Show your love for the man who made ghosts, groundhogs and ocean exploration cool.  Read more...

From the creative and suspect minds that brought you the Steven Seagallery, comes the Bill You Murray Me? tribute gallery.

Will be a one-off night of debauchery at 648 Kingsway Ave on February 11th, 7-12 and beyond. Guests are expected to bring red toques, housecoats with pipe in hand and be bearded.

There will be cheap drinks, great music and tons of excellent art.
Bring your loved one(s)! It will be a hell of a night.

Both stories center around powerful and deranged captains who seek revenge from a giant sea creature.  Both captains are injured by the sea creature, and their hunt leads them on an adventure at great cost to their crew. When the creature is finally tracked down, neither men are able to destroy it.

This is my first project of the new year and I was surprised to see Moby Dick in my horoscope for the first week of Jan!  Maybe the stars are watching.

Artist Tiko Kerr chose Dr Sketchy's as his city secret for CBC Culture Days!  See my big debut, I am a CBC fanatic.

A lovely interview with Anne Cottingham from VancouverIsAwesome.com-

When Shary Contrary first emailed and invited me to attend a Dr Sketchy show, I’ll admit I initially hesitated. My drawing ability amounts to stick figures and cute round bunnies… not curvy burlesque models draped in lace. But Shary insisted that the show was for all abilities, so I showed up at The Wallflower on a Sunday night, pencil in hand. I found a delightfully eclectic mix of people – from anime aficionados to well-known Vancouver artist Neil Wedman, all crammed into the booths and tables sketching a black clad model furiously while a Charlie Chaplin movie played in the background. It was so much more exciting than the drawing classes I had taken in art school! So Shary and I met a week later to discuss the origin of Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School over glasses of red wine.  Continue reading...

Pecha Kucha Vancouver

In April I was honored to speak at Pecha Kucha night, on the subject of Dr Sketchy's.

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

After a flattering and thoughtful introduction by the organizer, Cause & Affect, and some heckling from my helper monkeys in the audience, I got on stage, knees knocking.

Although I'm comfortable on stage most times, I wasn't sure if the audience of 2000 was going to be ready for my opening sequence... featuring Burgundy Brixx's sequins!

From the sound of the audience's nervous laughter, I think they liked it.  Each talk is 6 minutes long, which actually goes by very fast when you have alot to say. 

I explained, Dr Sketchy's treats out models like STARS!  We put them on display, their bodies, their costumes, and what you get to draw is not a faceless form, but a bursting personality. 

Add some music, some fabulous prizes, and a loose lipped host with a penchant for wine (that's me!), and what you get is the lifedrawing class you never knew you always wanted.

Why can't lifedrawing be SEXY!

Have you ever been to a lifedrawing class where the model blew a fireball into the crowd?  We stopped doing that though after we learned the hard way that artists are flammable...

All in all, Pecha Kucha is an amazing event and I leave feeling inspired every time, but this time I felt the exhilaration of a moment on stage and so lucky to be able to show off all the fabulous models I've been priveliged to work with for the past 3 years.

photo by Heather Renney (www.heatherrenney.com)

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School is a monthly drawing class that replaces the serious atmosphere of a typical life drawing class with glamourous burlesque models, music, games and the boozy revelry of an underground cabaret.

 

The Eastside Culture Crawl is an annual 3-day November event that involves artists who live in Vancouver's Eastside in an area bounded by Main St., 1st Ave., Victoria Drive, and the Waterfront. Painters, jewelers, sculptors, furniture makers, musicians, weavers, potters, writers, printmakers, photographers, glassblowers; from emerging artists to those of international fame... these are just a sampling of the exciting talents featured during this unique chance to meet local artists in their studios.

After an 8 month absence from Vancouver, I came back to find the view outside my window had changed.  With new eyes, I saw how fast the landscape had been altered, with hi-rise buildings popping up like a new crop, where they hadn't been standing before.  I realized how fast the city is changing- Vancouver is not only made of glass, it is made with timber and the effort of human hands.  The tools that are used to build this city are also used to tear it down.  The construction I captured in "I SAW Vancouver" has been completed, the builders have collected their tools and moved on to the next site; these saws show a brief moment in the history of Vancouver's continuing development.