European Starling

Graphite and India Ink on Paper

Another sketch diary page -- uploaded this ages ago but forgot to post it. This is mislabeled on the page as an Eastern Starling, when in fact it's really called a European Starling.

India ink does approximate the general look of the thing, but the feathers are iridescent in the light.Very cool in real life.

Sparrow

Graphite on paper

Doing some bird drawings in the old sketch diary these days. This is a song sparrow, similar to the common house sparrow, of which there are many around these parts. We also have a nest of Red-bellied Woodpeckers in our backyard that we've quite enjoyed watching, and a seldom-seen Gray Catbird who comes to our Grape Hollies every now and then. Will soon post a sketch of an Eastern Starling, several of whom stop by  the front yard sometimes. They're pretty common here in Georgia as well.

Watercolor and India Ink

16x13, Ink and watercolor on cold press paper

This is a fairly large piece, relative to what I've been doing. It was a bit challenging working on cold press watercolor paper with this particular technique using standard-nib India ink pens because the rough, absorbent surface of the paper is a bit hostile to the fast, precise strokes I need to make. The trick turns out to be to use the back of the paper, which is smoother than the front, and slow the strokes down a bit. Of course the trade-off in favor of the ink means less control with the paint, but it's a swap I can live with.

One year blog anniversary today!

Ink on paper

I realized this afternoon that today marks one year since my first post on this blog. That post included a charcoal drawing of a five year old dancer (below), rendered in a meticulously realistic style. This one here is a funny little drawing I did today in my Moleskin journal while on a conference call. You might say the character of my work has changed a bit over the year.

Might even say the change has been fairly drastic, but I think that stems more from gaps and selectivity in my posting than from any major shifts in my actual art practice. When I look back through my journals and finished work over the past year I can see a gradual and intentional progression from realistic figurative and portrait drawing to the more abstract forms I've been doing these days.

Well, onward and, one hopes, upward. Happy blog day to me!

12x9; charcoal and Conte crayon on paper.
Check out that copyright watermark!
So professional . . .

Forms

12x9; Ink and graphite on bristol

I've really been enjoying drawing these simple forms both in my sketch journal and, as above, larger on bristol board.

Here's a smaller one, this time with a bird:

Ink and tinted graphite on paper

V-Day card

9 x 6 (photo slightly cropped)
Ink and colored pencil on Bristol

Intention and Influence

I had an unlikely conversation this afternoon at the baseball park. A friend and fellow little league coach came over to me and said, "you wanna see something scary?" As he showed my email entry in his smart phone, featuring the icon I use for Gmail and on this blog and elsewhere. I told him it was a self-portrait, that the original hangs in my wife's office. When he stared at me blankly, I struggled to fill the conversational void, telling him I had intended it to be a "warts and all" piece, for which I photographed myself first thing in the morning when I looked my worst, and then used a very soft, very dark pencil to "crank up the contrast," if you will. Still no response, so I blathered on, saying it was inspired by the work of Hyper-Realists like Chuck Close, though of course on an entirely different scale.

"Well, in any case, it kinda creeped me out when it showed up on my phone like that."

Clearly he hadn't been fishing for my artist's statement. But the conversation made me think about things like  intentionality and how we talk about art. It made me think about straight talk vs. bullshit and even real gut level stuff like one person's deep love for a piece and another's visceral dislike or discomfort.

But it also make me think about how we classify our own efforts as "serious work" as opposed to experiments, which is how I think of most of what I'm doing these days. If I do think of something as "serious" when I set out to work on it, I'm often disappointed in the results. Unless I obsess over every stroke of the process.

As it happens, I drew that self-portrait on relatively cheap, Strathmore 300 sketch paper rather than high quality drawing paper or board, so I don't reckon I set out to do a "keeper." And who really knows if I was thinking about Hyper-Realism and Chuck Close and all that when I made the drawing? I think of it now because we have a refrigerator magnet of his portrait of Philip Glass that I see every day of my life. I did the drawing, and my wife especially liked it, so I ended up cutting a nice mat and framing it.

Well, apropos of nothing, here are some pen-and-ink "doodles" I did during family movie night this weekend. These are out of the sketch diary, so clearly not destined for framing.

"Leaf" -- India Ink and Graphite (glare is from the pencil. grrr.)

"Head" -- Ink and graphite

PS -- I suppose the title's only vaguely related to the content of this post. That's the way it goes sometimes.

As yet untitled

Watercolor and ink on handmade paper

I forgot about this guy -- a page from the "watercolor journal." I think I don't have anything to say about it, but I feel like posting it here.

Valentine Doodles

5x8, india ink and graphite on paper

Le jour de l'amour is fast approaching, and that means hand drawn or painted valentines will be required. So I'm prepping with some doodles in the diary. As usual, the captures are pretty poor, coming as they do from my smart phone, emailed straight to blogger. But I think they're good enough to represent the quick spirit of these.

about 4x2, india ink and graphite on paper