- A Couple of Quick Oil Studies -

I did these two little oil paintings (4" x 12") last summer. The first one is an impression of the July 4th parade in Weaverville, California and the second one is totally from memories of a farm experience. I painted both of these with a small pointed pallette knife, using a limited but strong selection of colors. I hope you enjoy looking at them.


....(please click on the images to see a larger versions of each.)

A Small Floral Watercolor Gets Featured

One of my small watercolors just got featured in an Etsy treasury that was created by an artist named Lora. Click Here to See It.

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Second Prize Winner in my Self-Portrait Contest

I have some of my work on /Fine Art America's website and I ran a "Self-Portrait" contest there last week. First prize was one of my fine art prints and second prize was a blog post on A Drawing Per Day. Voting was done by the members of the Fine Art America community. So here is the posting: Second Prize winner was artist Sunil Jangir and his portrait drawing is shown below:
Click Here to see the artist's profile page.
You can click on the drawing to see a larger image.



Third Prize was a link to the winners page from this blog. Here is the link:
Click Here to see the 3rd Prize Winner, Tammy Krantz.

Barbara Raymond Stewart on Zazzle

I just created a Zazzle store featuring the art of my late wife Barbara Raymond Stewart. Check it out when you get a chance.
Click Here to See it.


View more gifts at Zazzle.

An Eye Drawing Demo in Corel Painter

A business website for you in 10 minutes, and it's free...

Draw Graffiti Murals

It's been a busy week of Drawing Graffiti Murals inside various offices. The top picture is a work in progress from earlier today at a media company on Spadina today and the bottom two are from a real estate firm in Yorkville that I finished earlier this week.

Digital Portrait Video - Using Corel Painter IX

This is a digital portrait sketch done using the pencil tool in Corel Painter IX. Hope you enjoy watching the process.





A business website for you in 10 minutes, and it's free...

The Man With a Magic Pencil

I ran across this artist and we became friends on an art site a couple of years ago. Yesterday I saw his art on Saatchi.com and I was amazed all over again. His name is Dirk Dzimirsky, and what he accomplishes with graphite and charcoal is almost beyond comprehension. Be sure to go to his website and check out all of his work, and drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

....(please click on the image to see a larger version)





Click Here for a 10 minute Business idea

- A Digital Portrait of a Man -

Here is a digital portrait that I did last year of an imaginary man, using Corel Painter 9. Reminds me of a sea captain in an old movie.

A Watercolor Demo of "Monet's Waterlilies"

MOEA - MUSEUM OF EGG ART -

MOEA - MUSEUM OF EGG ART -

COMIC BOOK DRAWINGS and VIDEO GAME ART

HEY APATHY! That's me playing the new comic book drawing HEY APATHY! Video game at Nuit Blanche. Special thanks to the collaborative team of Michael Richards (programmer), Dan Morphy w/ Tor-Q (musicians) as well as Alice Dixon and the Urban Space gallery for the opportunity to show! THANKS ALL it was awesome! 

CALIFORNIA WATERCOLOR.COM

I've been working on this for about 2 1/2 years now and it's finally happened. I've been asked to hang along side of a lot of legendary watercolor artist's such as Rex Brandt, Phil Dike, Emile Kosa Jr., Millard Sheets, Marion Wachtel, Phil Paradise, Hardy Grammatky, Dong Kingman and others in Michael Johnson's California Watercolor collection. They will be offering my original art along with giclee works. They have a physical gallery along with a terrific website. Looking forward to a long relationship with them.
You can check them out at: http://tinyurl.com/3cf8xfe.

~ A Small San Francisco Watercolor ~

Last week I had the urge to paint a cityscape in watercolor so I dug through my pictures of San Francisco and found one that I liked. I think it was the Bay Bridge in the background that sold me on this one. I'm not sure what street this is, but I'm sure somebody out there knows. Drop me a comment below. The painting measures 7 x 10 inches and is unframed. Thanks, John


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~ ART SHOW FEVER ~

Sorry that I've been neglecting the blog, but I've been fevereshly preparing for an August art show with my sister Jane M. Belden and also for a Watercolor class that I will be teaching on the 4th and 5th of August. The show is at the Highland Art Center in Weaverville, CA and I've posted the invitation below. Jane and I did this brother/sister show 10 years ago and thought it would be fun to do again. If any of you are in town, consider yourself invited :)

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MANGA DRAWINGS !

Comics Online! Weird Strip # 654

Weird Comics Online

Comic Book Blogs Canada Day Long Weekend - Work & Play

Getting ready for the summer outdoor art festivals...

A Sketchbook - Drawings by John N. Stewart

CBE and HEY APATHY! Limited Edition T-Shirts!

