Keith Miller
Canadian artist living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.This is a blog about my life, my travels and my work.....
"Wandering’s the most addictive drug there is, I think, and every hidden road leads on to a dozen more."
Reblogged from quotemadness
Stephen King (via quotemadness)
Top, The front cover of a sketch book, (interior page size, 3.25in. by 4.75in.) that I used on a trip from Oct. 1986 to Oct. 1987 on a trip to Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Korea. Above is a pencil sketch drawn across the first pages of the book just before leaving from Toronto Airport for Hong Kong on Oct. 9, 1986.
The pencil sketches above were done in two different ‘guesthouses’ located in the upper reaches of an old building called the Chung King Mansions. It’s a bit of a Hong Kong institution filled with wholesale and retail shops and restaurants on the lower floors and miniaturized hotels/guesthouses on the upper floors. This was my first accommodation in Asia after my flight from Toronto and it was an eye-opener. The building was always humming with activity with vendors and traders from around the world. Somehow they managed to shoehorn everything into the guesthouse rooms- shower, a.c. unit, T.V., bed, writing desk. The management guys were friendly and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there in the center of Kowloon, Hong Kong. So much energy and a great intro to Asia!
Evening, Tea Garden Hotel, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, by Keith Miller
Graphite, 6.5in. by 4.75in.
This was a quick sketch of a visitor to Signal Hill, Hong Kong. It’s a pleasant place to go to get a view out over the city’s harbor. So much of the harbor waterfront is so built up with hotels that it’s not that easy to gain that sort of vantage point- at least in a public place.
I rubbed some chalk pastel on these two pages and then drew the sketch on top of that colored base. The collage element was glued on later. It was cold in Yangshuo, China in late October. Cold, rainy and damp and not easy to under those conditions to get clothes to dry. Not exactly backpacker heaven but I’ve stayed in a lot worse places.
Zuyang Hotel, Yangshuo, China by Keith Miller
Top; graphite; below, pen and ink, each 6.5in. by 4.75in.
It looks as though I changed rooms during my stay at this small hotel. At that time there definitely wasn’t much choice in accommodation in Yangshuo. This picturesque town had a long and venerable history of ‘tourism’ amongst the Chinese and almost no experience with foreign visitors.