tommykane

[tommykane]

I went to the West Village to draw. It was very hot so I popped into Joe’s Pizza on Carmine Street to get a soda. It’s considered one of New York’s top pizza joints. The walls are filled with tons of photographs of celebrities who have visited. But what caught my eye was an oversized photo of a beautiful model standing in front of Joe’s holding a leash with her pet llama. I was stunned because it was from a television commercial I shot 30 years ago. I was filming outside a grocery store next to Joe’s. An employee must have went out front and taken the photo. I never knew it was hanging in the pizza place all these decades. I’m like an animal marking my territory.

[tommykane]

I drew this truck from a photo I took in Switzerland. Then I added a lot of unexplained items from strolling around New York.

[tommykane]

This was my first trip to Switzerland. When we walked into our hotel room in Interlaken, I knew I was going to draw the view. This is St. Joseph church which had its bells ringing all day long adding to the atmosphere. The sky was always full of paragliders zipping to and fro with massive Swiss mountains in the background. One of the nicer places I’ve gotten to sit and draw.

[tommykane]

A drawing I did before I went to Europe on my adventure. This is in East Chinatown. It’s actually what you see when you exit the F train stop. I’m always in Chinatown for some reason or another. The place is a magnet for me. It’s packed full of interesting characters. All the young kids have moved in so it’s hip as hell. I see them eyeballing my outfits.

[tommykane]

I spent a week in Cork, Ireland seeing some of my great family who live there. Managed a drawing on the street next to our hotel over the course of a few days. I was able to bond with some of my very young cousins, who don’t know me yet. Thankfully, they are quite out of their minds which works out well for me. To say they are interesting is an understatement. Hopefully, I can get over to hang with them again at some point this year.

[tommykane]

Watch me draw flowers along Lake Geneva as well-to-do locals check out my art techniques in action.

[tommykane]

We all went out to Montreaux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline. I was able to continue my flower drawings that I started in Valerie’s garden in the French Alps. There is an endless supply of gorgeous blossoms there. I packed a bunch into my Moleskine.

[tommykane]

Here is a second street corner I drew in Lyon. We sat on the steps of the Opera House. A lot of hard work goes into making these sketches. It was hot as hell, with rain off and on. I was completely jetlagged and we had late dinners each night we were there. Endlessly pounding the pavement to find a place to draw that would satisfy each of the crazy artists I was with. Then I’d sit and bang this drawing out. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time we left town but I never felt happier.

[tommykane]

My wife and I went to the French Alps with Jean-Christophe and his wife, Valerie. They showed us around Chamonix which is the equivalent of living in a postcard. We saw Mont Blanc and the Eiger. Clearly it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. My eyes were constantly bugging out of my head. I drew this section of some mountain peaks. It’s impossible to capture how breathtaking the views actually are in real life and certainly it can’t be done with a pen and a few watercolors. This puny sketch doesn’t translate the massive scale of what I was seeing. I gave it my best shot which was truely futile.

[tommykane]

Watch me draw a Triceratops skeleton. It’s like a magic trick.

[tommykane]

Before I left for Lyon, I spent a day drawing with my friend Petronis in the Natural History Museum. His first time sketching a dinosaur skull. Drew one myself. When I was on the streets in Lyon doodling a scene, there was a giant Triceratops head sitting on the facing page. Passerbys looked on in confusion. Then I began to incorporate it into my french scenes. I sketched the front of an old church into his head surrounded by rooftops. Folks looking over my shoulder were quizzing me in French. My cohorts had to intervene to explain why the skull was there and that I was indeed quite sane. You can see the result of the two pages together.

[tommykane]

There was a tiny square past little alleyways that we drew in Lyon. Dozens of illustrators lined the perimeter. Then the rain came. Very hard rain. Most ducked for cover under awnings of cafes and shops. Some hard core artists stayed, sketching in the rain, balancing portable umbrellas quite precariously. My friend Arnaud was one such nut. Not me. I did the best I could each time the downpours cleared. There was a moment of joy when everyone sang happy birthday to Arnaud. Champagne glasses were passed around for the toast. The bubbly was dry but we were all a bit damp.

[tommykane]

I drew with my cohorts, Jean-Christophe Defline, Arnaud De Meyer, Mauro Duro, and Jean Luc. We sketched the fountain in Place des Jacobins. The background I drew on train rides through the Alps from a photo I snapped. I tried to create an image that looked like an aged photograph. The background I did all in colored pencil that I made look soft and out of focus, almost like an old Kodachrome image taken in the 1950s.

[tommykane]

In Lyon, our home base was the Royal Hotel. The artist, Jean-Christophe Defline and his wife Valerie were stationed there too. Yun and Valerie toured the city. The husbands created lots of drawings over the week and galavanted with some slightly undersirable artist types. Defline and I have a posse who endlessly consume every culinary extravagance the city has to offer, washed down with a bottomless river of the best french wines. I’m Mr. salad and Perrier. Somehow they weren’t embarrassed by my presence. Maybe it was my red beret and fake glue-on Monet beard. Let me fill you in on one of my drawing tricks on the road. I sketch the hotel I’m staying at, or the view out the window, or a building on the block. This way I can draw a little bit at a time over the course of a few days without having to wander far. The mornings are perfect because no one is around except my wife filming me for 2 minutes. In the end, I have a great drawing that I was able to put quite a few hours of work into.

[tommykane]

Sometimes in Lyon, I didn’t draw the same thing that my cohorts did. They plowed into dramatic panaromics which I knew I didn’t have enough time to deliver in my style. Everyone’s facing the same direction except for moi. Street corners became my saving grace. I can pound one out in a decent amount of time. The roofs are exotic to my used-to-american-architecture eyes. I gave personality to the tiles, chimneys, and antennas. The solo cloud helped make my sketch interesting.

[tommykane]

The first morning in Lyon, my friend Jean-Christophe Defline and I went to Place des Terreaux to draw the Fontaine Bartholdi. It was pretty empty except for the artist, super touffe. He’s a guy who live streams himself while he sketches. He’s got cameras around his neck that are filming, microphones, ear buds in, sketchbook in hand, pens, and watercolors. He’s a one man documentary crew. Very quickly we were involved with him and he was live streaming us as we drew. It’s surrel to be interviewed and filmed while trying to draw this very elobarate fountain. I had to multi-task. It was fun though because he’s a hilariously creative dude. It’s impossible to say no to Super Touffe. I did manage a good drawing in the short amount of time we were there.

[tommykane]

I just spent 5 days in Lyon at the gathering of the French Urban Sketchers which included some of Europe’s best illustrators. The streets were filled with talent. I felt on display as I drew. I was always surrounded by fellow sketchers checking out everything each of us were doing. There was a constant parade of curious onlookers observing over our shoulders. It was quite enjoyable and slightly nerve-racking too. I managed some great drawings and videos which I’ll be posting in the coming weeks.