Some of my earliest memories are of drawing - riderless snowmobiles racing across the snow, clowns on stilts. Art has always been there. Unfortunately, as an extremely shy person, I turned away from most opportunities to share my art, out of fear. I worked away at my drawings sporadically while I chased other adventures. The more time I worked on my personal art projects the desire to create became harder to ignore. At 53, I decided to leave my career behind and confront my fears.
I have never had art lessons, except for Grade 7 art class, so I am essentially self-taught. I have created with markers, pencil, airbrush, digital sculpting and rendering, digital illustration and digital painting. My ‘India Ink’ drawings are my most personal. I usually start with an eye shape and then forms and patterns emerge. Sometimes I just play with the combinations of shapes, often I dive into the emotion they evoke. My process was to start with pencil or marker, and then would revisit with technical drawing pens – hence ‘India Ink’. Now I’m more likely to use Adobe Fresco and refine with Illustrator CC.
"Staring at the Palm of my Hand" © 2021 - 2732 X 2048 px Adobe Fresco
J (John) Andrew Stewart [1965, Mississauga] and his wife are grateful to live on the traditional and unceded territory of the Okanagan Sylix, in Kelowna, British Columbia. He flew for 37 years starting as an air cadet glider pilot at 16 [Mountainview, ON], private pilot a year later [London, ON], earning RCAF wings in 1989 [Moose Jaw SK, Portage la Prairie, MB], first serving as maritime helicopter pilot [Victoria, BC], then instructor [Portage la Prairie, MB], and then test pilot [Cold Lake, AB] to complete a 20-year military career. He ended his flying as a helicopter air ambulance pilot for the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service, and coming full circle, as a glider familiarization pilot for the air cadet program [Grande Prairie, AB]. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Physics in 1988 [Royal Roads Military College - Sooke, BC and Royal Military College of Canada - Kingston, ON] and graduated as a Qualified Test Pilot in 1998 [National Test Pilot School - Mojave, California]. At 52, he was fortunate to experience “Foundations of Purpose” at the Banff Centre.