Tight Outta Sight's "Merry Stripmas" show. 10% of my stock is already gone! email me to order you own. KatherinePiro (at) gmail . com

2010 Sketchy's calender

2009-12-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

I have just completed the 2010 Sketchy's-Toronto calender.
Here are a few of this years images.

The calenders are $25 and will be available at the next Dr Sketchys session on Monday the 14th of december at the Cameron House 408 Queen St West 7pm - 10pm. Or you can order them from me personally via email - katherine piro at gmail.com

something a little more upbeat

2009-11-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

Jazz Hands!

I missed the zombie walk this year, so I haven't had the opportunity to cover myself in sequins and corn syrup. But you know my year wouldn't be complete without turning someone into a zombie.
Dr Sketchy's Halloween special "Zombie strippers!" I got to make up the lovely Jessica Jamieson.

This photo is a still from "Abstraction" and art documentary being created by some Humber film students. I will advertise it more once it's finished. but I am pretty excited already.

Halloween.

I had been trying to make a mask this year, in the search for making a hand sculpted mask both light weight and durable, I experimented with fiberglass and sculpy. I failed miserably. The sticky, still toxic, abomination is sitting in the garage.

So I found myself the day before Halloween without a costume. An embarrassing situation for a girl the spent every summer she was in school perfecting what she'd be wearing the last day of October. I spent the afternoon carving a pair of horns out of upholstery foam and spray painted them black. I dug up the pair of pointed ears that Brett wore last year for our Star Trek Skechy's and at last I had something. I painted myself first with black aqua color and then smoothed it out with black grease paint and glued the horns to my head with spirit gum. I had forgotten how strong that stuff was when you use it right, I have no make-up or spirit gum remover, I had to break them off my head at the end of the night. I still haven't managed to get all the black off. But it was worth it. no?

Speaking of body paint, October also marks year 13 of my everyday ritual of face painting.

here's one of the oldest face paint pics I have. There are older and better ones but I'd have to go back to my parents house to find them.

blagh! sloppy paint job.
guess how old I am in this pic.

back on queer street

2009-10-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

I seem to be somewhat behind in my posts.
but that's because I have been busy else where.

strange that I update my blog once i no longer have home access to the internet.

Our computer who had been struggling along like a half squished cockroach has finally died completely. taking with it hours and hours of work such as;

And several others I hadn't yet posted to facebook, so I have nothing left of them at all.
All that work down the drain.

I still have the original sketches.

So wouldn't be so aggravating except that I was planing to make the 2010 sketchy's calender this week the day my computer died, I had just finished the set up for the calender at work and brought my usb stick home to put the images on it but they were already gone.

I consoled myself by mixing polymers in a carcinogenic experiment in mask making.
I must have destroyed my unhappy brain cells because I'm feeling surprisingly good.
just broke and hungry which is nothing new.

Fan page

2009-08-18T17:01:00.001-07:00

I have started a fan page on facebook.
Blag. Just saying that makes me feel like a tool.
I started it mainly because I wanted to separate the people I actually know,
from all those people who just want to look at my art,
but can't be bothered to go to my website.

After posting up a lot of art,
I realized that my website hasn't been updated in a very long time,
And the blog, though updated more regularly,
does not give you the instant gratification of seeing my work all at once.

So if you are on facebook join my fan page.

Katherine Piro on Facebook

The Square Foot Show

2009-08-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Square Foot Show is tonight
AWOL Gallery

This is my adorable addition to the show.

New York pigeon.

The Toronto Burlesque Festival & Dr Sketchy's Retrospective

2009-08-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

The Toronto Burlesque Festival

Dr Sketchy's Retrospective

I think this may have been the first cohesive art show to address Toronto's burlesque scene.

I would count it as a success even though it got no press, and even though it was open to the public, it was seen only by a select few.

That probably can be said about the whole festival. It was one of the most interesting things happening in the city and yet nobody really knew about it.

