2 women

From the daily sketchbook, done with a china marker.

I know where the summer goes

A recent oil painting by Tarragon.

Tarragon with the complete works of Frederick Seidel

It's always one book or another.

Keyhole Sessions: Flower Girl

Drawn with various markers at the Toronto Keyhole Session last June. It took around 15 minutes, I think.

Early one Thursday evening

My friend Frances, sitting on the porch one evening before going to the Gladstone. The book is by Stephen Pinker, I think.

It was done with a micron technical pen, in something like 15 minutes.

sketchbook page

Autoritratto

An oldish self-portrait, done with acrylics on cardboard. I did it from life, using the narrow vanity mirror built into a dressing cabinet.

I'm wearing in the picture what was my favourite sweater at the time, but I lost it to a thief on the train between Milan and Bologna.

Back to school

The Boboli Koffeehaus

I always feel that there's something sinister about Rococo architecture - as if all the refined prettiness and airy hues must be concealing something horrible. Much, I suppose, the way a candy-coated gingerbread house always suggests a child-murdering witch.

Anyway, this is a small picture of the coffee pavilion in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. It was done with magic markers, pencil, and acrylic paints on canvas.

A fragment

A drawing from the daily sketchbook, done on a slightly damaged page.

Wrapped up in red

It's Reinisa again, curled up in a blanket. I don't recall whether she was in fact cold (which wouldn't be surprising) or she just wanted a prop.

It was done with markers in something like ten minutes.

Irises

A quick watercolour still-life. I came across these in the park adjacent to viale Michelangelo in Florence.

Life is full of disappointments

The Cunning Man

A drawing done from life in about 15 minutes.

Saint Croix

Another church, this time in France. It's the ancient parish church of the town of Montrichard, a romanesque structure tucked under the towering castle erected by Foulques Nerra, the Black Falcon, a man so entertainingly evil he deserves his own novel (or two) plus a mini-series. The castle is 11th century, and no doubt the original church was too, but what you see in the picture probably dates from a century later.

It got its name (Église Ste-Croix) from a fragment of the true cross brought back from Jerusalem by Foulques Nerra, on one of his three pilgrimages to the city. He had a lot of repenting to do.


The picture is one of the first etchings I ever made, back in 2001 at the Ontario College of Art and Design. It's quite small, about four by six inches.

Modesty comes before a fall

Waverley Abbey

The decrepit remnants of Waverley Abbey, once the richest monastic house in all England. Its main church, dedicated to the Virgin, was one of the largest in the country at almost 91 metres long. The associated structures - dormitories, cloister, the all-important brewhouse - covered 24 hectares, sheltered in the valley of the river Wey.

Of all that, only a few heaps of stone survive, plus the vaulted refectory you can see in the picture. Sic transit gloria, etc. When Henry VIII disolved the monastic houses of England, the fabric of the Abbey was recycled into the new houses of local worthies. Some of those are still with us and are pleasant enough.

These days, the site is embellished by an array of WWII era static fortification - part of the inland lines devised against the expected German invasion. There's also a rather sombre 18th century mansion looming over the river. In short, a nice place to sit and draw, or just to poke around.

I like it tough

The Red Gloves

In which a snappy dresser of my acquaintance stops to look at something on McCaul street. I think it's a motorcycle. Whatever it is, it's not in the picture.

It's a drawing done with three colours and many sizes of marker, intended as a design for a future lino- or woodcut. The drawing is about ten inches tall. As a lino, I think it may end up a bit bigger.

I was listening to Mylène Farmer and the Dum Dum Girls while making it. I don't think that really comes through.

2 Men

at the airport, waiting for the delayed American Airlines flight from JFK.

A Red Skirt

A quick painting done with acrylics on cheap photocopy paper. I taped down the margins to prevent the paper from buckling and never untaped them.

A model who sleeps without tossing and turning is a priceless resource.

Clear your brain

Sometimes I find myself drawing someone who is clearly suffering. And after I've finished drawing, I wonder whether I should do something to help. But what, exactly? And the fact is, having to deal with the solicitude of random strangers has rarely helped anyone.

Being drawn is poor therapy, except for the supremely narcissistic.

Tuscan Panorama: San Appiano

Back in July I posted a watercolour of the ruins of the baptistry at San Appiano. My work on that picture was interrupted by the sudden arrival of snow. But I was still in the area the next day, which was considerably warmer.

Here we have a broader view of the area. The old church where I was sitting the previous day is concealed by a pile of cypresses, but the orange-red patch a third of the way from the right-hand margin is the roof of an adjacent building.

cafe sketchbook

The loneliness of the mid-day luncher

A man and his bun. Drawn in an Italian deli in Mississauga, Ontario.

