The Last Week Of A Drawing A Day

We now wrap up the first month of TAR (torontoARTrevival)'s facebook page launch. I will still be posting my art works and the works of others but I will be tackling new topics for the month of October. I will get into details about this after I finish recapping the past weeks drawings.
Tuesday the 25th
I have started a series of ink drawings that I wish to later do in water colour, graphite and ink. This series will be called "Wax", inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus. I have only three pieces, so I will be posting its progress in the weeks to come. Here is the second of this series

Wednesday the 26th
"Old Elm"
This is a drawing of the old elm tree on my parents property in Nova Scotia. It is one of the only elm trees in the area to survive the ravaging dutch elm disease that destroyed so many trees in the 1980's and 1990's.

Thursday the 27th
"Protection"
The image of the hand and the elephant was stuck in my head for months before I sat down and finally started drawing it. This is common, that I will have images that seem to "haunt" me till I get them out on paper or canvas, or just tell them visually any way I can.

This is the first of the "Wax" series

 

Friday the 28th
"In Those Waves"
This is another of my older ink works.
The series of work at this time I like to call "Folk Noir".

When I was in my late teens, I use to do a lot of drawings of sport players. I was a big baseball fan so I started doing drawings for myself and my Father and Mother. Next thing I new I was drawing pictures for all my friends. 
So I decided I would do a new sport player drawing , twenty years later, of David Silva.

Saturday the 29th
This jade Buddha has sat on the mantle piece at my parents home, framed by two pieces of drift wood, for as long as I remember. It's belly worn by wishes.

Sunday the 30th
"Point Of No Return"
I will let the narrative of this picture explain itself.

So that wraps up the first month of TAR (torontoARTrevival)'s facebook page launch.
For the next month I wish to bring attention to the subject of art and the city.
The past month has been about my own work. But I wish now to discuss the city I live in. How a city changes the people, and how the people change the city.
A big part of this is how we interact and see our public art. I wish to show this in three topics. 
The first ten days of posts will be on public sculpture, the places they are presented in, and the artists that have been commissioned to create them. 
The second ten days of posts I wish to show and document the beautiful, dynamic but yet controversial (to some) work of graffiti artist. 
Then I will finish this with another ten days on the massive change of Toronto's sky line, architecture.
These are three strong discussions that effect our lives in an urban environment. 
To keep in touch daily on our face book page, please come visit TAR (torontoARTrevival)  
I will be posting on this blog at the end of each topic as well.

The last week of September

5 days left till my October theme. For the month of October I will be concentrating on public sculpture work in Toronto. I have felt that this has been a neglected part of our urban environment. There have been a disproportionate amount of sculpture in comparison to private development in Toronto, and I feel the best way to show how important it is to our urban environment is to show the places that have presented great public work and spaces already in our city.
But first we must now finish the month of September and walk gracefully into cool and crisp fall, with cardigans if you wish, but also with a new light of wet dawn mornings, and blindingly early sunsets

Tuesday the 18th

 I was organizing my studio, going through the years of work I have done since moving to Toronto, and I found a folder of work that had some older promo cards for past shows.

 Thursday the 19th

I decided to do a father daughter day. At lunch I went to local neighbourhood restaurant with her and we did sticker drawings. She ended up drawing name tags for everyone that worked there, including the owner.

Friday the 20th

Fine Madness. 

Saturday the 21st (last day of summer)
The following pieces were done some years ago, when living in Vancouver. I called this series "Collage of Thoughts", because I created the piece panel by panel without a pre sketch or pencil drawing.

Saturday the 22nd (first day of fall)

The following I drew at The Locus, when I lived off of Main Street in Vancouver.

Sunday the 23rd

Not finished yet, but another tattoo design. I love it when people want my own style in the work I make for them.

Monday the 24th

Spider Makes An Ugly Hand - When I first moved to Toronto, I was making one of a kind books with copies, and hand written poems to go with the ink works that I was producing. I hope to do this again, but instead as a printed book like the one I can do with elephoto 

Starting next Monday I will have a new theme for the page. I will still post on the blog every Tuesday. I hope to increase my blog posts to twice a week, but for now it is more consistent for me to speak of my week of work. I am really excited to show and explore Toronto's public sculpture and I will post what I find and present on my TAR (torontoARTrevival)'s facebook page here once a week.

I leave you with a quote by Albert Camus 

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through

the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images

in whose presence his heart first opened.

Albert Camus

Present, Past, Future

OK... finally sitting in front of the computer, finalize my past weeks TAR posts on the new facebook page. It was a rough week, some jobs took longer than others, so I posted a more content that explains my personal work. 

I need to explain though that TAR is not to promote my art only, but also other artists too, whether, visual, musical, sculptural, and etc. At the moment I will use it to introduce myself and the kind of work I do as I build a new network of artists to share with.

So week two of "A Drawing A Day".

Tuesday the 11th

This is a sketch of my son in my studio. I have used this as my profile pick often. Really like the way he had poised his arm behind him

This is a line sketch I did for an older painting called Solitude. I have unfortunately lost most of the photos of my work, but I still am in possession of the original painting so I will have to take some new photos of it.









Wednesday the 12th

This drawing is taken from a photo from the 1950's.

The boy was dressed up as a pirate so I wanted to involve him in a moment that would depict the imagination of the pretend world that he was immersed in. 

With the curtain I also wanted to give a sense of theatre, that which we artists have never fully let go of, that inventive part of our youth.

Thursday the 13th

This my son, Fearless, never stops moving. Endless energy, and endless questions, and yes, this is something he would probably do.















Friday the 14th

Starling

This was an illustration I did some years ago.

I have always been drawn to narrative work that is strong in symbolism. Many have called my work during this period, Folk Noir.

