Paris Black models at Epique Lounge on Nuit Blanche

Paris Black models at Epique Lounge on Nuit Blanche, 29 Sep 2012, 12" x 16", charcoal, acrylic, water-soluble oil pastels, triple-primed canvas sheet.

My Nuit Blanche Paris Black sketch. Worked on a little. I had sprayed the original sketch (that you see below) with a 'fine art' fixative and that seems to have created a finish that the water-soluble oil pastels do not adhere so well to. I added more colour anyway. It will rub off at this point, but I'll re-spray it with the fixative so that will stabilize it. What you see here is about as far as I can take the picture. I'm satisfied with it. A scan of a detail.




Paris Black, rock star, musician, artist, super model, artist's model on Nuit Blanche, 29 Sep 2012, unfinished sketch, 12" x 16", charcoal, water-soluble oil pastels, triple-primed canvas sheet.

First I did the figure on the right, but was drawing with my sketch pad flat on the table at the Epique Lounge in Yorkville, and so he was elongated. I had dutifully coloured it with vibrant blues, blacks and flesh colours, including his blonde hair, but wet a paper towel and wiped out the whole sketch, leaving a shadow of it. Then I drew his next pose on top of the original, but only in charcoal - with my sketch pad at 45 deg angle this time. Lol. There wasn't time to begin colouring it with washes. Hopefully this week I'll get to it.

A teacher from the Academy of Realist Art was there, as well as a number of other fantastic artists, like Kerry Kim, with superlative graphic arts skills, and my friend, Jennifer Hosein, whose work is strong and bold, so I tried for something spiritual, a zeitgeist perhaps. I do hope Paris likes my little attempt.

Nik Beat, fresh back from his trip to St. John's with Laura Rock, recited his poem, Unkill, and there's an interesting video of him reciting it in the old World War II bunkers in St. John. Brandon Pitts also recited some of his poetry - he is a consumate master of the poetry performance. And Paris asked me to read, so I read Dance/ ...indigo folio leaves, which there is also a dance videopoem of.

It was a warm, wonderful Nuit Blanche event. Drawing into the early hours in an extraordinary space, I felt we were in the best place in a busy city. It was our secret, this enclave.

A photo of Jen and I, hard at work!

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Brandon Pitts: 'Puzzle Of Murders' book launch

direct link: Brandon Pitts: 'Puzzle Of Murders' book launch

This is a very good and very entertaining reading! I watched many times creating the video, and am still not bored! He's good, that Brandon man.

Brandon Pitts at his book launch for 'Puzzle of Murders,' published by Bookland Press, at the Toronto Public Library on November 6, 2011. Brandon was introduced by the publisher, Robert Morgan. http://brandonpitts.com

A video by Brenda Clews.

Notes on the video:

Editing this video, I came to enjoy the intermittent gritty, shaky, out-of-focus quality of the clip, and did not remove it; it provides texture to the reading. It helps to impart the sense of Geist (mind, spirit, or ghost), of the author, of the insane logic of the central character of Puzzle of Murders, of the murder mystery itself. It is as if ghosts and blood and memory swirl about. There is a bodily sense of the videographer in the fuzzy hand-held quality also, another Geist. That is the eye of the videographer, and it transmits a moving image to the audience viewing the scene. It is the eye of the world watching, or perhaps its ghosts. The view is not smooth, featureless, glossy, but cinematically uneven, rough. These imperfections in the video normally would be removed in editing. I resisted, then became accustomed to them, then began to understand that where the picture has a gritty motion is where the ocean of words seeps into the vessel of the reading from the novel. That's where the salt water enters with its briny catch of krill and seaweed and skeletal remains. The imperfections give texture to what is charming, beautiful. Beauty cannot approach us in its wholeness without its flaws, deformities, fragmentations. Slice-of-life, it's messy on the edges, it has its own reality. The book is full of slips and fissures, so is the video of the launch. I hope you enjoy what I have created from my video of the event.

I finished this video on Brandon's birthday, December 28th, 2011, a perfect birthday present for him.

The background clips are free stock footage from Vimeo: black ink; woman.

                              

A snap-shot of a group of writers and musicians...

Courtney Park Library, Nov. 26th - GREAT POETRY EVENT!

From left to right, Nik Beat, Brenda Clews, Brandon Pitts, ParisK Black, Jennifer Hosein, Tallulah Doll, and Susan Munro... Brandon's book of poetry, Pressure to Sing, was launched, and the rest of us read or recited or sang in an interspersed open stage (between the three book launches)... it was a great afternoon!

And a daytime shot like this... rare.