The Naked Silo

32" x 40" oil on canvas, 2016 This painting is number 11 of my Tournament of Shadows series and is a companion, in a way, to an earlier Tournament painting called The Lady and the Lions . The lion is based on a photo a I took of a statue in Montreal many years ago (the same statue –from a different angle– featured in the companion painting), and the tattoo of the royal lion is based on the same design as the other tattoo. This one features a woman named Aisha, and the companion features a woman named Ashley, both of whom I've featured in many other paintings (in fact, Aisha here is in a similar pose as the one she strikes in Corridor ). In The Lady and the Lions , Ashley and the lion both face right and the tattoo is in opposition; here, the lions both face left and Aisha is in opposition. Feel free to draw your own further connections and conclusions. Pencils. This painting sat like this, ready to go, for a very long time before I got the lead out a...

When I first returned to scale modelling after nearly two decades, I was inspired to do so after watching numerous videos online last winter of modellers building amazing spaceships, cars, train layouts, ships, planes, tanks, and dioramas of all kinds. To name just one of the dozens of inspiring builders I follow on YouTube, check out this fascinating three-hour compilation of Doctor Faust 's build of the Millennium Falcon. Another key inspiration was seeing one of my colleagues building a ship (his primary subject, along with classic cars) concurrent with my watching of those videos last year. Heavily motivated and desperately yearning to build something myself, I first thought about building a Millennium Falcon as well (it seemed like a rite of passage for current modellers), either going for a screen-accurate build or customizing it as though it's another freighter from the same universe. I also thought about adapting existing train scenery kits and making a diorama ...