Well since its almost the night before Christmas thought I would post this....
before Tim Burtons there was Felicia Lamports Nigtmare Before Christmas
illustrated by Edward Gorey.heres a couple of verses.

heres an old piece
my crack at Barton Fink
my favourite Coen Brothers movie.

In the hurly burly of all the things going on at the end of the year I've been meaning to catch up on some posts ( as well as some blogs ). Well this isn't it but its something. Some sketchbook stuff.

And illustrator Eric Sturdevant has a fine blog Fun All Around on which he posted some Harry Mcnaught ( as has Mr. Leif Peng] stuff. So heres my Mcnaught contribution. A Howdy Doody book. I like the Art Seiden Howdy Doody books but this one is cool too.

sketchbook stuff

I'm switching internet providers and the process is not all too much fun but I think I'll be happier in the long run. Updating all
my info and contacts will probably take a few days. On a more joyful note however..

Fantagraphics is publishing a book on Illustrator Russell Patterson
Amazing news and one to mark down on the calendar.

I confess I've never built my Visible man or woman model but I enjoy looking through an anatomy book every now and then.
When I was in Florence a few years back I spent a day in the Specola gallery [ I might be spelling this/ pronouncing it wrong] The gallery was part of the university I think and housed a huge collection of stuffed animals from hundreds of years ago. One of the biggest in the world I think and was very cool.

Also part of the gallery [again I'm too lazy too look up the dates and artist at the moment] was cases filled by 18th century wax artist and anatomist who made wax disections of the human body. Both sections and whole figures. Unbelievable work and I think Taschen has a book of these. It was very strange to see these figures looking very life like and in these beautiful old cases.
On Sunday, Alison and me went to the Ontario Science Centre to see Body Worlds 2 [ body worlds 1 is in Philadalphia I believe].

Dr. Gunther Von Hagens has developed a plasticination process . Plastination makes it possible to preserve an entire body or individual tissues and organs that have been removed from the body of the deceased. Decomposition is halted by removing water and fats from the tissues and replacing these with polymers.

A rather surreal experience to see the "plastinates" posed ice skating or skateboarding reavealing muscles in action and everything else. It was pretty amazing and very strange as well. The place was packed [lots of little kids too, some toppling into the displays while running around ] and it was next impossible to sketch but I gave it a whirl. Nothing to impressive
but here some are anyway.

Had a drawing date with a fellow blogger who I hadn't seen in awhile. I'l post some sketches from the Agricultural fair in a
bit, heres a hint to the identity of my sketching buddy.




well if you guessed the Smook (red dot blog] you would be right.
In between catching up, tea, coffee, subs and arm wrestling on a cow milking bucket, I managed to do a few sketches, even an animal or two.
Had a great time.












Now smook didn't want his picture taken but when he wasn't looking i did this quick sketch of him for yoiu curious
folks

The mighty Jay Stephens great blog

Monsterama

continues
its spooky good ways [for anyone who hasn't checked it out] and being a big Charles Addams fan as well I noticed a new Addams book has been released with quite a few unpublished sketches and illustrations cooking related. Sorry I'm not posting any images of that
instead I'm posting a rather odd Charles Addams New Yorker Christmas related cover. I keep looking for a headhunter but he's just not in there.

I don't think I can add anything here except I'm going to an art show on saturday, which I'll post something about later.

Some shots of Lake Ontario Sunday night


and the neighborhood

My neice Sabrine on Halloween doing an excellent Lugosi


and a tree I like

Broken

Today was a pefect fall day in these parts and I took some photos during a morning bike ride and thought , what the hey, I'll post them, leaving out the industrial wasteland part, boring I know.
A couple of weeks back when my wife and myself were walking down this path about evey 5 feet there was a baby garter snake crossing it both going towards and away from the lake. Not sure if they were lost or part of their ritual. Don't usually see them


ahh the colours of fall

pumkin carver, knife wielder and my favourite ghoul

Happy Trick or Treating Kids!



Finally went to theatre and saw Corpse Bride this weekend and loved it. The sets felt like 20's/30's german expressionist movies and the underworld lighting reminded me of 60's italian horror movies. All great stuff. I noticed on the the piano was a Harryhausen. Amazing when you think of the fact that so many people go into the making of a sequence in a movie now, that stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen did it all himself on classics like Jason and the Argonauts and Earth vs the Flying Saucers. From concept and production drawings to all the animating its incredibly inspiring stuff. I saw him lecture here when he was touring promoting his new book about his life which was wonderful to listen too. They screened the Tortouise and the Hare short that he had never finished and was completed by UCLA students [I think] and is available now on dvd. I remember watching the skeleton battle in Jason and being in complete awe as a kid and I'm even more so now that I'm older.