As some long time followers of my blog might know, I spent about 5 years drawing and painting the alleyways of downtown Toronto in my spare time, slowly producing the artwork for this book. I've featured maybe a dozen of the drawings and paintings here in my sketch blog over the years, and you can still find them if you go through the archives. Now those drawings, along with many, many more unseen ones are being published in an 80 page artbook.
Back Alleys and Urban Landscapes will debut at TCAF, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, in early May. I'll be at the festival, signing copies and promoting the book. There will also be a launch at TYPE Books on Queen street later that month -- which I'll post on this blog later.
In the meantime, I'm grateful to the fine people at Drawn & Quarterly for publishing this book, and thrilled that it's finally complete and available. Here's hoping some of you like it too.
Shown below are a few of the new paintings in the book. They were done in watercolour, goauche and ink on board.
17 comments:
These look great, congrats on the book!
I love your paintings of Toronto! Can't wait to see the final product at TCAF.
Can't wait for this, Michael!
Woohoo!
My thanks to all you fine gentlemen. I'm flattered you like it.
Fantastic!
I was hoping for a book featuring those paintings. I'm looking forward to see it. All the best from Amsterdam!
Super excited to see this coming to fruition!
I am a great fan of urban landscapes and especially of urban photography so I'll definitely buy the book. I take photos of urban landscape everywhere I go and I have to say there's nothing better than a photography trip. What I like above all is the transformation of urban landscapes by photographers giving the images a completely crazy look such as the Orchid Hotel in Tel Aviv by Victor Enrich .
I will be picking up a copy for sure!
I tell you what! Mr. Cho, I want that book.
Thanks for all the positive comments. This book was a personal project, so I'm very grateful for all the support.
Hey Michael, These are so gorgeous i found myself literally drooling. I cant wait to see the book...Good for you!
Nicely done, Michael.
Cheers!
Scott Mooney
These are awesome, Michael. Love the color, attention to detail and textures.
I bought this last week, it's a fantastic book, very evocative work.
I bought this book yesterday at Toronto's Word on the Street. I'd been eyeballing it at the indie bookstore where I occasionally work but the two copies we got sold almost immediately. I don't live in TO, but this book and your style totally appeal to me. The style takes me back to when I was a kid, reminds me of the endpapers of the books I read. I can't tell you how great that is.
Whenever I visit Toronto, I consider the back alleys my safe places to go because they're empty of people and I can breathe and observe without being overwhelmed. You bring these places to light so well (literally, too; the study of light in these is so excellent) that I appreciate Toronto more.
Thanks so much for making this book.
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