Spooky

Some spooky bits. I was trying to think of the pen as more of a paintbrush on the skull drawing. Using chunks of tone rather than endless fields of soft shading.

Mekong Catfish

A fun sketch of a giant fish. That shape is so interesting to me.

Restfield

Nothing too special - just a sketch. It would have been better if I had finished the background. Oh well.I watched Crumb the other day and of course I had to work with a pen.






Detail

Vanishing Talking Points

Architecture teaches me so much about composition. If you reduced a Frank LLoyd Wright house down to just lines, it would still work as an evocative layout.

So here I am, enjoying a few rhythmic lattices on this disheveled Thai apartment building. Or was it Korean? I can't keep track of my flickr travels. Please don't sue me for using other people's pics - I can't afford to fly to Asia every time I feel like drawing.

Here's a detail, I love the look of magnified drawings. It's like listening to your favorite song with headphones and hearing the little things, like sounds reverberating in the drums.

BTW - this is my little sketchbook. I hate the glossy paper and the way pencil looks on it, but this disdain has actually given me more freedom to draw without hope of a masterpiece.

My other sketchbook has become so ridiculously precious to me that I barely touch it.

Specularity

I'm trying to get my tablet to produce drawings that look like my sketchbook. I still have much more control with a real pencil.

The refraction at the top edge was especially gratifying on this piece. Am I the only person that has favorite spots of drawings?

I had a lot more going on around the glass, but through the glory of photoshop layers, I removed it for a later day.

And while I may have broken a few laws doing it, I think it was a worthwhile way to spend part of Valentine's day ( the other part being spent watching "Primer" with wifey friend. What a wonderful movie. ).

simple

Drawing on canvas pad.

The Drapery Monolougues

I'm pretty happy with the way this cloth study turned out. I did it quickly and stayed fairly loose (for me at least).

Heisei Era II

I've recently been confronted with questions about the meaning behind my work, which leaves me sputtering and grasping. I think what I'm exploring in this series is the sad and beautiful contrast that occurs when cultural artifacts creep out past the oppressive structures of modernity.

It's like grass growing in the sidewalk cracks. There's a zen saying about how the reeds make the moon look more round. Sometimes we need the contrast to get us to really see things.

I went out and bought a new ballpoint pen for this piece. It was frustrating because the pen would stop working after almost every stroke and I would have to get it started again on another piece of paper.

Sorry about the poor photo quality.

The Treaty of Sinchulu

This piece is inspired by, among other things, old Bollywood movie posters. I imagined an historical exploitation film, completely distorted and "dramatized".

The piece could probably be better but I had only one week to complete it in order to show it at the Murray Hill show.

After about the fifth day, I could see tiny details in the reflections of passing cars. I'd never drawn so much before and I think my eyes became hyper sensitive to detail.

These images are huge, I can make smaller ones if anyone wants them.

Riches Forever

This is the last of the series.
I wanted to finish with an interesting women.
I also wanted to find an animal that felt calm, graceful and feminine. The deer, with it's small movements, felt like a nice choice.

I tried really hard, but I could not squeeze this piece into the colorful format of the other two. I wanted a soft green shape, but it always looked to harsh. I'm glad I decided to strip it down to just the drawing and the signature seal.

St.Francis

St.Francis is one of those icons that seems to inhabit interesting places for me. Claire told me a lot about him and how he would live outside and tend to the animals. He seemed like such an interesting and gentle man.

So the thing that fascinates me about this statue of him is the stark, almost Leninesque depiction. I'm intrigued by the duality of spiritual leaders. Jesus is often painted as the kindest, softest being ever to have lived, but almost every story in the bible has him scorning non believers with such intensity.

So with that, I needed an animal that would reflect the intensity of St.Francis. The rhino seems to be charging standing still. Lyrics from some old dub song keep coming to mind: "He is calm like a lion"

El Haj

This was the first piece in an informal series of three.
The series is inspired by the complex compositions and exotic iconography of middle eastern and Asian money.



The white area on the left is similar to the watermark security feature of currency. I was interested in the way the negative space had to be worked into the design. Arguably, I could have done a better job. I had trouble working with the almost square format.

Manekisattva

Claire and I went on a 10 day meditation retreat at the start of the year. It consisted of around 10 hours a day of meditation starting at 4am, absolutely no talking, and intense back pain. After a few days without books, radio, music, internet, television or conversation, I began to start seeing things in my head. This image came to me on the seventh day I think.

To me, this piece is hilarious - a maneki neko as a bodhisattva. Not sure if anyone else is getting it.

Anyways - the drawing was done on fancy arches paper that I had to rip myself. It was a real pain to draw on because I didn't want to go very dark and I am used to working in much more forgiving mediums, like wood, that hide your mistakes and shine when you add white.

Heisei Era

A departure from the old and rustic.
I wanted to play with more angular and jarring shapes and colors.
The building is blue ball point pen and the sign and woman are from a printer.

The red at the bottom would be a Chinese signature seal that I hand carved from a piece of soapstone, but the watercolor texture has rendered it illegible.



If you could hear it, this piece would sound like the little things that happen in a city..but far away and echoey. Footsteps, people talking at a bus stop..nothing too exciting.
Very Quiet.

Vestigial remains

I showed some work at the 3rd Vestal show after vowing to put something out into the world in 2008. It was a fun show and people seemed to like the pieces. I will try to post individual pictures of the work soon - it's kinda tricky to photograph it well.

Oh also - that Ferris Bueller caduceus shirt gave me super powers throughout the night.

蟹

I've been getting more and more fascinated with watercolor...possibly since playing Okami. This is the closest I'll get to a Japanese fishing village for a while at least.

Tufted Swamp Grackle

Scott had been working on a bird series so the bird book was out. Can you believe he had been putting in all that effort on Lanar Falcons and Red Hawks when he could have been getting chicks with this specimen!

Opium

Nothing special here, just some scribbles. Try to find Claire in it.

Smokemon

My sister and her husband and I have been exchanging japanese lucky kitties (Maneki Neko) on holidays. I think it's hilarious. The lucky kitty in the corner is one I got Claire.

Anyways - I had fun with the depth on this drawing but I regret not following it more. I wish I would have drawn a neon sign following the same angle as the hip bone - then I could have drawn perpendicular lines coming out from under the sign.

Oh well - the next sketch should have some more depth.

Pachyderm

I drew this around 6 years ago I think. I gave it to my dad, who has always had a fascination with elephants. I suppose I recently inherited it. It's nice to have on my shelf.