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One of the best artists I have ever seen is Butch Belair. Everything the man touches turns to gold. Sculpture, drawing, painting, photography and 3D rendering. You name it and he does it. Usually better than anyone else can. I get to watch him work all the time. It is always an amazing magic trick. If you watch this film by Danny Gregory and myself, you'll finally get to see him in action too.

From Danny Gregory.
A few months ago I decided I wanted to make a series of films about illustrated journaling. Not a how-to, step-by-step sort of thing but films that capture the adventure of drawing, the discovery, the spirit, the fun. I hope they will inspire you to make drawings (and films, if you want) and to keep an illustrated journal as a regular part of your everyday lives.
My 17 year-old son, Jack Tea, has joined me in this project and together we have worked through lots of technical obstacles to make films that look as good as we can make them on no budget. Our inspiration comes from the Cooking Channel, from Etsy's vlog, and from too many decades of loving movies.
We shoot on our Canon 7D, rent different lenses (in this case we relied heavily on the 100/2.8 L IS Macro) each weekend, use Jack's skateboard as a dolly, and rope our friends in for help and opinions.
Our first film is called "The Art of Breakfast".
Here's the newest film in the series, a portrait of my great friend, Tommy Kane, as he rides around his neighborhood in search of something new to draw. Tom is a great traveller — he regularly posts sumptuous journal pages made on his vacations and business trips. His favorite home-away-from-home is Korea and he has made many amazing drawings on its streets and in its markets.
This time, we decided he should travel through his own neck of the woods, see it anew like a visiting stranger and capture a mundane little corner and fill it with his particular brand of magic. Normally Tom works mainly on site, dragging out all of his materials onto the pavement around his little folding stool but instead we decided to expand the scene and show you some of Tom's home and studio and incidentally some of the wonderful big paintings he's done on canvas.
When journaling, he works in Uniball, watercolor and pencil, sometime in books, sometimes on loose sheets of bond or watercolor paper. He is a meticulous crosshatcher and spend hours on some of his drawings. When we draw together, I invariably start to chafe at the bit and beg him to finish at home as I am tired of sitting in his shadow, my own drawing long finished and yellowing on the page, glazing over as he crosshatches more and more details.
We shot the film in two days — on the streets of Brooklyn and in Tom's home where his lovely wife, Yun, made us lunch and watched our obsessiveness with a bemused smile. It was the height of a baking summer and storm crowds rolled in and out, marring our continuity.
We shot an extravagant amount and it took a month to wade through it all and pare it down. The first cut was twice as long as what you'll see today, but we resharpened our blades and ruthlessly trimmed back to the bare essentials. We tried to retain the essence of how Tom works, the way he layers media and adds detail. It's fascinating to see how his drawing builds and builds — when you see the final result, it's often hard to figure out how he got there. With this film, I hope you'll share in how the journey unfolds.

Seoul Korea is like a subtropical climate in August. The sound of the cicadas rule the ears during the dog days of summer. Taking a walk in a park sounds like you are strolling through the amazon. At a party, some people were complaining that the cicada chirping has grown so loud in Seoul that it was interrupting their sleep patterns. I on the other hand dig the sound, especially in a city setting. Nature is brought so sharply into focus. Living in a concrete city, one often forgets about real nature. The cicada's singing is a nice reminder that we are invading their space. I read where the sound a cicada makes can be heard one mile away. One day I walked in the park that surrounds the Seoul Tower. It's located at the top of a small mountain. It took me three hours to get up and back. I was really able to concentrate on the music the cicadas were making. At points their sounds were very faint and calming. Eventually they would build to some crazy type of crescendo. Beyond loud. It was all very thrilling. I will have to wait until next year to experience it all over again.

Red Hook - a film about Tommy Kane (by DannyGregory)

A nice little film if, like me, you like to watch artists while they work.

This I did at a photo shoot in Craig Cutler's studio. I've done a few flowers before but this is a new one. It ranks high on my list of flower drawings.

Ta Prohm is a temple at Angkor Wat. It is by far the single most amazing visual to see in Cambodia or in the world for that matter. The great thing about drawing is that it forces me to sit quietly and just observe something beautiful for very long stretches of time. I must study every inch in order to make my paintings have all the rich detail in them. Funny enough, I've become like a Buddhist monk communing with nature before me and clearing my mind of all other thoughts. By being here a few hours there were moments when there was quite a few tourists but there were also moments when I was all alone. The only human sitting in front of this incredible structure. By coincidence I did a television commercial for the World Monument Fund a bunch of years ago. The director gave me a print by famed photographer Kenro Izu. It happened to be a print of Ta Prohm. I've had it hanging in my apartment for many years so I was very familiar with this site. Now here I was sitting there. A dream come true. As I was drawing a bunch of Cambodian high school students came by. They were very interested in my show. In the midst of the kids I heard a dude speaking with an Irish brogue. I introduced myself to him. His name was Cormac and and it turned out his friend runs a school in Cambodia. Every year he comes to visit and tours around the country with the high school kids. He told me they were all orphans. Each was so elegant, well behaved and beautiful. They spoke perfect English. So sad that such impressive young adults never found a home. Cormac told me one girl in particular, Maria, was herself a great artist. I showed them all my work. It's fantastic that there are folks like Cormac and his friend in the world trying to make a difference. I shouldn't say trying. They are making a difference.