My aunt who traveled up from New York City for the festival described it -

"In th 80's I used to visit toronto a lot, and I was really into the gay scene here. They had the best parties, the craziest outfits, and the most fun people. It wouldn't really be written about or advertised, you had to be told about it by someone who was part of it. It was underground then. It was just like this. this is the new underground thing"

These are some of my pieces, and some installation shots I snapped of the show.
I'll be posting the rest of my pieces once I have proper pictures taken.

a long hard summer

2009-08-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

This summer has been very hard.
Financially and artistically, since the two tend to go hand in hand.

The studio sale helped a lot. Not financially exactly, Brett and I did make around $1300 but,
almost all of it was spent financing the burlesque festival Dr Sketchy's art show at the Gladstone hotel. I'll write more on that later.
The thing that meant the most to me during our studio sale was that so many people came out, not just to be supportive, but because they truly wanted our art. It is very important for an artists work to be wanted. I supose there are some people who make art just to please themselves but I have never been one of them.
When you make work that is unwanted it hurts all the way to the core, you can not look at it without pain, knowing even when your asking price is as low as it can go no one is willing to pay.
How many times have people told me
"You shouldn't be underselling yourself, you should charge ten times as much"
but I've learned that these same people will never ever buy anything.

Knowing this, I hope most of you will understand what we did after the show.

What ever didn't sell was burned.

In Brett case with so many drawings on mylar (plastic) he cut them to pieces with a razor blade.

Pieces were saved from destruction right up until the last minute.
I actually laughed out loud in relief when one piece I had be particularly fond of was bought in the last hour.

I am not an artist that revels in destruction. what we did was painful to me, but I was the one who decided that it must be done.

Brett joked about it during the show when people asked what we would do with the pieces after the show. Our roomate looked horrified and said
"why don't you just sell them for less"
That was the moment I knew we had to burn them.
I explained to her that selling them for less would be a slap in the face to the people who had come out and suported us. It would also mean that the next show we had wouldn't be taken seriously, everyone would just wait around till we got desperate and slashed the prices.

No. what we did meant that for our next show if some one really wants something they will tell us right away and not think about it for a week, a month, a year, an eternity.
I don't have that kind of time, and I don't feel like giving it to anyone else.

Rest in pieces you glorious shades of my heart.

studio sale details

2009-07-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Brett and I have put our work, for the show, up online for viewing
for all details go here -

http://www.katherine-piro.com/drawn/drawn.html
http://www.brett-despotovich.com/drawn/drawn.html

art show/studio sale

2009-07-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

Brett and I, spurred on by a frightening lack of funds, have decided to host our own art show/studio sale.
An event where our friends and supporters can come, party, look at art, and buy it for cheep.

We have collected around 40 pieces each; some old work, some finished in the past few days, all of it ranging in price from $10 to $100.

Here are a few samples of what I'll be putting into the show.

jennmonster

2009-04-16T20:38:00.001-07:00

my baloney has a first name it's nom. nom. nom.

update

2009-03-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

Today my Mom's friend Shannon came to pick up art work from me to be displayed in Perivale gallery on Manitoulin island.
Its always hard to part with new work, especially this time because, since I have never shown in a gallery before, my work has been priced heartbreakingly low.
However it will be a welcome change to be able to sell it at all, and displaying in a gallery makes me look much more professional.

These are the pieces they ended up choosing.

sold

In other news, I have begun thinking that this may be the last year I spend in Toronto. It is a city I have loved since childhood, but ever since my grandmothers death its as if all the light and warmth has gone out of it. To me Toronto has become a place where I am aloud to be comfortable but achive nothing. I do not know what I will do or where I will go, but anything is better than the hopelessness of stagnation.

What have I been up to this month?

2009-03-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

This is the poster for the burlesque festival fundraiser.
I did the sexy cat illustration,
modeled after dancer Sauci Calla Horra.

