shading with water

Though I'm not good at it, I like drawing with soluble ink and using water to wash grays in from the inklines.

The socks are done with w/c pencils. On Superaquabee paper.

Will Eisner, Cartoonist

This was a great film on his career and art. I saw it on a Netflix DVD.

Stopped the action to do a quick sketch with a brush pen. On Rhodia dotted grid paper.

Pilot's Varsity disposable fountain pens

These pens are so great for sketching. Non-stop fast flow, they never skip even when shading fast, and a great feel on the paper.

In the journal.

woodstove coma

With 23 degrees and a wind this morning, the woodstove had to be started. Which puts Chaucer right into an intense long-extension nap.

Usually I'm done burning by mid-March. Not this year!

Wolff pencils

I love Wolff pencils--made of carbon, not charcoal or graphite. They have a lot of drag, but leave no shine and they're not dusty.

In the journal, where the writing on the other side of the page made wallpaper here.

bloomin' thing

It sits in the kitchen window and gets water once a week. No lavish attention, but it blooms regularly anyway.

It deserves a repotting and fertilizer. Scheduled for when enough snow melts that I can get to my potting soil in the shed.

Faber-Castell calligraphy pen and Prismacolor Art Stix, in the journal.

one sock down, one cuff to go

The first one fits perfectly. I love my new basic sock pattern based on Cat Bordhi's Houdini sock technique.

I knit both feet first to make sure I made them match, now am adding the cuffs.

I store pieces on circulars or to try the fit, but knit with dpns. I made these with the size 1 (2.25 mm) square Kollage needles.

I really like the amount of slide and the point on these metal needles.

unpaid model

Drawn with a tech pen, shading added with a soluble ink pen, spread with water.

I picked up one of the blues to fill in the background with Gimp.

He seemed relaxed when I drew him, but the image conveys impatience and tension. He had other things to do than model.

On 90# w/c paper.

vine charcoal on smooth paper . . .

. . . is a mess. But it fills a page fast.

Pastel for the blue background.

In the journal.

Lizzie in pencil

Her hair is a darker red but I don't have that color in this particular set of pencils.

The model doesn't care.

Colored pencils in the journal.

off the DVD

This is on the DVD box of John Cusack's movie, Say Anything.

Colored pencil in the journal.

Faber Castell brush pen

I'm posting random sketches, just keeping the posts coming and the drawing going.

I never have artist's block because I follow William Stafford's advice about writing poetry. Don't like what you're producing? Lower your standards. Sooner or later something good comes out.

Brush pen in the journal.

local tomatoes

These perfect little tomatoes came from Backyard Farms in Maine. And they tasted as good as they look (better than my sketch).

Their packaging is outstanding, sells the product! Look at the link, their box is down on the left side.

W/c pencil in the journal.

watery scan

A lumpy collage is on the back of this page. The scan came out as though Chaucer is looking over the edge of a cliff into water.

Pencil in the journal.

quick explosion of mixed media

Acrylic base, collage, tech pen for outlines, pastels for color,

In the journal.

David Lynch, film maker, artist, meditator

This is not a sketch of David Lynch, but of someone else in the video on his art show in Italy. I liked Lynch's statement about what he finds in practicing meditation.

Doddling in the journal. Pencil.

the accumulation so far, now it's March

As of today, the mound at the end of the driveway is still higher than my CRV. That's a lot to melt away. There's crocus bulbs under there, fa-ar under there.

They may see the sun by June.

tree in a parking lot

I was waiting to go into an appointment and noticed the interesting shadows on this tree. I did a quick sketch of the shapes and tones, then colored it in with w/c pencils and a light wash.

In a Strathmore Aquarius sketchbook.

Gustave Courbet's cat

Drawn from a paused video. This cat is in one of Courbet's paintings. A pose I could never catch from real life.

Pencil in the journal

second sock

This shows the construction of the sock I learned from Cat Bordhi's book, Personal Footprints of the Insouciant Knitter. So simple and fits me perfectly.

I make the whole foot as a solid, shaped tube. Here I'm about to finish off the heel. Then I open the tube between the two marker lines and pick up those stitches to knit the cuff upwards.

I can knit as tall a leg as I have the yarn for, increasing as needed for the calf.