This is a new painting I completed earlier this week for an exhibition called Cartoon City, which opens at Harbourfront Center on April 9th. The show features a great line-up of Toronto area comic artists, each contributing a piece about their neighbourhoods. In my case, I did my best to capture a section of College Street, a few blocks from my studio. If you're in the Toronto area during April to June, feel free to check out the exhibition. And if you're in on April 9th, come by and attend the opening which will be from 6pm to 10pm.
This is probably one of the biggest and most complicated paintings I've attempted in years. It's about 30" x 10" in size, and was painted in gouache and ink. Usually, I complete most works in one or two sittings, but this one took about four nights to finish. As detailed as it seems, I painted it fairly loosely because of its size and I really enjoyed the opportunity to use larger brushes. Everything on this was hit with a #5 brush and up. While working on it, I also discovered I enjoyed utilizing a few techniques I rarely use: 1) scraping out white lines with an x-acto blade and 2) using low-tack painter's tape to lift off ink and create texture.
