SIM PUBLISHING - Recent work

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RECENT WORK

DEAD CROWS IN BARCLAY PARK
Pencil, pen & ink

A pencil drawing done from memory, of a morning walking to work recently through a park. A lot of artists are drawing and painting crows these days, probably because there are so many of the damn things around. Allan Brooks, the early B.C. naturalist and artist, apparently had a passionate hatred for crows and would shoot them whenever he possibly could. You can't do that in the West End any more.

(detail)

SEVENTH DAY
Pen & ink, pencil.

(detail), SEVENTH DAY
Pen & ink, pencil.

An extended doodle, thinking about the supposed creation of light on the supposed seventh day, and how that would have looked as it came to pass, to whoever or whatever was already there in the darkness ... this didn't turn out the way i thought it was going to, but then it was a difficult concept to explore ... the black night of darkness lower middle burning into flames as the light strikes across the unlit landscape for the first time, the hideous structures and designs of man exposed in the pitiless glare of the new light ... an "on" button is suggested for lighting the universe ...

WEST COAST
Pen & ink.

LANE
Pen & ink.

A couple of quick pen and ink studies, thinking about visual edges ... boundaries ... perception of change ...

CREATURES
Pen & ink, pencil.

An extended doodle, thinking about mythical creatures of the west coast of the Americas, and how the knowledge of them may have moved north and south over time to cross-pollinate the myths and legends of the various cultures.

SUN DOG / BURRARD BRIDGE
Digital photograph.

WINDOW WASHER
Digital photograph.

SHADOW BOXER
Aluminum wire, matteboard, digital photographs.

A visual metaphor for dealing with an in-office whisper campaign, where the opponent(s) remain gutlessly anonymous.

TIME OF CHANGE
Pen & ink, india ink brush pen, prismacolour pencil.

Sketch study for Christmas card.

PROTOTYPE FOR BELAY DEVICE

Fiddling around with an idea for a rope belaying device. I was trying to draw it and found it a lot easier to make it out of aluminum wire and shoelace. Possibly the seed idea for a series of unique, interesting, but useless devices.

christmas card

... argh, november already and thinking about a christmas card. Sure, how about one based on travels in B.C. this year ... dead, red forests everywhere, forest fires and smoke choking valleys, heavy thundershowers, and how about an intense lightning storm ... or two ... or four ... a few blizzards along the way and more to come ... doodle, doodle, doodle ... hmmm, looks a bit apocalyptic ... better tone it down ... take the tree theme and make it a little more stylized ... scribble scribble ... yeah, there we go ... delete the clouds of pine beetles, lightning strikes, heavy rain, smoke, forest fires ... just a simple tree motif ... hmmm, still not right ... to be continued.

RUNNING THE LIGHTNING GAUNTLET
Pen & ink, india ink brush pen, prismacolour pencil.

While driving from Salmon Arm to 100 Mile House by way of Little Fort, I got caught in an intense lightning storm as I drove down from the pass into 100 Mile. The lightning was striking so close that the car actually shook from the thunder, which came instantly after some strikes. The lightning was striking almost continuously as I cowered as low as possible at the steering wheel. Thundershowers were falling as solid sheets of water, making visibility almost nil even with the wipers going at full speed. To compound the difficulties, the sun was setting in the west directly in my line of sight, and there were some deer out on the road enjoying the rain. When I got to the motel in 100 Mile, the desk clerk was hiding under her desk from the storm.

SNAILS

This is a photograph of the coated copper plate of an etching being drawn, in this case the miniature SNAILS. The plate size is 1.75" high x 4.25" wide. It was drawn on a cut-off piece of plate from one of the Savary Suite etchings. I was using it to experiment with linework, shading, and the level of detail that could accurately be put into the plate with the steel needle I was using. Also, after occasionally sharpening the needle I would draw on this plate first to see if the tip was properly sharpened, rather than take a chance on one of the Savary Suite etchings.

Trying something new. I wanted to do photo-etching using some of my pen and ink drawings as source images, but decided instead to try my hand at drawing directly onto a prepared copper plate. These are photographs of two plates in progress, and matching scans of trial proofs from the plates.

SAVARY SUITE - LOOKING WEST

Detail of Hydrocoat plate prior to etching

Detail of trial proof after etching

SAVARY SUITE - WATER TAXI

This is a photograph of a small part of the plate while I was drawing it. The beach, water, and sky have not been started yet, and more work was done on the dock, the grass, and the mountains in the distance. The plate has a coating on the surface called Hydrocoat, which is intended for photographic exposure of images onto the plate. I was simply scratching through the coating into the solid copper plate to expose it for the etching process. The contrast between the copper and the coating made it very easy to draw the etching, even though in negative. The coating was also excellent to draw into: very thin so little effort was required, and non directional so the steel etching point could movely freely in all directions. The plate is particularly excellent for fine details or shading, where many thin lines can be drawn without the coating falling apart between the lines.

Detail of etching plate partially drawn.

Detail of trial proof after etching

SKOOKUMCHUCK
Limited Edition linocut relief print, hand tinted.