Birds and the Bees Show - Opening Night

Thank you for everyone who came out to the opening reception on friday night. Special thanks to those who supported the fundraiser and bought a print or an original. Great seeing familiar faces again as well as meeting new ones. Thanks for the great comments about my piece and especially to those who bought a print. The 10 limited edition giclee prints are almost gone. Email me (info [at] peterchanart.com) if you still want one. Work is still up at the gallery as well as the online gallery right now.

Here are some photos from the show.

Beenoculars Drawing - Limited edition Giclees

The giclees came in today.

For the 'Birds and the Bees' show, i have made limited edition Giclees for the 'Beenoculars' drawing i posted earlier. These prints will be available at the show for a very affordable price. They are high quality archival print on 90 lbs Arches Watercolor paper. 11'' x 14'' each.

This edition is the first limited edition print run from me. Limited to only 10 copies. Signed and numbered.
They will be available at the show Friday night and possibly online.

Beenoculars

Title: Beenoculars
Medium: Pencil and Gesso on Stonehenge Paper
Size: 11''x14''

"And that's why birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love"

Concept and idea: Inspired and based on the birds and the bees original meaning, where children learn about sex and pregnancy. I decided to use the notion of the voyeur, using binoculars to show curiosity. The birds and the bees are pollinating the flowers to show life giving. What is he doing with a bee-nocular? The mystery about this piece is, you are not sure who or where he is looking at. Is it the birds and the bees, or is it you, the viewer? Or maybe he is looking at a very pretty girl his age, or not, what do you think?

This piece will be exhibited at the birds and the bees show at Jerome Jenner Gallery this friday (March 20) along with many other amazing illustrators/artists from the industry. All art work will be up for sale for a good cause to raise money for the graduating class of 4th year illustration students at Sheridan College. I am in the process of having some giclee prints made of this for the show. I will post more about that later as it gets near. Anyways, come by and mingle, have a drink, and enjoy art if you are in the area!

Upcoming Birds and the Bees Show

I am very honoured and excited to have been invited to participate in this upcoming group show. Will be my first time exhibiting at the Jerome Jenner Gallery.

Information about this show:
The Sheridan Illustration Council proudly presents the Birds and the Bees Fundraiser Group show. The show features work from Sheridan alumni and faculty, consisting of well-known and emerging illustrators belonging to the fields of illustration, fine arts, comics, and much more. The hopes are to be able to raise funds to help put on a successful year-end show for the 4th year graduating class.

The show will offer collectors and new buyers the opportunity to acquire original artwork from renowned illustrators, and a chance for them to help support the next generation illustration stars.

Sheridan Illustration Council and Jerome Jenner Gallery Presents
THE BIRDS AND THE BEES FUNDRAISER SHOW
Opening Reception: MARCH 20, 2009 (7PM – 11PM)
Admission is free. Refreshments and music provided.

Artists
Kathryn Adams
Clemente Botelho
Chris Brett
Michael Byers
Mark Cabuena
Harvey Chan
Peter Chan
Chad Covino
Amanda Duffy
Jeff Garcia
Josiah Gordon
Rachel Gordon
Clayton Hanmer
Ian Herring
Nataly Kim
Anita Kunz
Hyein Lee
Kagan Mcleod
Vicki Nerino
Roben Nieuwland
Jose Ortega
Rey Ortega
Eric Overton
Kyung Soon Park
Benjamin Rivers
Graham Roumieu
Pete Ryan
Rick Sealock
Thom Sevalrud
Fiona Smyth
Gary Taxale
Jon Todd
Rosemary Travale
Elise Trinh
Alexei Vella
Brittany Wilson
Martin Wittfooth

Facebook Event group

Check out this site for more info, artwork will be uploaded for preview there on saturday/sunday
http://birdsandbeesshow.wordpress.com/ Once its up, i will also post my piece here on the blog.
All artwork will be available for sale.

Halohalo

Had the chance to go to the Halo Halo launch event on friday night. Fun times.
Congrads to my buddy Jeff Garcia for the launch, also great performances by 663A crew as always.

Check out halohalo here at halohalo.ca

Here are some pictures of the event.
A night of music, art, and fun.

albireo Sketchbook, bits of watercolour studies

Happy New Year everyone! Late but never too late...its still January.

Thought I'd post some of these unfinished drawings/studies from 2008.

Those who know me know that I am a sketchbook junkie..well maybe not junkie..but I remember someone telling me 'everytime i see you in lifedrawing, you are like using a dif sketchbook..lol'..i guess it suits me well...

Anyways, there are quite a few different kinds of sketchbooks i've bought last year and they are still empty..looking forward to try some of these and fill them up this year.

Finally started this 'albireo' sketchbook i got while I was in Japan in May 2008. So far so good, its a great sketchbook as you can peel out the pages easily, so if you don't like a piece, it is easily removable :)
































These are mostly life studies etc, the first is a 30min to 40 min i think..in acrylic, the 2nd one are 20-25 mins watercolour, and the nude is 20 mins i think, i remember painting frantically to finish that one. hehe

New year resolutions:
-paint paint paint and draw
-finish some good illustrations with meaningful concepts
-continue to learn cooking, maybe make some good quality stuff by end of the year..haha
-continue workout, keeping motivated
-finish reading these books i have in mind...

...I guess thats all for now, lets see if they will stick.

Thank you.

This year is about to end for many of us. And before it ends, I just want to say thank you to everyone. It was an interesting year. It was quite a roller-coaster, i might add. Ups and downs on and off. For many, there is the election, and the economy crisis. This year definitely felt pretty long compared to the rest, and now lets just wish for a better year to come.

