Of the hundreds of head sketches done in Bars; Night Clubs; Beat nick  hangouts; all night restaurants and the Intercity Bus Terminal,  this is one of the few remaining. 

It was done (late at night, in the Coffee Lodge on Bank St. ),  using a  blue ink ball-point pen on a blank sheet in the back of an art book - that's probably why it survived.  I had just begun to think of the head in block terms but did not yet realize the significance of such conceptualization. Maybe some of the tips I got from local portrait artists In conjunction with my commercial art studies  were beginning to sink in.

This sketch was also done in the same place and around the same time as "The Mayor of Bank St."

I am using mainly planes to create form.  What to me is really interesting about this sketch is that I look like I know what I am doing but, I  have not yet become conscious of the role of planes in art and that limits my  creativity.  

I don't have enough theoretical knowledge. That understanding will take another twenty years.  

My fascination with figure ground relationships, (modernistically referred to as - positive and negative space - a phrase that contributes nothing to the understanding of form),  show up in this small sketch.

artist's mannequin: extended study: charcoal on newsprint 

I believe that working from the live nude has been overrated. You can learn much more about creating form by drawing from the mannequin.  

Chess players argue that you should not play chess with fancy pieces, you tend to become emotionally attached to them and  interferes with your objective thinking.  

The same applies to drawing. Work with  the live nude only after you have learned the simplified  structure because the artist must move between subjective and objective modes of experience.

Life Class: Female Nude: extended study: charcoal on newsprint 
32in x 24in 

I have  begun to conceptualize the nude into an under structure of block forms. You can sense the flat stomach area and you can sense the rib cage structure . The right thigh is like a massive beam welded to the pelvic bowl. 

I was not yet conscious of these form unit conceptualizations and thus had no compositional control over them.  It will take  almost two more decades to bring the concepts into  consciousness.

I am making use of a tonal plan in relation to flat planes, but it is still guess work.  I  have not yet figured out  the importance of line; plane and point nor do I know how to integrate them into a composition.  

I am as they say "flying blind", a talented amateur with some training.

My first zinc etching, very linear in style. 
I am trying for star-burst like gesture with delicate petals easly twisted by currents of air. 

The iris is opening up which acts  a rebirth metaphor. 
 
 
 
 

Original sketch done in reverse. The arrows in this sketch shows the main gesture lines upon which I overlayed the petals and pistols.. 

I cannot place enough emphases upon the idea that you start from a system of energy flows and subordinate your shapes; colours; textures; lines; tones and forms to these energy flows into a system of relationships. 

I had never before seen barns with earth banked on three sides and found this most unusual.

This is a more distant view and expresses my fascination with  the picturesque coast line and  rocks in the foreground. 

In this drawing I used more variety of planes; lines and points. Note the foreground rock mass and texture created with lines. 

I found my gesture sketch, (5in x 8in),  among some old papers and have included it to show how I applied nested ovids to establish the pictorial movement. 

Remember the Greeks designed by centers, (eg. golden section), and the Renascence introduced design by line. I use both concepts  as a compositional dialectic. 

This drawing makes use of form building by plane; line and point.  I am trying to express through the weathered scarring of the rocks and the smallness of the lighthouse that human characteristic that refuses to be beaten by nature's power. 

My son played the acoustic bass. I can still remember the music sounds texturizing the air causing great swells of fluid movement around the mixture of  the musically indifferent and the musically moved audience members. There were also those who shifted  between moved and indifferent as the sexual energy between them varried. 

Eventuall this will be worked up into a painting. 

This is a linear composition that incorporated string instruments and the  human voice as a sound only instrument. 

I was thinking of Easter Island when I composed the head that anaministically merges with the violin.

If you look closely you will notice that this linear composition tricks the eye. The bow is divided into two parts that come very close but don't touch. The bow is not connected to the mouse area.

My son played acoustic double bass for a group called the "Unbeatables", they  combined jazz and poetry appealing mainly to university students. 

I took a few very small sketch notes on site and used them as source material to feed my imagination.  I like to bring the outside world images into my mind and work from the images my  mind comes up with. 

Note the building of forms with lines and planes as well as my points of articulation. 

jordan o'connor's Cash Cow  "voted by the national post as no. one jazz cd of 2000" leads to my son Jordan's web site. If I am going to use him and his friends in my sketches then I have to link to them.

I take the bus to and from work and  I could not resist thinking about the images of people and their clothes that change over the four seasons. 

I wanted to use simple forms and colour to experiment with the separation theme. The compositional problem was to maintain unity even though the field was divided in half down the center. I think it ended up with enough shape and colour  variety between sameness and difference elements to maintain pictorial interest and yet express the thematic idea of separate and  together. 

In both these studies I am tending to use pure colour in the shadows and enclose various parts of the bodies by line and colour. 

Second Study: 
6.5in x 5.5in

I had gone to The Kanata Theatre and watched the audience reaction to a play titled "Cemetary Club". The play centers round three womem helping each other continue  life after the departure of their soul mates. This coloured pencil drawing is part of my notes for a future painting.

My objective in this drawing was to take a set of fixed shapes / forms that were originally used to design Greek and Roman vases                                                                        and use them to construct an image that had human characteristics.  

I was pushing the boundries of traditional human  representation by seeing how far  I could deviate and still retain a human like quality. There is more creative freedom in pushing the boundries than in trying to constantly imitate. (see: art / composition) 

Second Shape:  Shape head 
5in x 6in 

From my note book 

From My Sketch Book :  1999 
Saturday Night Jazz 
Ottawa  Ont  Canada 

Sustained pencil drawing from site notes. 

This is a reworking of a 1995 sketch. My son was playing acoustic bass in a small jazz group in an Ottawa: Market area,  Night Spot. This is one of my earlier attempts to use planes lines and points to go beyond visual appearance and create a graphic equivalent of emotion. 

Every morning and every evening I make a small sketch from imagination, (even if it's only a stick figure, which sometimes it is). This routine  allows me to keep my hand exercised.  It also means that I face that blank page twice daily and it is not as difficult as it once was. 

I am using lines to build form, but note the planes which are similar to those used in my 1970 sketch above. The light / shadow tonal relationship in the arms are too wide tending to jump around, but normally no one sees these quick sketches.