Crayons and cahiers.

Ruby's Hand.

Ink, watercolor, and crayon on watercolor paper.

Sketching.

I'm trying to approach my passion for drawing with as much discipline as I can muster. And with crayons. Definitely crayons.

Drowning in a Desert

This week's drawings

I've been working on using my dip pen and creating from my imagination instead of photographs. There's a delicate balance between going fast enough to have interesting, sketchy lines and going slow enough to think about composition and form. I've yet to find that balance. The dance of artistic discovery continues.

Jesus & Peter.

Los que viven al lado de la plancha morirán por la plancha. (Those who live by the bodyslam shall die by the bodyslam.)

The role of Peter will be played in this case by a lucha libre lawyer. Both of these are part of my collection of small figurines on a shelf at work. The Jesus figurine is also part of my ever-growing collection of Jesus chotchkies. I figure if people feel okay making them then I feel okay mocking them.

Ink drawings again.

I got a new ink pen over the weekend in an effort to bring my drawing skills anywhere in the range of Dave McKean. I really like the new range of line quality I can get, but I still have a ways to go with my actual drawing skills, especially as it pertains to people. Then it's a matter of incorporating paint/collage/whatever, then ???, then profits!

Morgan Grimes.

I like the show "Chuck". It's a guilty pleasure. Morgan is my favorite. He's been having a rough time lately.

And while we're here, let me update my top ten favorite albums of all time. I did my top 50 a couple years ago, and there were some egregious errors. So I redid my top ten. Again, this is favorite, not best. A best list would look very different.

10. Redlight by the Slackers
The only ska to make the list, this is the best ska album ever. It just is. I think we can all agree on this.

9. Hello Rockview by Less Than Jake
That's because I don't count this as ska. LTJ makes me feel like I have to get out of the Iron Range if it kills me. Oh yeah, I did get out of the Iron Range. Oh double yeah, I was never there to begin with. Phew.

8. Fashion Nugget by Cake
Audry gave me this album because she didn't want it. It became the soundtrack to my stoner days. We're getting to the point in the list where almost no songs are duds anymore.

7. Something to Write Home About by the Get Up Kids
Besides the glaring grammatical error, this album is great all the way through. "I'm a Loner Dottie, A Rebel" is still the best song on here. They all remind me of the way things never were, if that makes any sense.

6. OK Computer by Radiohead
This would be at the very top of the best list. It blew my mind when I first heard it, and the subsequent 20,000 listens we all put in between 1997 and now. Don't act like you didn't try to figure out what the words meant. We all did.

5. Electro-Shock Blues by Eels
It's difficult for me to describe why I love this album so much. Part of me thinks it's the repeated listenings, but mostly I think it's because I know this is the soundtrack for anything devastating that might happen in the future. It's too bad they couldn't take out "Baby Genius". Then this would be the perfect album.

4. Parklife by Blur
Numbers two through four on this list are all up for debate. I'm actually a little surprised I put this at four. Honestly it should be at three, considering that this was the soundtrack to at least three years of my life. I can probably also blame this album for 10-15% of my snarkiness. Thanks, guys!

3. The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky
Wow. This totally effing destroys. No matter how often I listen to this, three things are true: 1. I listen to every single second from start to finish, 2. my life feels insanely epic, and 3. I would totally step outside for a smoke afterward if I still smoked. You really need to do yourself a favor and hear this before you die.

2. Downward Is Heavenward by Hum
When I started thinking of what I wanted my novel to be about, this was my starting point. I didn't think of characters or plot, I thought that I wanted this to be the soundtrack if it ever got made into a movie. A strange way to go about things, I know, but this is so atmospheric and rocking that it's impossible to deny.

1. Weezer (Blue Album) by Weezer
As if it could be anything else. Never has an album been more significant to me, never has an album had so high a strong/weak song ratio (10:0, if you care to know), never has an album rocked so hard. This is probably going to be at the top of the list until I die. I can't see anyone unseating them.

What do you think?