For me, one special part of this year was the Japan Exchange in Osaka.

And for this experience, I want to thank my Japanese friends and my homestay for creating a very special experience during my stay in Japan.. it was very special and the memories will always stay. Even though the exchange has been over for quite a few months now, some of those memories have still stayed closely. When I came back to Canada, I was very refreshed. I can't wait to see a lot of you guys again when I come back to Japan someday!

Also thank you everyone else who has been supporting and simply being around and all that.
Lets hope 2009 will be an even better year!

Hope you guys all had a great Christmas and I sincerely wish everyone a happy new year!

And to my Japanese friends who may be reading the blog,

メリークリスマス, 明けましておめでとうございます!

More lifedrawings & Studies

Here are some more colour lifedrawings and painting studies. Some of them are short poses about 2 - 5 mins paint gestures and others are longer studies ranging from about 15-30 minutes.

I've always wanted to try using acrylic in shorter poses for lifedrawings, its really tough and I have to mix my paint frantically..haha..but its fun with all the pressure, you also don't know when the pose will change since its in such a short time. It makes me think how I can paint fast and get down as much as I can before the pose changes.






























Check out my friend Lettie too she has some nice acrylic studies as well

Lifedrawings?

Its been a long time since I've posted lifedrawings. Usually I just post paintings and illustrations. Recently, I wanted to use lifedrawing as a way of warm up before I start my daily work/routines and keeping the drawing and painting alive in me. I am currently working on ideas at the same time for my next batch of paintings. So this is great to loosen up and keep myself warmed up while I work on other things.

I've been into exploring tone, colour and energy. So here are some lifedrawings from the last few weeks.

These are all studies with chalk pastels and/or charcoal. Its been really fun to play with.
These are also a range from short studies of gestures 2 min, 5min to longer poses where I can use some colour 15mins, 20mins and 30 mins.

Less Fruitcake.. @ T and P Gallery

Going to be a part of a show in Philadelphia, really happy and excited to be part of this one, it will be my first real group show in the 'low brow' type gallery. To be showing with talents like Angry Woebots, Scott Musgrove, Dan May, etc is my humble pleasure. Thank you to T & P Gallery for this awesome opportunity.

Hopefully more of these to come in the next year. Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I have been busy with work and trying out new methods of working. I will post more about those soon. Looking forward to new things.
Feel free to drop by the show if you are in the area. Opening night is Dec 5th.













Would've loved to do more piece for this show but I just got too busy this past month, so I will have one painting for the show. One that I previously featured..












"Rebirth of Adam" oil on wood 6x9

'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies and Tessar Lo

Earlier, i mentioned about this law and to people who wrote to voice their concerns.
Thanks to to everyone who helped make a difference, the orphan works bill is dead now.



I also wanted to mention that my friend Tessar Lo's two-person show at Roq La Rue is coming up soon!

Loving his work, and the emotions that comes with it.

Tessar Lo/Roq La Rue Preview from Modus Films on Vimeo.

The show opens on November 7th and is entitled "my love, it's on we".

NYC Vinyl Record Exhibition

I'll be in an upcoming vinyl record show at gallery APW in New York City. Opening reception is October 3rd, 2008.










It was really fun painting on a Vinyl Record. I remember working on a Record Album for a show earlier this year, but this is a first time I ever painted on a Vinyl Record.

Anyways heres the beginning of the Record










and the final... (sorry its not the best image to show the piece, but I didn't had a scanner while I was working on this in NYC)

'Womb of Nature' Acrylic and Oil on Vinyl Record 12x12

Update!!! Silkscreening and NYC!

Sorry guys, been away for a bit.

Lots to update on...also a lot of things in progress...some upcoming things to prepare for..etc.

I've just recently finished a course by the amazing Jeff Garcia on silkscreening. Hes a great silkscreen artist/teacher in the Toronto area..love his work. It was great to finally get my hands dirty and try silkscreening...it was always something i wanted to learn...took the course with my friends Hieng and Lettie.

Here are some of the results..of the class..was fun! (Photos are courtesy of Lettie's blog)


















































And heres a shirt design I did, had 12 of these shirts available for sale at the NYC convention and its now sold out!! Thanks to all who came out and bought a shirt! Also thanks to my friend Hieng for silkscreening em and selling them at his booth! A second batch of shirts will be in the works.























Anyways, the past 2 weeks have been pretty busy, but it was all good fun. Went to Atlanta 2 weeks ago and just returned from New York City yesterday.

One of the highlights of my New York trip was meeting one of my favourite game design/animation illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, a illustrator legend for the famous Final Fantasy series and the Vampire Hunter D series. Also had the pleasure to meet Hideyuki Kikuchi, the writer of Vampure Hunter D and last but not least the iron chef of japan, Masaharu Morimoto.

Things I had them sign in respective order.. Amano, Kikuchi, Morimoto

amazing

Today, some of my good friends are having a show at project:gallery. They do some amazing things. Its a fresh faces show of these four up and coming artists. Really excited for them, while I was in LA, saw them work on those pieces in the studio and it was inspiring to see.

Natural Affinity (work in progress)

Here is another piece I am working on right now. Concept is again nature x human interaction and the idea of life and energy giving from our natural environment.

Here is the defined drawing and the first layer of acrylics + colored inks... working a bit differently this time, instead of painting on wood with oils and acrylics like most of the other pieces i've done, I decided to experiment a bit and try painting on paper again..

Fun stuff...I'll post more wip on this piece soon or the final...