Let's get this party started!

The Gang's All Here

doodles

la Rêverie

My mind is wandering and I need to take a break as I'm working on a very boring commission. As I work, I'm listening to/watching with half closed eyes, a documentary about Míro, the Catalan Surrealist artist.  Fading in and out of consciousness, to touch what is important to me, I look at old drawings which have a whiff of Míro DNA and make this blog post. My apologies maestro!

dans l'atelier
01-12-11a

06-03-10a
mixed media

09-14-10a
ink, watercolor

09-18-10b
ink, colored pencil, watercolor

11-23-10a
ink, colored pencil

12-20-11a
colored pencil, ink, collage

01-24-12a
colored pencil, collage

06-01-12a
collage, ink

sketches of a tapestry

11-01-15doodle-08

Cigarette Break

Happy Thanksgiving

Having achieved perfection, the perfect host takes a break.

Buon appetito!

Cigarette Pause
11-24-14
mixed media

detail

detail

detail

detail

Poem & Story

Poem

Somewhere, up there,

There is blue sky.

The herons are content

To see their reflections

In the generous water

In which accumulates

The memories of trees

And resting frogs.

A Thoughtful Heron
11-18-16a
collage, mixed media

A heron had a conversation with a frog.

"You. You! You sleep all winter deep in the mud where no one can see you. All summer, I walk in the mud and hunt you."

The frog was silent for a while then it spoke to the heron.

"I like sleeping in the mud all winter. It makes my skin soft, you should try it sometime. I adapt and accept. This hibernation (or whatever you call it) is my Heaven. It is my dream state. The mud is everything. Without it you'd have no place to stand and hunt. Why, the river would have no bed. It would flow constantly, impoverished with no place to rest until it squandered itself in the ocean far away."

The heron was confused. Frogs! He spread his wings and swept off downriver in search of fish.

detail

detail

detail

Mixed Birds

10-15-16a
pencil, charcoal

10-31-16a
mixed media

10-30-16a
mixed media

10-21-16a
charcoal, pencil

10-23-16a
pencil, chalk

10-19-16a
ink, watercolor

The National Cathedral

I attended worship at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. yesterday morning. They put on a great show and the building itself is the proverbial "sermon in stone." The ribs vault skyward into and through fields of colored light splashed by an ebullient stained glass Pollock. The darkened crypts and chapels below grade promise communion and acceptance of one's earthy limitations augmented by glittering lamp-lit mosaics telling stories of flesh and spirit sorting out their differences.

Naturally, I listen better (or at least tolerate better) the pomp and complexity of any dogma or catechism when I have a pencil in my hand. Me: always backing up into the spiritual realms hoping to vault into those spangled skies.

 

Bird People

Bird People live in a Bird City. What could be more obvious?

I love doodling and making decorative things like Crystal Cities. But then what?

Well, add some birds, that's "what!"

Life is a mystery where we pass the time of day bumping into one another trying to figure out who we are.

Salut!

Birdcity
pencil, watercolor
04-06-12

Crystal City thoughts

I started drawing Crystal Cities in 2008. Production and focus and innovation has ebbed and flowed over the years since then. Below are a few from this past September. It's always fun and personal to play with the variables of this basic design. Essential or dull, they are mine and they function to keep my hands busy. A busy mind is not so essential for an artist. But busy hands are very important.

A larger gallery is here. And here.

December 2008

Trying to get back to basics
oil pastel, watercolor
09-27-16

Kind of a factory…
pencil, charcoal
09-24-16

blue pastel
09-17-16

A bit of a fishing expedition; this reminds me of a trip to Copenhagen last Spring
mixed media
09-13-16

Collage and an angel
mixed meda
09-02-16

Silhouetted bugs
ink, watercolor, charcoal
09-01-16