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 ...

"THERE she IS!" Above is the model of the Enterprise I built in 1992 –in the most basic way possible: I separated the parts from the sprues (but I didn't use clippers and I didn't sand down the burrs), I glued the pieces together (rather messily, with Testors little tube of glue), I painted a few key parts (using artist acrylics and a paint brush), and I applied the very few decals provided (using just warm water and who knows what to apply them; some slightly crooked and/or not accurately/precisely positioned). See for yourself . While recently blogging about my past models (almost all built between 1992 and 1995) I felt a slight sense of remorse about not building them to their fullest potential (or at least cleaning up seam lines and gaps!). I do understand that this feeling is entirely hindsight based on my new knowledge and growing skills as a modeler, and I did have plenty of fun building them at the time (what other reason is there?), and I felt...

"All I ask is a tall ship And a star to steer her by" – John Masefield The original U.S.S. Enterprise , NCC-1701, designed by Matt Jeffries, first flew across TV screens in 1966 and was redesigned (chiefly by Jeffries, Mike Minor, and Andrew Probert) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 (explained in the movie as having undergone a refit). I like the original design for its simplicity and elegance, but the refit really does it for me with its swept-back warp pylons and overall updated-yet-still-futuristic detailing. It's no wonder I picked this ship for my very first ever model. Check out this gorgeous scene of Scotty giving Admiral Kirk a tour 'round the outside of the Big E  in TMP (with beautiful music by Jerry Goldsmith). Which one did I build? The Star Trek V AMT/ERTL kit was issued in 1989, but I built it in the winter of 1991 (I remember there was snow on the ground in downtown Toronto, so it may have been early 1992, which means it ...