Why toys?

Given the costs of hiring models, the time constraints imposed by one’s day job etc., and my loathing of the process of painting from photos, I was left with few alternatives.

I was wandering around a flea market one morning and my lovely wife saw Capt. Crunch and Big Boy. Voila! I had been painting with smaller toys but had to use photo references due to their size and these seemed a much better alternative and to solve a lot of problems I was wrestling with.  

Toys are cheap, quiet and respectful (they don’t argue about the size of their nose), can hold a pose forever, and crucially, are somewhat anthropomorphic, which forces me to stay disciplined in my drawings (we know what they look like). They’re like artist casts but in color and they lend themselves to a variety of treatment: as narratives, as satires or as homages of the still life genre.