Farewell, Toronto School of Art

Unfortunately an era of enjoyment and learning has come to an end, as Toronto School of Art has closed down. I am grateful for the time I spent there, and wish the very best to the many artists and teachers whom I met through the open life drawing workshops. What follows are some sketches from the last few sessions I attended at TSA.

From August, finally getting around to posting 'em

Sketching at the AGO

Went to the Art Gallery of Ontario yesterday and did some random sketching. I would eventually like to do some thorough studies of sculpture and composition, but first I need to get an idea of where everything is in the gallery, so I spent a good amount of time just exploring and finding some really cool stuff I never knew they had. For example, I never knew there was an extensive model ship exhibit in the basement! These gave me a great chance to sketch some subjects I had never even considered:

I was overwhelmed by the amount of detail on some of these ship models, but trying to simplify the larger shapes and get the perspective right is just the kind of mental exercise I need.

Next time I will remember to include the names of the pieces I am referencing. This last composition study was just one of several great examples from the European oil painting collection at the AGO. I will definitely be repeating this excursion.

Visual exploratory dissections

I am really enjoying my new job. Much of the work involves video editing, carefully examining and re-examining footage for hours on end, 3D modeling and animation, so there isn't much time for drawing for most of it, but I try to find opportunities.

I am working on a liver surgery case that will be uploaded to the PIE Toronto Video Atlas of Surgery: http://pie.med.utoronto.ca/TVASurg/index.htm All of the current content has been produced by my colleague Albert Fung, who recently won an AMI award for one of his videos.

For one of the shots in what will become my first contribution to the TVA site, I have to depict how the vessels and ducts of the liver's portal pass through a structure referred to as the "biliary plate." These sketches are my attempts to understand how these structures are arranged in relation to each other from the focal point of the camera in this particular shot:

TSA 8-5-12

Composition Exercises

Here are some composition exercises from my CGSociety course with Robert Chang. I had a lot of fun with these:

Here are a few studies I did using simple shapes in Maya:

This image shows the roda (pronounced "hoe-dah") in Capoeira. The whole art of Capoeira is centered around the game that takes place between two players in a ring of people who sing and clap or play instruments. I've been meaning to sketch out some Capoeira for a long time now, and I've finally gotten motivated to get started! Now I'll have to follow through...

Back to the Future!

So here is a random sketch I did of Doc Brown from the "Back to the Future" movies. He was a great character. I've gotten more comfortable drawing directly in Photoshop, even trying to sketch without reference here and there, and gradually get better at human faces. This is the best example for now.

Drawing and Painting at Vitruvian Fine Art Studio

When I was interviewing at the Medical College of Georgia for medical illustration, I had asked the group of professors if they had any advice for my further artistic development in the few months I had between then and when the programs would be starting up. David Mascaro gave me this advice: "If you take any drawing or painting courses, try to find ones that teach in the traditional style." I now know what he meant by that. Here in Chicago, the instructors at Vitruvian Fine Art Studio teach drawing, painting and sculpture in the traditional sense, that is, learning to represent with your choice of media exactly what you see in front of you as accurately as possible. Over the past 8 weeks I've been spending my Sundays there, and here are the results.

Toronto Botanical Gardens

One day last summer, I needed a little escape from school so I took a day off and visited the Toronto Botanical Gardens. I got tons of great pics that I plan to use as reference for painting. Here is one such example of that intention taken to completion, then given to my Mom for a gift.

Figures from a bit back

Wow do I need a better scanner. Signing up for some painting and drawing courses soon...