Put that shirt back

August 4-8, 2011

A mom looking down at her son in his stroller. A very open expression isn't something I normally have the chance to draw on my commutes.

She's wearing someone else's shirt, which suffers a bit from bus bumpiness variation. Hatch marks can be challenging for mobile drawings. Can you guess where I was standing at a bus stop and where I was lurching back and forth (um, on a bus) along Queen Street?

I learned in a roundabout way that the CBC replayed my Ottawa Morning interview today. I didn't get to hear how it was introduced -- anybody know why they put it on for a second time?

August 8, 2011

Some marker doodling I do sometimes just to loosen up. She gave up her priority seat and sat down beside me. Had to cover my drawing with my hand. Awkward.

I heart octranspo, too

Hey! There's an Iheartoctranspo blog! This is so cool. Right now they're featuring station design and art.

Exhairiments, part 4

August 4, 2011

A retro hairstyle! You don't often catch longish hair on men groomed into a sideswept style. Smashing.* The mildly wood-block style was inspired by the traditional woodcuts illustrating Italo Calvino's collection of 200 Italian Folktales. (I'm on #64.) 

from Italian Folktales, by Italo Calvino



The stories read best over bleary breakfasts. 'There once was a King who had three sons. One day..." Inevitably, great deeds are performed, foolish mistakes made, and fairies interfere in the running of things for good and ill, all delivered in a matter-of-fact tone of suppressed parental exasperation. But I could be projecting.


* This post was brought to you by your temporary and wholly inept fashion-watching bus blogger. Back to your regularly scheduled programming soon.





Exhairiments, part 3

August 2, 2011

More hair! You were excited, I knew you were ;)

Very short hair: there's the short hair that sticks up in little spikes, the tufty kind, the twisty kind, and the mini wavelets I attacked this morning, above. Very challenging. No idea how I could suggest that hair with just a few strokes rather than the pile-on-the-pen style I tried here.

Dusky woman and river bridge

July 19, 2011

I forgot to post this composite beauty that I spotted a couple of weeks ago. The eyes, nose and hairstyle come from three different women.

July 26, 2011

These black lines I drew (they're so dark I want to say inked) using a Galaxy marker, which is marketed for the comic/manga crowd. I'm not wielding them well. How do comic artists make their lines so clean?

SINGING BUS DRIVER OH MY GAWD

I have hoped for another encounter with the singing bus driver for many years. I have also, for the last week, hoped to finish my third bus interior by landing in the right seat on the right bus.

Friday afternoon I was blessed with both, and so I drew the singing bus driver into my book. And now I share him with you!

Hope-dashing busses

Finished July 28, 2011

There are at least three different kinds of non-bendy lowrider buses out there. I know because of how many times this week I thought I was on the right bus for finishing this picture, only to have my hopes Cruelly Dashed. This is the second of three bus interiors I'm working on. The third is almost done. If fortune smiles upon me, I'll get the right seat on that bussaroonie tomorrow.

Have thee my fellow Ottawans checked your route yet? I'm going to be lucky in the September set of route changes. Hope you will be, too.

I've found commuting awkward lately. More stand-up drawing! Maybe there are less buses on in the summer, but, shouldn't there be fewer commuters, too? Alternatively, I have been leaving five minutes later. Amazing difference for such a minor deviation.