clear road ahead

Doodling with charcoal and white chalk.

In a sketchbook I made of really old (1970s) paper. It has a great tooth and takes water well too.

a page of practice

Practicing faces, from paintings in a book on portraits in oils.

Ink and pencil in a Robert Bateman sketchbook. The paper is great but the hard spiral causes light-struck scans.

a moment for contemplation

Two backgrounds, waiting for more.

Or maybe they'll just be colorful breaks in the ongoing story.

Acrylic, in the journal.

kitchen cat

This one took longer, penciling in the perspective, then inked with a .05 pen.

On Strathmore drawing paper (80#?), which takes water pretty well at the first stroke. Doesn't allow reworking though.

The red wall is a mess of trying to get the background on around the furniture. 

Strathmore drawing pad.

scribble it down and swish on color

An 8 minute got-to-draw piece where I'm going for the feeling of drawing fast--the scribble-swish sensation is the goal, not the result. I find that movement strangely satisfying.

In the 5 minutes of drawing, the cat stayed still. Once I starting painting, I didn't care if he moved.

Pencil and w/c in the journal.

a mug with personality

Whenever I want to draw but have only 5 minutes and nothing new in sight, this is one of the objects I pick.

He's one of two clay mugs that I love for his attitude.

Pen and w/c in the journal.

Georgia O'Keefe

I seldom draw from a photo, but besides her interesting features, I was fascinated by this tangle of fingers.

Graphite, in the journal.

a recognizable foot

My feet are perfectly shaped to fit into pointed shoes. The center toe is the longest.

And I can't wear Birkenstocks, because they assume the big toe is the longest and the rest scale down.

I quit wearing narrow pointed shoes when I stopped working in downtown law firms in the 1970s. Now slightly center-rounded shoes fit the best.

Pencil on light sketchpaper.

dove doodle

When I randomly fill a page with a map doodle, I never put in anything figurative.

This time the dove appeared and I like the focusing effect. After going to the high contrast places, the eye looks for something to recognize.

Ink and red w/c in the journal

thinking of Richard Tuttle

After watching a documentary on the minimalist style of Richard Tuttle, I painted the cover of a new journal volume.

One simple trail of a turning brush.

Gessoed layer with blue tint, then blue acrylic.

Fabriano classic artist's journal

I found a few empty pages in one of these journals so caught the cat. I never liked the strong texture of the paper.

After painting with oils on canvas, I see the similarity in the fine grid substrate. But I don't like how the texture takes over the drawing. With paint the grid can be layered out.

Colored pencil.

another strip of the palette

This time I saw eyes and a bulbous nose. The 3/4 profile was quite accidental.

This image reminded me of the somewhat entertaining blog Faces in Places.

Acrylic on 140# w/c paper.

painting a microscope slide

I pressed a 2.5 x 5.5 piece of paper into palette leftovers and got this. It looks like a geology slice or a biology slide under magnification.

Acrylic on 140# w/c paper.

yellow smurch

A background waiting for more.

Acrylic, in the journal.

fill every page with something

I splotched leftover acrylic paint on this journal page, but as a base for future collage, thought it was too busy with complements.

Since I treat the journal as an experimental sketchbook. I didn't want to completely cover the page to restart.

As page filler, I drew a local object with a Sharpie. I like how the splotches happen to fall across the form.

Improvements could be made, but I'm moving on. It's enough to record the experiment as it was.

jack in the pulpit

The green bulb in the center is the seed head. I drew this from a low chair and it came out as though from a faerie perspective.

Ink, painted in with watered-down acrylics. In the journal.

Robert Crumb

I paused the movie about him to draw this.

He's a fabulous cartoon artist, but the 1994 biography of him entitled "Crumb," was, as one reviewer said, "fascinating and creepy."

Pencil, in a sketchbook.

letter collage

The thin pages of a phone book work great for collage.

Acrylic and stamping, in the journal.

sitting on the porch

This porch is on a restaurant. I had eaten, come outside, and couldn't resist capturing a bit of the view.

I pasted it in the journal, then added the orange paint as a bright spot.

Pen and w/c.

see the smoke?

There's a faint waft of gray coming off the top of the candle.

I liked the 2 similar handles on these pieces.

Pen and w/c in the journal.

grilling the page

I painted a gray background, then left it until I was inspired to put something on it.

That didn't happen, so I did a quick sketch of the grill so I could finish the volume. The grill is a bit more symmetrical than this drawing shows.

Pencil on acrylic.

start with stripes of orange and blue

Then I painted in some traced shapes.

It has a geographical/meteorological feeling.

Acrylic paint in the journal.