Ruch Holley Branch

The Pikes Peak Library District ranks 9th among those serving a population over 500,000. I'd say that ranking is well deserved. Their facilities and resources are well above average. Not above average is the Jeep that pulled into this picture halfway through. I learned a tough lesson about urban sketching. (Move faster.)

I use the library mostly for movies, I'm afraid. That's not for lack of reading. Anyone who's seen my stack of books at home knows I read plenty. I just happen to own a lot of books that I have yet to read, and so I don't much need the library for that purpose. Also, reading thick books in three weeks can turn it into a chore rather than a pleasure.

b032

I'm fighting a battle with fussiness. Apparently the black ink on a twig won't be part of the forces next time.

Two things I do better when I abandon:

1. Realistic depth, and
2. Attempts at funky line quality.

Sorry for the massive layoff, I had a lag in inspiration, followed by a homeowner crisis, followed by a "vacation". But now I'm back, and although not quite inspired, I can at least trudge along until my homeowner crisis is resolved and things return to normal.

A couple new links on the right: Urban Sketchers is a new blog from Gabi Campanario (aka Seattle Sketcher) that's basically a collection of, you guessed it, urban sketches from contributors around the world. Good viewing. One of the contributors is Olha Pryymak, who aside from being a good sketcher in my favorite city in the world, seems to be an informal student of the old masters. Also perhaps the only contributor to regularly use oils, which I find intimidating and admirable.

Grandma Bonnie

An enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a lifeless, tiny Minnesota town.

Uncle Don

He was the mayor of Grenada, MN for a long time. He was widowed by Aunt Shirley last December. It's easy to like the guy, but only in small doses. After a while your eyes glaze over.

With my basement torn up and no space to paint, I figured it's time to get back to drawing. I'm a little rusty.

Executive

The CEO of United Healthcare makes more in an hour than most Americans make in a year. Think about that. Do you think this comes into consideration when they ponder whether or not to raise premiums?

The CEOs of major investment banks get millions on top of their ludicrous salaries when their company gets bought out by taxpayers. Somewhere to the tune of several hundred years' worth of my salary. What's the difference? I haven't endangered the economy.

Crooks and swindlers. I'd say it's time to get our pitchforks and torches, but we'd never get inside their gated communities.

b030

I anticipate winter unlike anyone I know. At the first sign of fall I rejoice. Even this week, in the midst of summer-like weather, I sun myself in the glorious light from the newborn football season. All is magnificence for the next few months.

I also feel like I should start doing things from imagination if I'm ever going to get anywhere as an illustrator. This is a lot less terrible than I thought it would be, frankly. I find that I'm afraid of painting from imagination not because I think I lack the skill, but because I'm worried my imagination might be stupid and boring. Pondering greatly helps the process and decreases the stress.

I need to make some stylistic changes, methinks. Pen instead of ink and twig, more painterliness on foreground figures, and stop making the clothing look so dang poofy. These are tangible steps I can take.

Sea of Leaves

The thing about living in Colorado is that the leaves don't quite gain the same spectrum of colors in the fall here. I miss seeing oranges, reds, and browns. Here, it's all yellow. Darn aspens. Last year I raked the leaves in my lawn for the first time since I was a little kid. I wanted to jump into the pile, but my neighbor was watching from across the street. I should've done it anyway. Maybe I will this year.

Middle Relief!

Kung fu yells lose a lot in translation.

Batter 1

I'm going to keep at this one picture until I get it to the style I'm happy with. Maybe I won't do the next one so late at night.

Sepia and crimson inks with watercolor.

Thrower and Portrait

More old baseball photos turned illo.


Of somebody very sad. Maybe I'm working out a subconscious fear of blindness. Who knows.

Return of Inkies

This time with a twig.

I found a workaround to get (lesser quality) scans of my stuff, so I'm going to ration out maybe one a day until the big scanner at work gets back up and running. I've been plenty busy, too.

Sharing

Let's hear it for platitudes! As the good book says, who needs originality when you've got a puppy? This is the third of three.

Happy end of July! Let's all just survive the next 31 days.

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Now playing: Clem Snide - Exercise