The Set Up

This is where I'll be living for the next few days. Desk lights for seeing good; tissues for spills and thrills; big jar of water for cleaning my brushes; mug full of a nice grey wash of ink and water for tones; stack of test strips of Bristol board; ink pots (to be refilled as needed from my big bottle;  work area standing by with the first portrait (Alex Pearson); coffee; brushes and brushes and brushes; pencil and eraser (just in case of whatever); remote controls for music and movies; and just out of shot (above the top light the tripod is visible) is the webcam that'll be broadcasting this whole thing on a live stream.

Flashback: 1989 (part 1)

11 December 1989: my friend Alex Pearson and I were thinking of ways to participate in the week of "Christmas Cheer" that our high school was having to raise money for a charity (I don't remember which) like they do every year.

We were at Little Caesar's at Lawrence and Kingston in Scarborough and brainstormed a few ideas. The best we came up with was to get people to sponsor us for every hour that we stayed awake. "Let's make it a hundred hours; since we both got up around 8am this morning, that would take us to noon, Friday."

So it began.

I decided to keep a log of my activity (for science!*) and it's a pretty entertaining read almost exactly 23 years later. Please bear in mind I was just 18 years old and this was the last week of school before the Christmas break (hence all the skipped classes and the lame activities during the classes I did attend).
I was alone that first night, but my amazing friends kept me company for the rest of the experiment; they made it much easier.

Here, now (as a Bonus Feature of my painting marathon), is DAY ONE:

• Wake up at 8:AM (BEGIN)
• 10:20am - went to Art class, sat about for most of it
• 11:30am - went to English class, participated in group work
• about 12:50pm - jello-eating contest in the café –done deliberately slowly
• about 1:05pm (with Jeff Jones) - had lunch
• 1:30pm - hung about in the café with friends till about 5:30pm
• about 5:45pm - went to Alex Pearson's house
• about 6:30pm - had dinner [this would have been at Little Caesar's]
• 8:PM - got home; kicked around house; wrote journal for sleep deprivation experiment -(this)
• 10:PM - glass of fruit punch while listening to stereo
• 10:10PM - watched cheesy made-for-TV movie - rested eyes during commercials (still awake)
• 10:30PM - had snacks
• 11:00PM - watched Prisoners of Gravity [while] lying down in front of TV
• 11:25PM - walked around house [inside]
• 11:30PM - watched Buckaroo Banzai while walking around (and lying down)
• 12:30AM - started fire in fireplace; watch David Letterman (repeat); rested eyes during commercials
• 1:30AM - continued watching Buckaroo Banzai while walking around room (and sitting down) - moving about, at any rate
• 2:25AM - air drummed/guitarred to songs on headphones (sitting)
• 3:30AM - read 1 chapter of The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted (lying down)
• 3:45AM - rested eyes for count of fifty
• 3:50AM - watched TV (moving around) –Night Moves (bakeout TV); rested eyes during commercials
• 5:00AM - watched "Benson" - rested eyes as usual; had snack
• 5:15AM - bleeding nose (cause: unknown)
• 5:20AM - nose stopped bleeding
• 5:30AM - watched some dumb show on business taxes, etc.
• 6:00AM - watched Hercules [animated] – oh, that Hercules
• 7:00AM - watched House of Frightenstein –yah, weird, eh?
• 7:30AM - took a shower
  
  
  READ PART TWO.

*Actually for science, in fact: I later wrote a report of this for my Grade 12 Bio class.

Stack

This is what a stack* of one hundred
sheets of Bristol board looks like.

I still have about a day's worth of work to do, tightening the pencils, to give me a bit of a head start for the marathon (i.e. I'll only be painting with inks and not still drawing stuff), but I feel quite prepared right now.

*That one on top is my big weird head, which I'm saving for last, just before I collapse.

CBC's Ontario Morning

For any of you who are up early, I'll be chatting about my painting marathon with Wei Chen tomorrow (Dec 4) at 6:10AM on CBC's Ontario Morning.

Tune in and afterward you can tell me how goofy I sounded.

Listen to the podcast.

Live and Direct

I've just run a test with my new webcam and it looks like I've got a green light for a live streaming broadcast of the marathon next week (see this blog's banner above for dates and times).

You can tune in at any point during the proceedings (but following along over the entire four days isn't advisable) by going to my Ustream channel.

Open House

Krista and I would like to invite you to our holiday Open House at Small Pond Arts, Sunday 16 December from 11am to 5pm.

Drop in for a bite, a bevvie, and a chin-wag! View the 100 portraits that I painted in 100 hours during Burning the Midnight Oil and warm up by the blazing wood stove and let Krista regale you with tales of her recent trip to Ghana. Plus, there will be a massive sale happening in the gallery, with all paintings being between 25-50% off...and a selection of finger puppets that make great stocking stuffers.

All are welcome! Stay for as little or as long as you'd like. Hope to see you then!

One Quarter

"But everything has been so gradual that it's sort of all come from just hard work and basically being at it."

– Kim Gordon.

About a quarter of the portraits here, prepped in pencils on Bristol board. I have enough photo ref now to bring the total up to two thirds and these should be ready by early next week.

It's interesting: my Burning the Midnight Oil project is a 100 hour painting marathon, but the preparations (soliciting participants, collating and keeping track of all kinds of info, creating and sending press releases, documenting the process by writing this blog, getting all the portraits ready, etc.) will probably take just as long if I was keeping track of those hours.

Grapevine

Although not directly related to my 100 paintings marathon, being in the current issue of Grapevine magazine is still pretty interesting and fun:

Click the photo for my blog post.

Official Notice

Burning the Midnight Oil

100 portraits painted in 100 hours

Marathon starts December 6 at 5 PM, finishes December 10 at 9 PM

Read the press release for the event HERE.

Ship-shape and Bristol Fashion

"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way."

– Ernest Hemingway

Not quite 100 sheets here, but enough to get me started as I begin prepping the 100 portraits this month.