MORE INFO HERE

My New Watercolor Book

I just finished publishing a new book of my watercolor art. It's called "Aqueous" and below is a widget that shows a preview of the book. I used Blurb software to make the book, it is one of the easiest systems to use for this. Check it out.....

A Q U E O U S by John NormanStewart | Make Your Own Book

COMIC BOK DRAWINGS "ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE"

HEY APATHY! COMIC BOOK DRAWINGS

nature, man and mechanics in joyous synthesis

inspired by the manifesto and Adam Curtis documentry of the same name...

ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE

COMIC BOOK BLOGS more MOGWOMP SOUP...

COMIC BOOK BLOGS WEBCOMIC CUT UPS

Comic Book Blogs SNEAK PREVIEW LIMITED EDITION T-SHIRTS

HEY APATHY! COMIC BOOK BLOGS!

SNEAK PREVIEW OF A NEW LIMITED EDITION

HAND PAINTED T-SHIRTS.

 MORE INFO COMING SOON!

COmic Book Blogs Mogwomp Soup

 COMIC BOOK BLOGS! Now Serving Mogwomp Soup

READ UNDERGROUND COMICS ONLINE

STUPID COMICS!

READ COMIC S ONLINE

Read Comic Books Online

HEY APATHY! READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE

A Surreal Cityscape.

Getting ready for the NEW ARTS FESTIVAL in Ottawa this weekend and enjoying the incredibly hot weather with some cityscape cartooning while sitting in Kensington Park. It was so quiet and beautiful there today. I hardly even noticed and drug addicts and saw a lot of families with their little kids. Total meditation. The wind was extremely powerful and for the first time ever, I could actually feel the giant tree that I sit under swaying back and forth as though it were a twig! The gust help to keep the heat and humidity down, it was a beautiful day. READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE!

smaller version....

READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE An Eyeball Horror

READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE!

A commissioned drawing for some cosmic horror written by Rajeev Mullock. 



A Watercolor Abstract Called "Fluidity"

I painted this one yesterday. It is 9 x 12 inches on a watercolor block. When I looked at it this morning I thought it had definite "Graffiti" overtones and almost collage-like feelings to it. Anyway, I hope that you like it. Please leave comments......

Click on picture below to see a larger image.

COMIC BOOK BLOGS DRAWINGS OF TREES

COMIC BOOKS BLOGS Drawings of TREES

Now that the weather is getting nice and hot and finally dry enough for some outdoor sketching I've been making my wayround the city getting some strange ideas down on paper. It's kind of like working the streets but a lot more introverted and a lot less stuff to carry. Got to love the hot summer for people watching, city watching and unusual inspirations... READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE!

READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE

HEY APATHY! READ COMIC BOOKS ONLINE

A weird little strip from the future. As if cigarettes weren't enough but as we all know nothing is ever relly enough when it comes to satisfying man's cravings and desires.

HEY APATHY! this ain't really life...

Just a quick link to one of my all time favorite songs, R.I.P. Gil Scott Heron ...




Otherwise today I existed only outside of my self. It is both my sister's  and my crazy little nephew's birthday this weekend ( he almost stole his mother's date the rascal!) Happy Birthday Amanda and Lil Darroch Gorden!

Comic Book Blogs The Metamorphosis

Comic Book Blogs Gregor's Metamorphosis. 

I just can't shake this horrible feeling that I'm turning into something wretched. Life just feels so empty and pointless right now and I can't make any connections with anyone else. I had one friend who seemed to understand me but she just flipped out and turned into a yuppie. She told me I was nothing,  just a cockroach and there was no point in my disatifaction with a existence built on slave labor, mass hypnosis and shitty popular culture. "Just accept it! There is no use is yelling and screaming about world!" But if I don't do it, who will? I am so sad right now. At least I'm still a cockroach, it's a far more respectable than being human ...

COMIC BOOK BLOGS METAMORPHOSIS

COMIC BOOK BLOGS METAMORPHOSIS

COMIC BOOK BLOGS SURREAL ALIENS!

HEY APATHY!

COMIC BOOK BLOGS! A Surreal Alien Origin story! You know the one where a planet is doomed so they send their kid to camp earth . Not only does the child escape certain doom, but his rather ordinary existence on the otherworld is replaced by one of extrodinary prowress on our meager planet! More silly cartoons from my mid-life crisis sketchbook. Read comic books online!

- A DIGITAL ABSTRACT -

I did this one in Photoshop starting with a photo and then experimenting with the Filter Gallery until I got the initial effect. Then I hand colored specific areas using the bucket tool and brush tools. I made the file size large enough to get a decent sized print of it. I also ended up with three variations of the abstract which could be possibly hung as a triptic.

....(please click on the image to see a larger version)

Comic Book Blogs Work in Progress

HEY APATHY! COMIC BOOK BLOGS!

