In my bed, after the war

Drawn from life with a pencil on a piece of primed cardboard. I have no idea how long it took, but she was able to hold up the glass of wine for the whole thing.

Emily

Drawn from life in about five minutes at the Arts Project in London, Ontario.

again, tomorrow

you have to try

Amy's head

Seven faces of Amy, each drawn with a china marker in a minute or two.

Dreaming of Denton Welch. Sad dreams.

tarragonsmith.com

Siena by night

An iconic view of the cathedral of the Tuscan hill-town of Siena. I did this well after dark, sitting adjacent to the barn-like church of San Domenico.

The glory of Siena is its uniform red-brick, all but unchanged from the 13th and fourteenth centuries. The visual immersion of such an urban environment, in which walls, roads, paths, and houses are all the same organic hue, is completely alien to the North American city experience, with its grey geometries of concrete and asphalt.

Not that any of that is visible in a night picture, of course. But the ordered chaos that carries Siena over its three hills is apparent. Almost every floor is at the level of someone else's roof.

The bookish type

tarragonsmith.com

Sent from elsewhere

eyes on target

red hair, white wall

A snapshot at Tarragon's studio.

the poet

kara

Fortezza di Basso

A drawing made with red ink and a dip pen, of the monumental Fortezza di Basso in Florence, Italy. I sat outside the walls and let myself get lost in their detail. The effect was a bit overwhelming, much like the fortress itself.

The name, di Basso, signifies simply the lower fortress, to distinguish it from the Belvedere fortress atop the hill to the south of the city. If you draw a line between the two, you cover most of Florence's downtown, significant sites, and public spaces. This is not a co-incidence; the Lower Fortress was built less to keep out enemies than to overawe the citizens of a city that had, already, exiled its ruling family multiple times.

When Cosimo di Medici built the Fortezza di Basso, he wanted to be sure that never happened again. He was successful, but in the process saw the reduction of the great Renaissance city to a police state. It never recovered its old effervescence.

The fortress's walls are unusual; they are faced with solid stone, but every second block is carved into an extruding bulge or hemisphere. This has no military function, but instead evokes the six balls on the coat of arms of the Medici family. They didn't want anyone to forget who was boss.

Danielle in Montrichard

A quick drawing of Danielle, done on a hot July day in France.

Rough sketch of the Regent's Canal

Tarragon sometimes uses the iPad to rough out concepts for new work: this is a small digital version of what will be a woodblock print about 18" high.

last one standing

“Keep me rather in this cage, and feed me sparingly, if you dare."

Rachel's lovers left marks all over her body.

Drawn from life in about 15 minutes, using markers and crayons.

man alive

caroline

Russian style

Faye channels a part from Doctor Zhivago.

Courtney

Hannah

A quick sketch of Hannah. It was a good day for gesture drawing.

The Young Curator

I started carving this back in October and I all but gave up on it as it dawned on me just how long it would take to completely clear it.  Luckily I started with the hardest part, so when a light router with a quarter inch shank and a sorry excuse for a height adjustment wolly sprocket, which had a broken flim flam almost immediately, came my way, (I bought it actually) I started the tedious and now rather loud and dusty process of finishing the carving.

To start to finish something is a fine feeling and I felt feeling fine for a good three months until lo; recently, this is the final result, more or less.

It is carved on a two by four sheet of a very nice birch ply.  Birch ply is what gets used when times are tough, but it is a tough timber to tackle and does not do fine detail very well.  Also, one needs to be more aware of carving direction when using it.

tarragonsmith.com

puzzling questions not beyond all conjecture

Sake cups, part two...

What do we want from ceramics? "A degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito."
So said Junichiro Tanizaki. Of course, he was talking about toilets - but then, porcelain is a kind of ceramic itself.
I think the dimness is important. Things that are shiny do not encourage contemplation, which is the opposite of hypnotism. You need a bit of grain or spot to concentrate the attention. A bit of patina to make it look serious.
Of course, as Tanizaki says, the sheen of patina is only the glow of grime. All those oils left by fingers and more fingers. It's how cups should look maybe, until eventually the grime is indistinguishable from a lustrous polish.

Junichiro Tanizaki took a break in 1933 from writing about sexual obsessions to give us a short essay on aesthetics, In Praise of Shadows. The title sums up the contents.

Tarragon made these sake cups in a studio in London, England. You can see others here.

tarragonsmith.com

Cameron

Barbara knows

New sake cups

tarragonsmith.com

In my head

A small portrait of Steve, done with markers and directional lighting.

yours for the day

Clissold Park

We ended up at the park since the train to Kew Gardens was not running.  A very fine warm day which I don't appear to have caught in the slightest.

tarragonsmith.com

Sara

Drawn from life in about 15 minutes with a Copic brush marker.

Winter Malaise

tarragonsmith.com

NCO of the 17th Lancers

I felt like drawing some soldiers in the striking uniforms of the 19th century. This is a sketch for a coloured illustration - the final version will be similar in style to my earlier picture of a mounted officer of the same regiment.

This drawing depicts a non-commisioned officer of the British 17th Lancers - one of the regiments of the Light Brigade who made such an unfortunate charge in the Crimean War of 1853-56. He's not so fancily dressed, as it turned out - this is the uniform worn into combat.

It was drawn with pencil and micron markers on a strip of brown butcher's paper.

Who's a lonely pony....

Which led me to the sinister reflection that a horse that rides no shadow carries a cruel companion.

tarragonsmith.com

Laura

A one minute headshot.

Try Not To Complain

An oil pastel I had the whim to make a few nights ago.  The lips are on the reverse side of the translucent film I used.

tarragonsmith.com

Amy down the line

Amy drawn from life at the Arts Project on Dundas Street in London, Ontario.

Sleep Well My Lovely

touch everything you destroy

The new woodcut

Three proofs freshly made.

Aerial Knife

College band Aerial Knife played at the Grad Club at the University of Western Ontario; I was in the audience.

Flesh Eating Boki are populating Katherine's dreams of late...

She is on her way to TEFAF, so is it little wonder?

Perhaps the little fellow is being misrepresented.  And yet.....

tarragonsmith.com

A black night in Venice

"Venice often makes one feel loneliness. It does not console and does not enlighten like Florence or Rome… And the water! The water strangely fetters and absorbs all thoughts, just as it absorbs all sounds here, and an extremely proofed silence lies upon one's heart."  -Pavel Muratov, The Images of Italy, 1911.

A small painting in gouache and watercolour, done by night in Venice. This picture highlights one of the great problems of on-site painting at night: not that you can't see your subject, since an atmospheric picture is the point, but that you can't see the colours on your palette.

The Little Sister

another drinker

Some girls get no breaks

tarragonsmith.com

I wish you would