How I make a picture
Old comics about art and airplane turbulence
Hi, drawing book readers! Sorry I missed posting something last week. It’s been a bit turbulent over here, but I’ll write more about that another time. For now, we’re back to old comics from my old sketchbook series, “The Drawing Book.” We’ve been making our way mostly-chronologically through my old sketchbooks, and we’ve gone through two of them! And today, it’s the start of book #3! (Here it is:)
At the start of this book, it was the summer of 1999.
Back then, I was wearing two hats (and I don’t mean the crazy captain’s hat in the picture). I was a flight attendant on Air Canada’s Frankfurt route, but I was also trying to figure out how to be an artist. In 1999, I got to paint a really big mural on a Calgary wall, with the help of an excellent assistant. It took us all summer, working between my flights! We called our swingstage “the good ship Lavish.” It was just a swingstage, but it did seem lavish and wonderful.
Actually, just recently I posted some pictures of that old mural, along with a few nearby Calgary murals that were around at the same time, on Instagram. These days, Calgary’s Beltline district is home to a world-renowned mural festival, but back in 1999 there were already lots of murals there, setting the stage for the murals that would come many years later. Here are some of the old photos I was talking about.
The mural in the bottom row (with the red car in front) is the one I painted. And the last picture is me, painting it. If you want to find out more about some murals I painted, you can take a look here at my old blog!
Back then, I was trying to figure out how my life as a flight attendant and my life as an artist might intersect. In my drawing book, I drew this page, which might be the closest I ever got to making my airline work into a work of art…
Norman Rockwell’s book, “How I Make a Picture,” was hugely influential on me as a kid and a wanna-be artist. That guy was a genius. I still have that book (although, where is it? I can’t find it!) - so instead, here’s a picture I found online, of one of the paintings in the book, of Rockwell painting his supposed self-portrait.
Another day on the airplane, another page in the drawing book… that’s how things were, back then.
Being a flight attendant never really felt like the perfect job for me. But I shouldn’t have complained about the Mainz City Hilton - it was awesome!
At one point, I think it was the smallest hotel in the Hilton chain. But I feel like it may have another name now, because when I try to find it online, I can’t. (Don’t confuse it with the Mainz River Hilton - it’s still there, but not nearly as nice.) The City Hilton was in the pedestrian area of the old medieval town centre, and it was beautiful! I recently found these photos that I took from what seems like the same room at the hotel, months or maybe even years apart. It was still beautiful, regardless of the season!
No murals, and no travels, for me, these days. But that’s ok, I am glad to be at home in Calgary, looking through old photos and sketchbook pages. Thanks for keeping me company!