Reinisa strikes a pose

Reinisa, one of our favourite models, combined charm and wit with the poise and imagination of a dancer. She's flown away to the west, and is much missed.

This drawing was done from life in about ten minutes with two colours of marker.

Chateau Barben

I apparently sketched this - from my bicycle - at 3:16pm, on May 18th. In 2004, if I recall correctly. It's a castle in Provence which I passed on my way to Salon-de-Provence from Cadenet in the Durance Valley. I dimly recollect a long ride amidst Roman ruins and the prevailing scents of lavender and rosemary. With, perhaps, a hint of labdanum. A good day.

Re: the castle, my notes say:
"original castle prior to c.1000, Property of St.Victor [a monastery in Marseille]. Acquired by King Rene, who sold it to the Forgin family, who still own it? They enlarged it in the 14th and 17th century, [but] the round tower was enlarged after the 1909 earthquake."

Which is clearly wrong, since King Rene was not alive in the 14th century. I must have meant the 1400s, and in fact the sale took place in 1474. Wikipedia (en Français) tells me that the same family does indeed still own the castle, although not, sadly, what they're currently doing with it.

old self-portrait

I was ten years younger when I drew this. I think it shows.

monochrome memory

In a cafe, with a china marker. As usual.

Still life on the iPad

Tarragon fingerpainted this still life using the brushes app on the iPad.

3 figures at table

Outside in downtown Toronto.

Becca takes the initiative

What could go wrong?

The Priest

I spied the priest in a lecture theatre, listening intently to a talk on medieval medicine.

Breakfast for One

A recent drawing in pen, markers, and pastel.

As for narrative, it's a morning after picture. I could say more, but there's a poem that suits it:

Blue, blue is the grass about the river
And the willows have overfilled the close garden.
And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth,
White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door.
Slender, she puts forth a slender hand;

And she was a courtezan in the old days,
And she has married a sot,
Who now goes drunkenly out
And leaves her too much alone.

It's Pound's The Beautiful Toilette, a very free adaptation of a poem by Mei Sheng (枚乘, died 140 B.C.  Not, of course, to be confused with Mei Sheng (美生) the well-known Panda). The poem first appeared  in Pound's Cathay in 1915.

That new computer smell

Denise was so enthralled with her new computer that I had every chance to draw her. It really was a nice machine. Of course it waited only for the warranty to expire before giving up the ghost for good.

I will rule you

Impromtu in red, white and blue

I did this small character piece twelve years ago, back when I could barely afford canvas. The method was simple: I did a moderately detailed drawing in pencil from the model, and then worked very rapidly with acrylic on top.

Although frangible and awkwardly textured, the disposable nature of cardboard does encourage experimentation. Nor is it necessary to dispose of it. I still have this picture, over a decade later.

The young professor

Robert Bentley

I used a technical pen (and a computer) to make this drawing of the artist, martial artist, and fearsome autodidact Robert Bentley.

I recently attended the launch of his ambitious new art project A Thousand Lines, A Thousand Drawings, which should keep even a man as prolific as Robert busy for a while.

The book in the drawing is Pinker's Language Instinct, if I recall correctly. I posted another, much more spontaneous, drawing of Rob back in the winter.

Some consolations.

The orchard at Settignano

Settignano is a village just north-east of Florence, famous for the villa I Tatti - once the home of Bernard Berenson and now Harvard's centre for renaissance studies - and also for quarries. The villa is visible in another small etching, here.

The orchard in this picture is down the hill from the village proper. And I was walking, for a change, not cycling.

This is a tiny etching - the image is only about an inch tall.

my boredom is bigger than your boredom

Pale Flowers, Dark Heath

Looking down at Withies Lane over a field of flowers. It would make a good illustration to a story by M.R. James, I think.

It's another view of the wee village of Compton in the south of England. I made it this past May with a variety of markers.

longing is better than having.

bleak alley

An alleyway in Florence. It's easy to forget how hostile life in the city could be.

A quick sketch done with water-soluble ink and a dip pen.

so hard.

A ruin in Tuscany

All that remains of the ancient baptistry at San Appiano is a ring of rough pillars on the grass. They've been there for a thousand years or more, although until an earthquake in the early 19th century they were not quite so freestanding.

I settled down to paint them a few years back, in early April. But the cloud you can see in the picture was rapidly advancing, and before I knew it there were snowflakes mingling with my watercolours. Tuscany is warm, yes, but it's also high. So I got up and biked off to find shelter, and never did get a chance to finish the picture.

Echo and Narcissus

Tarragon has a penchant for classical mythology. And blue.

Something Suitable