This is my poster for the actual
Toronto Burlesque Festival,
still needs some tweaking.
and obviously text work is not my forte.

And finally here are a few blurry snapshots
of my new wood images.

2009-02-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

I started and finished two paintings today.

well, the self portrait might need more fine tuning.
but I'm happy with the way Jenn turned out even
though the likeness is not exact.

the source photo's were both blurry
so I had to imagine the details.

I probably won't be able to paint again till Wednesday.
maybe not till next weekend.
but Sketchy's is tomorrow so at least
I'll get some sketching done.

2009-02-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

I've been painting, as much as I have time to,
I was getting frustrated at how time consuming watercolor is,
so I took a break from my larger pieces to make a small one.

I meant for this to be a little bit twisted like all my portraits,
but even I was surprised how deranged she turned out.

I'm a cover girl.

2009-02-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/16/2.cover-expansion

sketchbook

2009-01-14T20:09:00.000-08:00

I dug up some Dr Sketchy's sketches.

I re-drew the one of Nunic and the doll because I loved the quick gesture
but wasn't happy with the drawing I made afterwards.

This time I inked right over the gesture to get something I was much happier with.

Mr. Dud Studly

The lovely Anastasia

And La Minouche

more work

2009-01-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Portrait of Sarah with her ravens.

and some more color for Brynne and me.

The holiday season set my art production back a bit. I'm hoping I can catch up on it this month between juggling job searches and debt management.

I have been thrown out of bed every night for the past couple of weeks by progressively more and more violent nightmares. This is always a sign that I have not spent enough time on my artwork.

2009-01-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

my website has been relocated.
you can now find me at

www.katherine-piro.com

the image is the finished version of 'Brett' for Luke

i'm back

2008-12-26T21:24:00.000-08:00

I have been without internet for several months.
the months have been busy, I can't remember
everything I've been working on and some stuff
I haven't taken pictures of yet. but here are a few
of the things I've been doing.

my friend Viv contacted me to do an illustration of
her project for the cover of Learning and Memory http://learnmem.cshlp.org
it was accepted. and will be on the cover of the February issue.

I put together the Dr Sketchy's Toronto calender.

I made a pink funfur space dog for our christmas star trek sketchy's.

and Kat, Jenn, Brett and I made 85 tribbles.

made 4 more wood drawings.
this is the only one I have a picture of so far.

and of course lots of make-up and costumes.

some bad news, my lack of internet and a major credit card
means I got screwed out of my website Katherinepiro.com.
so i'll have to find myself another domain.
wich sucks. especialys since I had already put my website
on the calenders I printed. not cool.

2008-09-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on two very large, complex, drawings.
This is the drawing I finished in between working on the other two.

Other than that. life has been misrable.
I have no job, no money,
and most upsetting no more wood panels.
Summer is always horrible.
on the bright side,
it's fall now,
so I am no longer hot and sweaty and grumpy,
and being poor has made me loose a lot of weight
so I look fabulous.

degenerate drawings of gorgeous girls

2008-08-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

so i've been working on some new stuff for the past week. going back to the style fish haired lady from a wile ago, but doing portraits instead imagining. though i have to confess a few of the pigs and monkeys and one of the rabbits are made up.
i have taken three pretty girls and made them slightly grotesque and covered them in animals whom are adorable but slightly creepy. i've decided to add color to them. they are still in progress. the one of brynne and the bunny's turned out the cutest. the other two were much more difficult and there for a bit weirder.

on a Saturday night

2008-08-03T00:23:00.001-07:00

What do i do on a Saturday night?
Yeah.. i draw gay pictures of Batmam.

