Meet the correspondents: TORONTO > Jerry Waese

"I don’t know why but I have always loved art, and being able to show something to another person – to describe things handily with a few implements.

A black crayon was critical by 7 years of age but clay or plasticine was also a big favorite as a child.

As a student I was crazy for black pens and I doodled figures and shapes in all my texts, even organic chemistry. My guide was Hokusai and his Manga.

Later I scraped pens and pencils into the makeshift plywood desks at construction sites, during my stint as a house builder, and I went cuckoo with duplication techniques like reducing photocopiers or diazo printers.

Later it was computers and animation – the RGB of individual pixels and rectangular bit blit operations in graphic chips, tv show animation, robot vision and multilayer paintbox computer stop frame claymation.

How did I not know that I needed to draw and paint until I was in my 40’s?

I love color movement and shape:

In the last two years I have been sketching as my painting studio is not set up and I can’t crank out works on canvas so easily, but I really love the small paper format, (mostly seven inch by seven inch books) the portable kit., and the treasure that a 160 page sketchbook becomes once it is filled.

I am working in my ninth such book now and I am back to a deep appreciation of the crayon, especially the black crayon.

Every jacket has at least some form of sketchbook in it, and a pen or pencil and a sharpener."

• Jerry's art on Flickr.