With this week's long-delayed feature illustration of Pauline Hare I conclude my latest series, Admiration of Benefit. Pauline, my wife, a woman I greatly admire, makes a great subject. On dates I occassionally sketch her, but I've never before attempted a fully realised portrait. ¶ News: watch for my work in upcoming issues of Meetings & Incentive Travel, Canadian Homeworkshop, and Annabelle.

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit, FeaturedIllustration, Freelancing

¶ 12:38 PM

Vanity Fair is a fine publication, it's true, and while I appreciate their Hitchcockian spread in the Hollywood issue (VF March 2008), I sometimes wish there was a publication just like it that wrapped itself in fine illustration instead of photography. And the photography is beautiful, no question. But it's been YEARS. Why not a Hollywood publication beautifully designed with line and shape? A kind of perfect graphic marriage. Maybe one day. ¶ I watched the Super Bowl at this very chilled bar called the Soft Spot near North 10th on Bedford Ave. It was one of these friendly American bars filled with young patrons chatting about their lives ahead. I like places like that. They ordered in a bunch of wings, there was a three-cheese dip thing, and draught beer was on for two-for-one. ¶ As I recovered the next AM, I wandered down Driggs Ave. On my mind were vintage clothing stores and art galleries. I found this very cool men's vintage store called Houndstooth where I picked up a new shirt and blazer. I also visited gallery Jack the Pelican and it's worth a visit. Monday night I went to Knickerbocker Bar & Grill where I saw some Al Hirschfeld prints in the flesh. Including one of Jules Fieffer. I would see him, and a few more of my heroes, the next night. ¶ I know I've drawn Hitchcock before. He's someone I admire a great deal and I find drawing him tremendously satisfying.

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit, FeaturedIllustration, NewYorkHareII, SitewayWorld

¶ 2:14 PM

My grandmother, her name was Orthodoxia Liasi, passed away this past Saturday. She was born at some point in 1911 (no one is exactly sure when since her birth certificate, if it ever existed, can't be found). She was around 96. My mom is in Cyprus right now. The funeral was earlier today. I last saw my grandmother in 2000 while I was in the UK studying for my MPhil. I ventured down to Cyprus in March for a week. But the memories I have of her go back to when I was a boy, discovering a new world in Cyprus. I used to spend Sundays with Stephen and yiayia. We were, I think, overwhelmed by our Greek schoolweek which lasted until Saturday! We were looking forward to reading our Archies and Mad Magazines on a rare day off. This is the first time Sunday was a good day. It would happen again, but not until years later. There's a fondness here I liken to platinum that can't be shined away. They're in the hall of fame. I'm going to miss her. ¶ Speaking of the hall of fame, when I was in grade three I had Mrs. Christian as a teacher. She lasts in my memory because of her truthful support and praise. And yet she was honest enough to engage me as a person, not merely a child. She never forgot our age. I remember thinking then, as I do now, that she was very close to the ideal elementary schoolteacher. I credit her with cultivating my creative sense. I hope I've done her some justice here...

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit

¶ 2:34 PM

A small housekeeping note: new illustrations will now appear on Tuesday evenings (EST) instead of Mondays. ¶ Today I've hit the mid-point of my Admiration of Benefit series with Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. Having said that, I'll be taking a much-needed Siteway break until 2008. Over the next few weeks I have a growing list of client work and as a result I'll be enjoying a work hard/play hard holiday season. ¶ Cheers.

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit, Marketing

¶ 5:34 PM

Did you know that you're a lucky man, he asked me, a drunken Ignatius-type. I do came out of my mouth. I knew he was right. He had caught me out, and maybe he was just crazy, but as Pauline and I discussed moments later, there wasn't much false about what had just transpired. ¶ It dawned on me last weekend, as I re-watched Brewster's Millions (1985), that it's critical Montgomery Brewster not tell anyone of his involvement in the will game that sets up the film. I used to think it was just a comedy-of-errors device. They have to think he's crazy to sell the tragedy of his final party. It's only temporarily sad, a false alarm. He believes that in the morning he will have the greater sum to live on for the rest of his life. And yet, there's a sadness in his belief. He's right, though it's not quite knowledge (someone has conned him along the way), but he's necessarily alone since everyone around him thinks he's lost more than just his inheritance. It was my favourite movie as a child and it still holds up. ¶ Number 3/10 in my series of people and ideas I admire went live today. It's a portrait of Søren Kierkegaard. I hope you enjoy it.

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit, Cinema, Vague

¶ 2:11 PM

Last winter I received an interesting phone call. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were having a couple of festive drinks if you must know. Living in one hell of a good apartment in London, Ontario, at the time, I answered the phone in good spirits: Hello? I don't typically get business calls on Saturdays. I didn't recognize the voice on the other end of the line: Oh, hey, yeah, is this Antony from Siteway? It was Dave Ellis, business partner in a new pizza venture in Brooklyn. We chatted a bit about what it might take for me to do an illustration for the pizzeria's sign and menu. And then Dave got down to it: it was going to be a portrait of the "Mayor of Elisabeth Street", Vinny Vella, Sr., an actor I'd later recognize from Casino and Ghost Dog. Pauline and I were going to visit NYC soon and I told this to Dave. I suggested we meet up. Dave didn't know how to take this at first, but when we spoke a time later he thought dinner might be in order. Weeks later we did exactly that. It was a great night, the illustration was well received, and now Vinny Vella's Pizza (374 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg, NYC) is open for business. Here's a piece from the Village Voice. ¶ Have a great weekend folks. Watch for Admiration of Benefit #2, on Monday afternoon.

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit, Freelancing, Siteway

¶ 11:12 AM

There are soul deaths and then there are soul deaths. ¶ Here's something I've been contemplating lately: I've been engaged with my work, and by work I mean the lines I draw, in an unprecedented manner of late. It's partly because I decided one day that this would be a good idea. And as you're all already aware, being a free agent requires the agent take care of sales, marketing, accounting, office and project management, and even janitorial services. So telling yourself to "focus on the work" is not only simple and comforting, it's rewarding. It's investing in better furnaces for HQ, better equipment at the factory, better ships for your fleet. I'm investing in the lifeblood of my industry: drawing. The drawing action itself has become a relaxing enterprise; an experience that is itself enjoyable, and not just because of the results. The results, the lines drawn as it were, are themselves relaxing, if only briefly. Imagine the ink from an industrial inkjet bleeding into your expensive art paper. It only lasts as ink for half a second. Then it becomes part of the paper. That's what I mean by relaxing. Like the final piece that snuggly fits into the puzzle. The easiest piece of all. And yet, it's rigid, in there, the instantiating unit. In any case, some by-products of this focus: a sketchbook that's not half-bad, some Siteway dusting, continued experiments over on flickr, and more steam in the engine. ¶ It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from their present pursuit. I see advertisements for active young men, as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet I have been surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful compliment this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across the ocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me to go along with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would say? No, no! I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To tell the truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when I was a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as soon as I came of age I embarked.—Henry David Thoreau, from Life Without Principle.

Labels: AdmirationOfBenefit, Clear, FeaturedIllustration, Heroes, Siteway, Vague

¶ 7:51 PM