This image influenced one of my favourite pieces in the series of paintings, "In The Studio".

Starling - 24"x48" - acrylic, collage on board

In the series "In The Studio" all the sketches came from work I did during a really cold winter we had some years back. Light reflects differently in temperature but also the body and mood does so too.

I played with the feeling, perspective, and reflection of line, in this series. Even though it can not be scene in this photo, the pages on the floor are original pages from my journals that led to this work.

Saturday the 15th

Weekends, tough to get much done, but I have a lot to share. This was a sketch I did when living, struggling, and feeling lost between changes in my life. Living in Canmore Alberta, was not the same as my hopes before moving there from Vancouver were. 

Luckily I had good friends in Calgary, and met some great people that helped me without ever wanting anything in return.

Even though it was a hard time for me, personally, I would never take it back because of the wonderful and good people I met there.

Sunday the 16th

These are a few of the other sketches from my sketch books that encompassed the work that went into the art show "In The Studio".

Monday the 17th (end of week two)

Finished in the morning. I show the final to the person that commissioned it tomorrow.

Yin Yang, duo dragons, light and dark, moon and sun forever consuming one.

Well that wraps up week two of a"drawing a day for the month of September".

Check in on TAR (torontoARTrevival)'s facebook page for daily drawings or tune in next Tuesday for the full weeks work.

I leave you with a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which I have used on the back of my TAR business card.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, 

begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and

magic in it."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A Drawing A Day

So for the past week I have been posting a drawing a day on my new facebook page
TAR (torontoARTrevival).
I am going to recap the week of drawings every Tuesday on my blog. It was supposed be every Monday but after a weekend doing things with the family it makes Monday morning a little challenging.
Thank you to everyone that has liked my page, I hope that you have been enjoying the pictures. I am already making plans for October, but that news will come later.
Day one, as you can see on the blog post from last week, I started with a dedication for my wife on her birthday.

Tuesday the 4th 
This is a picture of my nephew that my sister sent me. There is another one of him sailing that is really nice as well, but that I will draw another time.

Wednesday the 5th
My parents home is full of books, it was like growing up in a library. My Mother had a few books on Tarot cards. I found the images allowed the mind to wonder, and create a story of why this scene would exist. To this day I love symbolism in art. Simple objects that can have universal and vast meanings when placed in different context.

Thursday the 6th
I will let the viewer decide on this one.

Friday the 7th
Toronto has the largest high rise growth in the world, 132, and I am sure that number is growing.
So this t-shirt was inspired by the view out my back window.

Saturday the 8th
This one is not a new picture, it was made last year, but week-ends, (especially this one was quite hectic), so I decided to post this and another bike picture. I will be adding to this theme in the weeks to come. I am playing with the idea of doing a bike art show, and for anyone that knows me I am an avid cyclist. I could live on a bike.

Sunday the 9th
I have two pictures for this day. This one I made into a t-shirt. It was from a small line gesture sketch that I quickly scribbled off to get a feeling of someone riding a bike. I blew it up and printed a one off for myself, since then I have done the same for another half dozen people that I bump into. I have played with the thought of investing making more, but not right now.

this is the other bicycle drawing. It is a detail of a 1930's Bianchi.

Monday the 10th
After I sent the picture of my first tarot card to my Mother to see, I asked what card was her favourite. She said it was The Magician. So this one is for her.

That wraps up this week. If you want to follow my drawings daily, here is a link to the facebook page
TAR (torontoARTrevival).
If you don't use face book then just tune in to this blog every Tuesday.
I will sign out with a quote from Kurt Vonnegut that I feel fits TAR.

To practice any art, 

no matter how well or badly,

is a way to make 

your soul grow.

So do it

Kurt Vonnegut

Today I am launching my new Facebook page for TAR (torontoARTrevival).
For the month of September I will be posting a drawing a day. I will also post on my blog the pictures every Monday of the past weeks work.
Today is my wife's 36th Birthday, and for some, you may know that she has been fight valiantly against cancer for the past six years. Because she was diagnosed in stage four cancer, she was given only six months to two years to live. Well now it is six years after that prognoses and she is still fighting and still able to enjoy our children.
So I dedicate this page and the first picture to her.
Keep fighting, and keep loving life.
Love, your husband
Randal Gordy Lee

This week in T-shirt design

In the past month I have been designing t-shirts for myself because my oldies are getting to tattered.

I am also lost in deciding what to give as Christmas gifts, so some of these just may do.

Here I did a line illustration with the old text of a CBC classic.
If you never new of Louis Del Grande and the classic CBC TV series from the eighties then here is an intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryWsVFkJ1QI

Rob Ford Nation has just recently had its first year bossing Hog Town around. So I needed to make up something to commemorate his first year, and for us all to remember the special, and I do mean "special", guest Rob Ford had speak for him.

Question, does Don Cherry even live in Toronto?

If you have forgotten this very intelligent welcoming speech by Mr. Cherry, here is a link to remind everyone.

and a T-shirt for Don Cherry, I printed mine white on hot pink.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHzCoUZG2Js

About Art

Art
Like every thing in life, practice and an obsessed determination, through an aspired task, leads to the souls language.
Only through making a form, natural through determined work, can one master the intuitive nature of the medium in relationship with one’s soul.

How can the soul speak of the art, if the soul does not know the art?
The process over the product is what is the art.
Cause, statement, political emphasis, are all spoken languages that need not ART to help define.
Art is the souls language, with a medium that makes the artist one, (like a marriage), it is the vessel that speaks to the heart.
Statement, cause, and “trying to hard” are the devil to true inspired work.
To experience the moment of practice, “Erika”, it is to BE in the MOMENT of god.

Randal Gordy Lee
Winter 2010