ALTERNATIVE COMICS Street Art Chronology Stories from 2005 part 2

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics STREET ART Chronology

The street season of 2005 pushed my artworks and presentation techniques in all sorts of new and innovative directions. In the earlier part of the season I switched from using my hand carved bamboo pen to using a brush. At first this transition was primarily for filling in large black areas, but the swift fluidity of the brush soon replaced the pen for all of the work. This new instrument permitted me to make faster and larger drawings which were much more exciting for the audience to watch. I also started producing small framed artwork which were simultaneously more marketable and the perfect paper weights to prevent my drawings from blowing down the road. The artworks steadily grew in speed intricacy and size so that by the end of the summer I was using up about 20 x 12 feet worth of the city block.

The first day of live painting (described earlier in yesterday's post) included some bamboo pig heads, monsters and robots. The poster sized artworks each featured a single character and were made entirely with the clumsy bamboo pens. All of these drawings, although unique depictions, were based on previous designs I’d exhibited in the galleries. As the summer moved on I continued to explore similar imagery only using the brush. The drawings got a bit more simple but could be made incredibly fast. At first these images also mimicked and expanded on my older designs but before the mid point of the season new monstrosities started to appear. More and more human depictions were directly resultant of my interactions on the street.

HEY APATHY! 30 x 40 ink on paper street drawings

STREET ART 2005 4 x 6 foot Transformation Scrolls

As the imagery changed so to did the format. The 30 x 40 inch poster sized ink drawings grew into extended 2 x 4 foot animated narratives, the to 4 x 6 foot large format paintings. The sequential scrolls featured strange transformations of man into monster, animal and machine. The large images started to revisit the metropolis and the ominous gear from my first series only now the examination was drawn from the vantage of the street. The faceless cogs and anonymous creatures now presented themselves as a amazingly diverse crowd. Each individual depicted in the artwork, though still alienated, had a story of their own. In the final weekend before the summer closed I completed a 10 x 15 foot large mural of Toronto. The image featured a military attack on an armoured hero inspired by a short work by Kurt Vonnegut. The artwork took three days to complete created primarily with brushes but detailed extensively with my old bamboo pen.

10 x 15 foot "Death of a Hero" Toronto Mural.

 (Duct taped to street wall with my duffle bag in the left corner)

Like the size of the artworks the crowds too perpetually expanded. A larger number of onlookers were taking interest and I was moving a lot of art. The small tool kit was a thing of the past as my display now overflowed 2 large duffle bags with an additional large roll of paper. In fact I found my self making inopportune mission biking to the dollars store to restock on frames. At first I would spend the mornings making small brush drawings but soon the demand was keeping me up most of the night. It got to the point were I was making batches of fifty brush monster drawings more than 5 times a week. Of coarse where there is action the is usually trouble and it became evermore difficult to avoid the bi-law consequences Continued tomorrow ...

more street art at  www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/monster-comics-street-art.html