work in progress

2008-07-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

contract work

2008-07-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

So a little while ago I got another email from Chris Nicholls studio's about another job; Backdrops for brides maids dresses, they wanted floral designs that reference this summers Prada campaign.
Chris warned me before hand that the dresses would be horrendously ugly. But the girls were beautiful, and so were my drawings.
The girl standing up in the first photo liked the drawings so much she wanted to take one of the walls home with her.
The client wanted some color in the flowers but decided that some one else would put it in digitally. you notice that I've taken all the color out of the photo's. That's because in the printed photo's it looks like some ones mom used MS paint to slap on some gross clashing colors, that cover up a lot of my line work. I have the original photo's on a disk, but my computers to old and slow to open them.
So no credit in the magazine this time, but I got enough money to keep above water for a month, and that's always good.
you can see the printed images in "InStyle Weddings" and possibly others bridal magazines I haven't discovered yet.

ah ha!

2008-06-19T10:49:00.001-07:00

I have made slight improvement on the color side of things...

doodilly doodilly doo...

2008-06-18T00:32:00.000-07:00

Monday night was Dr sketchy's with Coco La'Creame. I got a lot of cute drawings.
-Tried to color one with photoshop...not so happy with my coloring skills..i'm working on it.

-Finished outlining a drawing of Coco Framboise.

-and revers inked another one of Sadako.

Draw Draw Sweet Barbara

2008-06-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some sketchy girls in the hopes that i'll come up with something good to put in the Toronto Burlesque Festival.

Old dress, new body

2008-05-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Almost all the peices on wood that I made before have been retired. It was raw plywood that I was working on and not only have some of the larger pieces warped, also the one of Brett and Chris that was hung in the window at the tequila bookworm was darkened by the sun.
For my next body of work I've had to put a lot more money into materials.

Starting with the purchase of several, slick looking, birch wood panels. They all come ready prepared with braces' and cross braces' for the larger ones. The wood grain is more subtle so I will have to exaggerate it, but I made sure to find pieces with exiting grain paterns

Not to many people seem to take markers seriously as a medium. So. I've been experimenting in water color. A medium I have never really used before, but it works so much like the markers I'm used to using that it only took me a day to figure out what I was doing.

Here is the first test piece, not really a portrait, but loosely based on, the burlesque dancer, Coco Framboise.

chains break inside my chest...the unfurling of terrible wing

2008-05-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

So I've been sketching and doodling, but for the past couple months I haven't made any serious work. I can blame it on packing...moving...unpacking...lack of a set up studio space. But that's all bull shit. I can work anywhere and in almost any circumstances.
except, of course, crippling depression. Which happens to me from time to time. The past few months, I've just realized, have been those times.

The worst depression I ever had was when I was 8. For an entire year. All the color draind from my face and I dragged myself about. An animated corps. I didn't taste food, or see color, I didn't feel anything at all. Until one day as I walked home from school I heard the wind blowing through the leaves on the trees and I realized that spring was almost over, and I hadn't seen the maple trees bloom.
Those two weeks in spring when the maples are in bloom are my favorite time of the year. I live and breath for that sight and their sent. and I had missed it. I cried right there in the street. how many times in my life will I get to see them? 50? 30? 24?
One less than I was supposed to.
One year stolen from me by the living death.
Now every year, every spring, every day they are in flower, I am out side looking at them and breathing them in. (even in the midst of this depression I was out in it) hoping to get back something of what i wasted.
my shampoo, my perfume, my chapstic, everything i can find to mimic there scent so i can keep some part of them with me.
my long time friend, Sandra, came to visit me, she asked if she could borrow some perfume i handed her a bottle and when she opened it she gasped and said "this is your sent!" and look at me as if she had just opened up a bottle containing my very soul. and, in a way, she had.

I will not sit still for this depression. I want it off of me. Now.
Luckily for me I received a rejection letter from the outdoor art show.
I am very used to being the under dog, rejection and humiliation will produce much fiercer and more beautiful work than recognition and praise ever does.

The maple trees have finished blooming, and I have started work.

Christian Zombie Vampires...

