bam

Growing up in Toronto, I was always drawing. As a little kid, animals were my favourite subject. My parents were very encouraging, and when I was about ten they arranged for me to spend time with a wonderful artist named Ralph Abrams. He was a painter, sculptor and animator who was passionate about experimenting with The New. I would occupy long Saturday afternoons sketching at the museum, or sculpting at his studio. Sometimes Ralph and I would just hang out with all the other artists in the building and they would show me how they created their art. Even then, I knew that I was going to make art my career.

In my early teens I was accepted into a special high school of the arts in Toronto, where I studied life drawing, colour theory, art history and individual technique classes. I was hungry to get as much practical experience with as many different media as I could. By the time I graduated there was nothing I had not tried. But I had yet found my own individual style. I experimented with everything from photo-realistic wildlife in watercolour, to aggressively expressed abstract oils. I even briefly fell in love with technical illustration. (For an artist, I can be a very rational person, and I enjoyed the precision of it.)

Fresh out of art school, I stepped sideways into advertising. Some 200 local, national and international creative awards later, I rose to the position of SVP Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Canada. But the hours were brutal and I regretted every passing day that I arrived home too tired to paint. It was time to make a dramatic change.

So I returned to the easel full time. Eventually, I built Bigcatheads.com as a virtual gallery to display my work. It's very gratifying to get positive comments from people who live a world away. On any given day, folks from Tokyo and London and Rio drop by my site to look around. I've found that my paintings are quite popular the UK where cat lovers are the majority of the population and in South America, must be the bold, vibrant colours.

I began painting cats years ago, shortly after adopting a magical little kitty named Maxine. Maxie is the inspiration behind the Bigcatheads series. All at once, I found my own style, as my past influences melded into one. I rejected the detail of realism and evolved the linework into simpler, more iconic shapes. I embraced the saturated colour found in abstract work, and the whimsical spirit of cartooning. The subject matter was and still is, cats.

You see, I adore cats. I love everything about them. They're just like me, quiet, reserved, mysterious and easily embarrassed. When I look into a cat's eyes, I see a deep consciousness. It's not human, and it's a little bit twisted, but there are definitely wheels turning in there. What I try to capture with my art is an essence, that feeling of being completely immersed inside the moment. People who live with cats will know what I mean. The real magic is in the cat's reaction TO the moment. Cats have a profound range of expressions, but they're so subtle, they're virtually invisible. Have you ever seen a cat smile? They can you know. They smile with their eyes. My work is inviting to the viewer. It makes people happy. and can literally brighten the room it's in. I'll leave the deep, brooding statements of despair to others. I do cats.

When I think about some of my early artistic influences probably the main one from a visual perspective is Native North American Indian painting. I was attracted to the bold, saturated flat colours and simple strong linework. It is often animal based with a creative expression of that animals spirit, its soul. Even in the storytelling, it can be quite whimsical. I also enjoy Keith Haring, Roy Liechtenstein and many early 20th century poster artists.

I often wish I were disciplined enough to keep proper sketchbooks, but I don't. Instead, I keep a stack of tissues in the corner of my studio. I scribble a thought down the moment it hits me, and file it away to work up later in a more controlled way. Research, for me, consists of getting right down on the floor and playing with Lily. (Lily is the new Maxie). Our internal clocks are synchronized as if by an unseen hand. Somehow, I can be painting away for hours with her curled up by my feet, and then, with no signal from me, she senses that it's time for me to break or stretch, and she hops up looking to be entertained.

When I work up a drawing, I strive for balance. I have very few rules, but I do maintain unswerving dedication to expressing - one thing. One moment, one message, one gag, one prop, sometimes even one shape. Simplicity always. My other rule is - no sharp edges. I like the flow of line as it blends together. Detail lives in the corners, so I don't have any.

Most of my work is fairly large. And simple objects, when they're big on canvas, take on a visual perspective they don't have as a small sketch or thumbnail. I make the necessary adjustments once I've laid the piece out on canvas and walked around it for a while. I usually have a plan for colour, but I'll often change my mind midway through. I like to underpaint in some situations to give the colour even more depth.

Not every day is a painting day. I'll spend weeks just doing drawings, thinking about drawings, changing over and over again. I usually wait until I have four or five that I'm happy with and only then do I work them up to size. Then I'll choose my favourite to paint first. At least two days a week are spent on business. It's really important for artists today to market themselves. My advertising background comes in handy here and I do a lot of work through the internet keeping up client relationships and promoting my work.

On a painting day I'm up early so I've got plenty of time to fuel up with coffee, read the morning newspaper, scan the Internet and still get into the studio by nine. The mood of the day determines the atmosphere. It might be loud rock or soft jazz, but it might also just be news on TV. If there's an old Star Trek re-run on, well, I'm a happy guy. I like to go for very long stretches without interruption. The phone can ring off the hook for all I care, I'm not answering it. My evenings are spent relaxing with my beautiful wife Nora. At some point before bed, I'll wander back into the studio to contemplate the day's effort. This is a magical time. The light is different and it's quiet. If you listen very closely, you might hear purring. It's not Lily. It's me.

BAM

Bruce Andrew Mckay