colorful meditation

Playing in the journal. Playing with paint frees you from the mind, too.

Any focused concentration on an activity can work for that, not just traditional meditation methods.

Acrylics and poster paint pens.

drawing interiors

I'm fascinated by the artists at urbansketchers.com who can do such small, accurate and detailed interior scenes. And drawing in a crowd of people, too!

I'm working on simple doors and walls, for now. Just getting them in relatively correct perspective and proportion is a big improvement compared to where I was 3 years ago.

Pencil in the journal.

trying new paint mixes

I got out tubes of w/c paint I seldom use, colors that aren't in my favorite palette mix, and started playing.

I never use white in watercolors, but this time I mixed it with indigo, which is otherwise too black for me, and got this interesting blue.

The orange is Winsor orange, and the green is the orange mixed with Prussian blue. Very autumnal, so I had to draw a pumpkin.

W&N w/c on Canson 90# paper.

drawing a Zombie

This was an experiment that worked out better than I expected. I drew a face with a Pentel brush pen on slightly rough paper, getting a drybrush look.

Then I misted it with a spray of water, and the black ink bloomed!

I love the intense black/white effect. Instant Zombie!

Ink on 140# w/c paper.

Hyatt Regency elevator(s)

There are 4 glass elevators in the hotel. Great view, pretty lights, but they can't handle many people per car.

If you hold the door open with your hand, the elevator breaks, as in--won't go up or down anymore. A simple reflexive action causes frustrating delays and great irritation!

They have big signs everywhere about being ve-ery careful with the elevators. These poorly designed cars are a royal pain with hundreds of people going up and down to 16 floors of sessions, meals, rooms, dealers, and activities.

Next year Arisia will be in a different hotel, so this was my last chance to draw the flakey elevators.

Pencil in W&N sketchbook.

faces and backs

More Arisia people, audience and speakers.

Lots of heads

Practice, practice, practice. Arisia offered lots of that.

pencil in the W&N sketchbook

Listening to Gardner Dozois

For 20 years he was the editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. He had a lot of great stories to tell, interviewed by Allen Steele.

Pencil in the W&N sketchbook

Arisia 2010 again

Catching the panelists and the audience members was my main goal in attending Arisia this year. The recommended titles and information I picked up for a year of exploring is just a bonus.

All Arisia drawings were with a pencil, sometimes a Prismacolor water soluble one (undampened) in a Winsor & Newton sketchbook. About 90# paper.

Arisia 2010

Just back from three days of listening, talking, and watching people at the science fiction and fantasy convention called Arisia, in Cambridge, Mass.

These people were in discussions of the best films of 2009, the TV show Flash Forward, and who is and is not an "early adopter" of technology (personal electronics, dental/medical advances, and more).

the cat, always the cat

He's my most faithful and present living model. And he doesn't mind being painted noncat colors--though this is not far from reality.

Pen and w/c, on drawing paper.

drawing what's in front of me

The brush bucket, painted in later.

Brush pen and w/c

Purple, because I felt like it

A quick drawing to catch the rare sitting posture, then painted in later.

Fountain pen and w/c on drawing paper.

building on a bad start

I painted the rectanges on the left with water color. Didn't like it at all, so I rolled, sponged and stamped acrylics over everything to get the piece below.

What a difference layers make!

The orientation of the second image is 180 degrees off from the left image.

photo drama

It's a good thing that none of the people I draw live have expressions like this--that would be awful. But drawing all the talking and reading faces gets boring.

I had to go to a photo to get something more dramatic, that's held long enough to draw.

3B pencil in a sketchbook.

foam and fiber brush pens

I have several brush pens, foam tips, nylon fiber, disposables (from jetpens.com--worth trying!), cartridge and refillable ones.

I'm slowly deciding which ones I like best (not the foam), on what paper, and getting slightly better at controlling them.

Brush pen and w/c in the journal.

randomness on top of precision

I drew out triangles with pencil line, painted them accurately with combinations of phthalo blue and yellow ochre, then rolled and painted other blue/yellow/buff bits on top.

My 2010 painting experiment will be unplanned splotches on top of a planned base. Should make the chair paintings interesting!

Acrylic on 90# paper.

the perfect life model

This almost qualifies as a mystical experience. Chaucer was asleep on the bed with his paws in such interesting positions that I had to draw him, but quickly, before the inevitable movement.

I grabbed a sketchbook and stood over him, hoping to catch as much of the multiple limbs as possible. I drew more and more detail, even shading, and he never even twitched.

Finally I had to stop; it was a *heavy* 9x12 spiral sketchbook and hard to hold. As soon as I lowered the book, Chaucer opened his eyes a teeny bit and made a mumph sound like--can I move now?

I said, "Thank you, Chaucer! and he stretched, just like a life model, glad to be out of the posture.

Mechanical pencil in the Mead Academie sketchbook.

aaahhhh, color!

I had no time for color on an intensely busy family trip. It's such an oasis to come back to drying time for paint!

In the journal, grapevine piece drawn on prepainted acrylic blotches.

pots in the atrium

The in-laws house has a roofed atrium overlooked by windows from 3 rooms. They don't use it except as a rare passway, but it's got lots of potential.

These pots are there.

Pencil, which frustrates my scanning clarity, especially when there's writing on the back of the page. In the journal.

making memory sketches

My in-laws have been in the house 20 years, may not be there much longer.

I had little time to do more than bare outlines, but just a bit of drawing seals in the sight and experience better than a photo.

Pen in the journal. (Brush pen for the chairs.)

more traveling people

In the airport I started drawing a man, then in the course of the next 20 min. our flight was moved to 4 separate gates. Chaos!

I filled the rest of the page on the plane. The bag is mine, tucked into the seatback.

I had limited views on tiny planes. Nothing to draw but my own seatbelt.

Prismacolor water-soluble pencil in the journal. Color added later for my own sanity.

clearing out 2009

These guys were traveling in December.

The bottom one almost has no head in view because that's the way he was sleeping. Simplifies the artist's work!

We had bumpy flights and all drawing was very fast.

Sharpie pen in the journal.

Voluminous journaling

These are my 2009 journal volumes. Colorful inside and out!

I've been journaling for over 35 years. In about 1974 I started with writing only, solidly filled pages, in identical spiral notebooks.

Starting about 2000 I've added more and more imagery, with painting, collage and drawing, plus writing, in a huge variety of book styles and papers.

Now that I'm working across the spine with images, I've stopped using spiral books almost completely. Only one out of these last ten was a spiral.

Last year was unique in that I started a volume on January 1 and ended one on December 31. I filled ten volumes in 12 months, which is becoming my normal output now.

I don't worry about not liking a paper or binding too much, because I can fill it in less than a month. Usually by the end of the volume, I've made friends with the paper. Multiple mediums make anything usable.

Onward to 2010 with more! Happy New Journaling Year!