Hah, I just got back from a 2 o'clock Saturday night stroll down party lane ( College Street) to buy some chips, get some fresh air and a stretch. I saw people falling over, huddled in clouds of cigarette smoke, could determine which bars were serving vodka as opposed to the ones serving beer and every alley and empty storefront reaked of marijuana. The highlight of the staggering stinkfest had to be the idiot who dropped his pizza right in a pile of unidentifiable ooze, he picked it up and almost fell over but that didn't stop him from eating that slice. Now just to be fair I'll expose a little of my own filth. When I got back in my studio my desk looked like this ( above pictures). I found my mess a little comical so I took a couple pictures  

~ DOODLE DROID ~

I recently got a new smartphone. It's an HTC Inspire and I like it alot. It has a larger screen than the iphone4 and I personally think that the Droid apps are catching up with Apple. One of these is a drawing app called "Doodle Droid" and I thought I would post a couple of drawings that I was able to do pretty quickly on it. The app has one hang-up - it crashes when you want to reload a picture. I've reported it and I hope they are working on fixing that. These were both done with my fingers and I just got a stylus that works for a little more precision, but it tends to drag and hesitate a bit.

....(please click on the image to see a larger version)

Comic Book Blogs! The Future of Reading Are Kindles Recyclable?

COMIC BOOK BLOGS "THE FUTURE OF READING!

Some press today about the Kindle ebook out selling paper editions. No big surprise the future is yesterday now and things like this are to be expected. Just a couple questions came to mind though, considering the ever growing pile of  computer landfills and the never ending life expectancy of plastics... are Kindle's recyclable? Well apparently if you don't throw them out and go through a number of tedious forms and services you can eventually send the ebook back to the company after you are done with it, but really what are the chances of anyone doing that. The steps involve filling out personal information, printing a UPS free-shipping sticker, packing it and mailing it to the Kindle recycling plant. Wow, maybe a couple of hard core hippies will do it but I doubt that you will. It's very encouraging though (that Orwell's 1984 won't be available  due to copyright laws until 2 years after the book predicts all  human  language will be completely reverted to newspeak lol!)  that numerous corporate blogs pomoting the ebook as Eco-Freindly and Green-whatever also have this on their sites ....

As if that's going to stop us from throwing them out...

Surreal Animations

Comic Book Blogs "SURREAL CITY"

HEY APATHY! Comic Book Drawings And Strange Stories

Inspired by my new housemates who have decided that the no smoking rule doesn't apply to them when a) they think no one else is home, b) they think everyone else is asleep, c) it is raining outside and d) if they have company over despite repeated warnings and a recent notice of eviction if the problem persits. Also a low income housing project that some of my friends from the graffiti street art days used to live in burned down last week thanks to a similiar problem.

Comic Book Drawings & Graffiti Street Art

HEY APATHY! Comic Book Drawings & Graffiti Street Art!

The end of an era, (so to speak) I got a phone call from a long time collector who I met while working the streets yesterday who was wondering if I had any of my old canvas’ left for sale. I used to make a bunch of acrylic on canvas’ works ranging from 8” x 10 “ to 30” x 40 “ which I sold while performing on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto. So I scrambled through what little I art I have stored in my apartment and discovered there are only 4 pieces left. Pretty amazing considering I was cranking out anywhere from 25 and 50 small canvas’ works a week between 2006 and 2008. That equals about 2500 artworks ( mostly 8 x 10”) hanging on weirdo’s walls world wide. And this total does not even include the small prints or ink on paper works I was producing before graduating to the finer canvas’.



It pretty crazy and well feels really good to look back on that accomplishment and say hey those were some damn good times. I’ll never forget one morning when I set up my stuff and this guy with a really thick Australian accent approached me with the following question “ So you just sit here and draw pictures all day?” My response was “Pretty much, here let me tell you about this one …” He cut me off before I could explain it saying “ oh I know all about the City of Gears, I have one in my house in Australia, my daughter bought one here the last time she was visiting.”

COMIC BOOK DRAWINGS and MONSTER ANIMATION

HEY APATHY! COMIC BOOK DRAWINGS  & MONSTER ANIMATION

OK this is pretty freakin cool. I am working with graphics designer Michael Peters on a new series of 3D paintings in which we are going to render my surreal cityscapes in a virtual video game style format. These interactive artworks will be projected on the gallery ( any interested galleries out there?) walls and the audience can navigate there way through them using a video game joystick. Er, um, I think this is crazy amazing and the closest I've come to interactive art since I left the streets. More as things develop. 

Comic Book Drawings! Everyone's Favorite Webslinger ...

A little bit of childhood nostalgia, this one's for my friends at Whitechapel and absolutely everyone else who is, was, or wishes they still were 10 years old. ( Spider-Man is a trademark/copyright of Marvel Comics but I think it's o.k. to post fan art once in a while)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULII!!