In Siem Reap at night everyone heads for Pub Street. It's where all the action is. Cozy little bars and eateries. One night Yun took me to a restaurant because she said Mick Jaggar ate there when he was in Cambodia. All our meals were excellent and cheap. I noticed something about the Cambodians. In most third world poor countries everyone smokes. The cigarette companies practically give them away for free to get the locals hooked. I never really saw anyone with a cigarette. It was somewhat impressive. One day Yun and I went on a boat tour of a floating village. It was on Tonle Lake. Truly an amazing sight but also very sad to see how poor the people are and how hard they struggle. All the homes and stores are on stilts. There is even a church and a school. Then you see some tourist restaurants and souvenir stores. It's a bit nutty. Yun and I had our own boat with a guide and driver. At one point a villager raced up along side us in his little boat. His daughter leaped on to our speeding boat while we were moving. Just like something right out of a Jason Bourne movie. She moved along the outside of the boat until she got to me. There was a plastic bucket in her hand with cold Angkor beers. Even though it was nine thirty in the morning I had to buy one from her. One dollar, of course. Dads drive around in boats with their little kids begging for money. Each kid would have a huge jungle snake around their neck so tourists could take pictures of them. There were little boys floating around in tin wash tubs. It was all very surreal and eye opening. It's too bad they closed off adoption from that country. Yun and I may have taken home a little girl from there to go with the girl we are going to adopt from Ethiopia.

In my opinion this is the best drawing I've ever done. Some of you may have heard of this place, it's called Mont Saint-Michel in France. It's a monastery built on a tiny island that you can only reach by driving on a single causeway over the water. It took over a thousand years to build. The reason we ended up there is because it has been a dream of my dad to go there. His father was wounded badly in World War One. He was transferred to France to recover from his wounds. His stay lasted many months. When he was better, he visited Mont Saint-Michel. My dad always remembers seeing the photos his dad took from there as a soldier. We spent 2 nights on the island itself. There are only a few hotels along the narrow medieval streets. Every major dignitary has stayed there. The reason my drawing is the best one I ever did is because every window, bush, tree and chimney are perfectly drawn. If you took a photo and superimposed it over my drawing you would see I nailed it. It took me 6 hours to do. Worth every second.

I went back to the Hasidic section of Brooklyn. It is pretty clear that I am known there now. A lot of the same characters came out of the woodwork to greet me. It was the usual show with a million people stopping by to see my magic trick of turning a white piece of paper into a drawing. This building is a synagogue. Hasidic crowds were all over me. Kids stacked 5 deep. Everyone jostling for a view. It takes a toll on me but it is so crazy and surreal, I can't help but go there. This time everyone kept saying the word, shine. At one point I asked a kid what shine meant and he said it meant, "nice". My first yiddish. A bit later, a bunch of people were telling me how much they liked my drawing. I said, "shine". They all laughed. At another point I drew a woman who was standing in one of the windows. She was reading a book. The kids went crazy with laughter. A guy stopped by and told me I had to take the woman out of the sketch. I couldn't draw her on the sabbath. I could draw every part of the building but no people and especially not the book. Out of respect, I crosshatched it out. Everyone was happy except the kids. That was their favorite part. It was the usual, everyone wanting my phone number and asking when am I coming back. They all ask what building am I going to draw next. In fact, I've already spotted a couple.

Lately I wanted to screw around with something. So I chose the old choking poster that hangs in bars and restaurants. This type of exercise brings out the Mad magazine in me. I can do this stuff in no time at all. It just flows out of me like an 11 year old. I want to hang it in the kitchen of my office. Maybe I'll make prints for my Etsy store so people can hang them in their saloons.

There is a groovy new blog called, Monsters in real places. Artists use a photo that they've taken and insert a monster into the scene. Then they write a little blurb about it. This is my submission. Some of them are very clever. My blurb is as follows: "Most tourists to New York City have seen the giant aggressive squirrel. He likes to shake down people in cars as they cross the bridges into Brooklyn. Mostly he is looking to steal pistachio nuts and graham crackers. Mayor Bloomberg has been pretty much hands off." I got an email back from the guy in charge of the blog when I submitted my piece. "Tommy,
I must say - your contribution has definitely been my personal favorite of today's. Great work, I love the cute little sinister fellow. I'd love to see more contributions from you, great style - love the line work on some of your blog pieces. Best, Wayne Thayer."

Urban Sketchers is a new blog showcasing a small community of artists around the world who draw the people and places of the cities where they live and travel to. It’s a sister site to the Urban Sketches Flickr group.

The image here is from Tommy Kane’s Moleskine.

Previously:
Tommy Kane
Tommy Kane revisited