R.I.P. Michael Jackson 1958-2009

For more, check out my Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/tom-pokinko/3661927115/

New Sketchbook... Same Brushpen

Ok so the unthinkable happened. I ran out of pages in my sketchbook... and forgot to bring a replacement to London with me from Montreal. This might not sound like a big deal but it is - the sketchbook I've been using was PERFECT for its rough pages that gave the brushpen its characteristic texture while holding the ink without bleeding - even when doing the thinnest lines. After a hard day's work of sampling different books (what is it with sketchbooks these days that have almost no "tooth" - smooth as glass plates?) I finally found a decent replacement book. These are the first few drawings from it (I bought it at the London Graphics Centre in Covent Garden so these scenes are all from the C.Garden area). Overall the results are good - it's textured enough to show what the brushpen can do; however, its ink retention leaves something to be desired (you might not notice but these lines all bleed, or "spider," in a way the previous lines in the other book didn't...). Still, I think it was a good buy in a pinch. When I return home in 2 months, I'll be sure to return to my original sketchbook - and probably buy 2 or 3 extras for the future! ............ Anyway, so these drawings are of an outdoor clothing market on Earlham St, Covent Garden (that's a car and bike in the foreground against the post if you didn't notice); of the famous 7 Dials in C. Garden, and finally of three lovely elderly ladies eating and gossiping in a regal looking pub... also in C.G.

Lipstick Ravens Cover

I like to create album covers in my spare time. This is one I created a few days ago for a fictitious band with the unlikely name "Lipstick Ravens" (I imagine them as an underground 80s punk/hair band from LA - a sort of wanna be Guns 'n Roses or LA Guns... oops I may have just given away my age by saying that! :)

Album Covers

I like to create album covers in my spare time. These are some of the covers I created over the past few years... The "Jams" cover is for my current band - Chuck Mandrel and the Undercuts. We're a rock/blues band with funk and jazz overtones. Most of our stuff is instrumental. We put out a self-produced album of improv jams recently so I made this for that album. Then our guitarist, Mike Sankey, put together his own compilation of Chuck jams so I made a cover for that. The "Electric Shlokas" is a cover for an upcoming album of my electronic music (another side project of mine - by the way "shloka" means "verse" in Sanskrit) and finally the "Stories of the Street" cover is for an album of guitar songs I made a while ago. The photographs are from atop Mount Royal in Montreal...

Queen's Visit

Going to Britain and not seeing the Queen is like going to Canada and not seeing snow! --- and I can say that because I actually saw her today (for 0.5 seconds as she sped past in a motorcade in the rain). These sketches capture the mood of the various people gathered around.

Girl Checking Herself in the Mirror

One of my favourite images ... typically it was done rather quickly at the end of the day, when I thought I had gotten all my good work out for that day :) 

Watching Football

These were done in a local eatery during the final of the European Championship (final verdict: Barcelona 2-0 Man U...)

In the Library - Part Two

Went to a local library the other day and sketched students studying for their final exams...! At least they kept fairly still :)

In the Library - Part One

Went to a local library the other day and sketched students studying for their final exams...! At least they kept fairly still :)

People in the Park

These are drawings of people in the Lincoln's Inn Field. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were many people out and about!

More from Lincoln's Inn

I've been busy putting these images on my Flickr site (make sure to check it out! Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-pokinko/)... almost forgot to put them up here and hence have a bit of a backlog! The adventure in Holborn continues... more pics from Lincoln's Inn: some buildings (quite beautiful and abstract in their own way), a funny one with a lamppost dead-on obscuring the surrounding Chambers buldings, one of the garbage can in the nearby park (who says a garbage can can't be a great subject? :) and finally two of people - lawyers having pints after work and a man waiting for his taxi...