2008-04-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

My friend Kat O'shaughnessy invited me to be her model/make-up artist for her new clothing line in [FAT] Toronto Alternative Fashion Week. She worked in collaboration with Alex De Francesco creating "Resurrection" Magdelina & Asphyxia's fashion for the Undead.

Alex's models were sultry vampires and Kat models were tattered and twitching zombies who I made up with blood and sparkles. Grace Donati was responsible for our amazing crazy hair.

I was the last to walk down the runway, in my Zombie Bride outfit. It was the most twitchy performance, and everyone seemed to love it, even though I got stuck with the worst loop in the music.

I don't have any pictures of my own from the night. I have begged borrowed and stolen these photo's. If anyone has any others i would love to see them.

I am old father william

2008-04-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

I was at a gallery opening a little wile ago.
the gallery was picking up a new artist.
a girl, younger than me, but with nothing remarkable about her.
It was her work that upset me.
I will not say it was like my work,
because comparing her stiff figures to my liquid creations, would add insult to injury.
but there are comparisons, that I will not go into.
I wanted to know how she had been picked up.
she seemed so young and inexperienced, so lacking in charisma.
that I wanted to know what she was doing right,
and what I was doing wrong.
I listened to her conversations hoping to pick up a clue.
I did.
and felt stupid for not realizing it.
Money.

I had foolishly assumed that if ones work was good enough people would eventually come forward to finance more ambitious projects.
I forgot that if you have no way to finance them yourself, no one will ever notice that your work is good.
I have been living off the charity of others for so long, that this year is the first that I have finally realized how poor I am.
Part of me still says it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter, but the rest of me knows that it does.
I feel it like a steel toed boot in my gut.
The girl is young. she will get better,
and now she has the backing to make what ever she wants.

I have sunk into a depression. my world has dissolved into that terrible whiteness. It will take time to fill it back up with images.
maybe tomorrow.
There are no images today.

positive negative

2008-03-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

A lot of the time my black and white illustrations are drawn in negative.
because, if I do it properly, then I get two images;
the process drawing in negative and the inverted finished piece in positive.

This intrest is not limited only to my drawings,
I have been experimenting with negative make-up.
Since I can not control every aspect of it,
beautiful perversions occur in the final images.

spiro

2008-03-10T02:11:00.001-07:00

fisssssshhhhhhhhh.......

2008-02-28T22:57:00.001-08:00

i feel as if i've drawn more that 13 fish,
but i guess i haven't.

...

i DID! i did draw more fishes!

weird. two unlucky numbers. i guess that means i have to draw more.

a sparrow with a machine gun.

2008-02-20T01:25:00.001-08:00

in winter it always seems like i never get anything done. there are so many projects i wanted to be part of, but getting through winter is like trying to run in a dream, as hard as you try you don't seem to get anywhere.
but that's enough of me complaining about what i didn't do; which is depressing to me, and uninteresting to everybody else because there are no pictures. instead let's focus on what i did do.

-i did some glamor zombie make up for my friend Kat O'Shaughnessy's Zombie fashion line that she'll be debuting at [FAT] :: Toronto Alternative Arts & Fashion Week

Kat O'Shaughnessy created my red outfit wich someone else will model for the fashion show since the skirt is so short on me it deserves an R rating. her friend Alex De Francesco created the black outfit and will be going for more of a vampire look for her models during the show.

here are some shots brett took of the zombie make-up.

i want to glam it up a bit by putting red sparkles in the blood for the show, and for my make-up at least i'll be adding teeth - as seen in my previous zombie make-up.

and in my brothers 30 days of night costume.

- on Sunday we took down the Sketchy retro show, my drawing of 'Priscilla with the bunny ears' sold. here are some shots of the closing party.

thank god that's all over with.

- and today i spent the entire day curled up on the couch watching batman and working non-stop on these little guys.

My friend Jimmy G. Botelho and i will be having a show in march, his theme is "the birds and the bees" and my theme is "the other fish in the seas" our drawings will be turned into t-shirts and hand bags and other such purchasables. provided we can work out our copyrights and business stuff with the people in charge of the producing side of things. business deals make me nervous. i guess that's why i'm always such a bum.

i wish i had an agent. someone who's business it is to know the things i don't, find me jobs, and watch my back. sigh. i wish i was Batman.

cuz Robin has the sweetest ass.
oops.
my posts seems to be degenerating!
and of course you know, with a smile like mine i could never be the Batman.

"and there'll be moonshine! moonshine! to quench the devils thirst!
the law was going to get me but the devil got me first!"

oh my i'm tired. the end.

art shows, space girls, and aliens

2008-01-25T10:38:00.000-08:00

so if you havn't heard from me in a wile it's because i've been working on putting this together

the opening was last night. it was good. i am tired. the book launch is on the 16th. oh my god. i have soo much work to do.

yesterday i carried Fredrick down to the cameron house on my shoulders. man he's heavier than he looks. and speaking of looks i got a few wandering around downtown with a giant pink bear. i set him up on the piano.

weeks of work spent hunting down and hounding our elusive Monday night crowd of sketchy's sketchers, culminated in this group show of the strange and erotic art produced at, or inspired by, Dr Sketcy's anti art school - Toronto faction.

we manged to hang most of the work about 70 pieces from 15 different artists, we still have 7 more to hang. at least it will be much easier to take down than it was to put up.

our model, the absolutely adorable Pricilla Pussycat, performed her space girl routine; a slow motion strip tease in space to David Bowie's "Major Tom"

our model, the ever fabulous, Christabel arrived as a walking piece of art.

at then end of the night we got together with Fredrick on stage. dr sketchy's line up; Brynne Kenedy our 'mazing photographer, our models - Christabel and Pricilla Pussycat, and finally the organizers, artists, and sometimes models Katherine Piro and Brett Despotovich.

2007-12-18T01:18:00.000-08:00

Well I was watching cartoons with some friends one of them reminded me that I had promised to sell prints from my SPLINTER show. I had, of course, completely forgotten that i had actually printed some out, and after digging around in the studio i found them.

Earlier today Brett and I had gone out to the Labyrinth to look at comics and picked up a print with bunnies, on the verge of doom, by Bobby Chiu look at it here. http://www.denbompa.be/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/bobbychiu.jpg
but if you are my little brother don't look at it, because it's your Christmas present.
anyway looking at other peoples art makes me want to draw stuff myself so i spent the rest of the day sketching. I worked on two more of the lovely Nina Arsenault. she snuck off the page a little.

Well drawing her beautifully androgynous shoulders I realized that I had not drawn men in a long time.

and after attempting to draw them, I realized that I was very very out of practice, I've forgotten the patterns of their bodies.

Women are so much easier to draw.
Today I was also experimenting with cut-outs

and made some cute little images of Kiew, the Toronto Sketchy's mascot.

feeling bad, gotta draw.

2007-12-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Been feeling sick and depressed. So I decided to spend
some time with my illicit lover; Sherlock Holmes.
However at the same time I really wanted to draw and
that's kinda hard to do with a massive tome of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's collected works sitting on my lap.
but low and behold! You Tube was the answer to my
problems as they had several Sherlock Holmes episodes
uploaded, albeit in pieces, with the most beautiful man
in the world (Jeremy Brett) playing the role of Sherlock
Holmes. So I was able to kick back and draw In my
lovers company.

what i mainly worked on were my Dr Sketchy drawings,
from the last three sessions.

Priscilla Pussycat

Anastasia

Nina Arsenault

oh yeah and my piece "Mina" was voted best in show at the
Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art Show in New York city. yay me.

Mina

2007-11-18T22:02:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything here in a wile.
the truth is i forgot about this thing.
anyway, here are some of the drawings
from my nights at Dr. Sketchy's anti-art school.

Check out my work in Novembers Flare Magazine

2007-10-18T11:34:00.001-07:00

I was emailed out of the blue a little wile ago by
photographer Chris Nicholls. He was doing a
shoot for Flare Magazine and was in need of an
artist to do art deco inspired chalk murals in the
background. He had looked up "Toronto artists"
on Google but hadn't found anything exciting
when a guy he used to work with gave him my
name. I am still not sure who he is but he seems
to be a friend of a friend of a friend of mine.
which is awesome. anyway they looked up my
website and were impressed y my work which is
heavily inspired by art deco and art neuvo. when
he told me what they wanted i was stuck by the
fact that they couldn't have found anyone more
suited to the job. last summer i was working for
mural artist Chris Jolly, drawing the large chalk
mural adds for Absolut Vodka. This job was even
more fun because i had free reign over what I
was drawing.

I put up a starter mural, then when the model
changed costume I erased a big chunk of it and
drew something else. i spent all day running up
and down a ladder and getting covered in chalk
dust. it was great, also they fed me, and everyone
working on the shoot was extremely pleasant.

The model, Maria, who towered over me in her
heels, she reminded me of my friend Sarah
Gonek Zar. She had the model face on for the
pictures but when the camera was off her she
smiled and rolled her eyes and was 100 times
more beautiful.

After this picture was taken, Chris sat looking at it
on the monitor, then he suddenly blurted out

"does it look like she has bunny ears?!"

Look I totally have a credit in a glossy magazine ^
...maybe it's too small to read. but it's there.

For this picture Chris told me to degrade the image
as much as possible so I erased it till I thought it
looked good and he told me to erase it more. so
I erased more of it, and he told me to erase it even
more so I erased most of it this was at the end of
the day so the chalk dust had turned the wall gray.
after even more erasing he finally took the picture.
and the background was too degraded. So I went
back in and sharpened bits of it and the picture
turned out to be my favorite one.

i wish more jobs would come along like this one. it was so much fun.

for better pictures go here

2007-10-11T19:48:00.001-07:00

well i was state side staying with my friend Sarah Zar Gonek, she told me about little voodoo dolls she used to make out of wax with open circles for heads and on the inside of the circle she put human teeth. this seemed like a cool visual for me and since i'll use any excuse to make a monster with teeth in it i started making my own versions of these dolls. the most successful one i left with Sarah but here are two new ones.

also i have been slowly building an Isz, out of foam and black velvet, eventualy it will be a purse as inspired by Sarah Jane Reynolds and her ugly bunny creations. i carry a blue monkey made by her, with an extra touch; teeth made by me.

for the past couple days i have been studio assisting Christy Langer

in preparation for her show in November. i know how to paint and sculpt but she is showing me the casting and finishing techniques i need to learn if i am going to get started on my next body of work.

also blogger is one of the most annoying sites to upload images to.

artist's block.

2007-10-03T14:57:00.001-07:00

for the past wile since i've been home i have been trying to spend my time drawing. whether or not i feel like it. this means i have new things to post but it doesn't mean they are anything good. i am not happy with them.

in fact at the moment i hate them. i will have to hide them from myself for a wile and take them out again when i've forgotten that i was the one that made them. then maybe i'll look at them with a freindlier eye. right now they feel a bit to 70's story book. wich isn't bad if you're into that kind of thing... and i am into that kind of thing but still i was hoping to come up with something better. maybe i'm not getting anything good done because i want to work on my comic book. wich i can't work on at the moment because i don't have all the materials yet. or maybe it's just heart burn.

every body's doing it

2007-09-30T20:26:00.001-07:00

I've decided to create an art journal.
I've kept journals in the past but they have mainly been dedicated to keeping track of what has actually happened to me and to keep it separated from what is illusion. This journal will instead focused on the illusion and the unreality that I make tangible. This journal is not really about me but the beautiful, monstrous things inside my head that I will pull out into this world.

I am putting together my illustration portfolio. This is one of the most recent exercises I've done to motivate my self.