Large drawing on small paper

My favorite part of this drawing is the sort of tank at lower right that contains two amoebas (for their safety or everybody elses?). Other wise I'm digging the contrast between this and the previous post, those two little portraits against this epic battle scene.
Tomorrow we head up to New York for the opening of the juried show at the Bowery Gallery. I am so psyched. Here's a link to yesterday's article in The Sun; Alix Finkelstein interviewed juror Jed Perl about the show: http://www.nysun.com/arts/standing-fast-at-the-bowery-gallery/82764/
And here's the gallery Web site: www.bowerygallery.org
Links to my blog posts containing the two drawings in this show: O Tannenbaum
and Here's another one

Past and present

My friend Anna Darlene gave me this very old paper she found in an Asian imports store in Milwaukee... they told her it was nothing special, used for packing china or pictures. But it is beautiful. Thin, aged, stained, worn and ready for small drawings. It has a texture like linen. Too fragile for me to do more than lightly draw with a pen.

Primordial soup

I continue to work on this. I'm digging the stop-frame-animation imprints and the sense that everything is heaving and pulsing... a primordial soup.
Long long ago in design class, we were asked to make a drawing of an object that explained how it worked. Mine was an old egg-beater with a crank handle. When the blades were spinning fast, they practically disappeared at their outermost edges. Hmmm. How to work that into these sleepy zen drawings?

Survival instinct

I know I will be pushing this image much further, but I like it right now the way it is... vulnerable parent and offspring inconspicuously fleeing from the threatening masses.

Monsters

I must be having nightmares that I don't remember. I didn't see this coming, creatures hiding in the bushes.
In an effort to keep the edges lively I ended up with Cthulhu and Venus flytraps holding still among the pussy willows. That's what happens when I think too much about drawing.

Suspended animation

OK, This refers back to my undergraduate work in a big way, though now I am using more eco-friendly materials (lemon juice, recycled paper, wax crayons. Beeswax crayons when I can find them). Sharp edges and dangerous shards, creatures (parasites? or other facets) within other creatures. I'm digging the small transparent areas at the edges.
Good work day.

Number 18

It's true. The project I thought would long be finished by now is still in progress. This is No. 18 in the grid of 60 6-inch ink drawings that will - if you haven't seen these before - make up a much larger image of the live oak trees at the end of my block.
Working on this one reminded me of an afternoon a few years ago, drawing outside under one of the trees during an eclipse... of course I couldn't look up to see the moon covering the sun, but I looked down to the paper I was working on. Light filtering through the leaves and branches appeared on the paper in sweet crescent shapes instead of these mostly roundish ones.

Fourth of July

So I've been back from Knoxville for 5 days... and I have a batch of drawings, but not much of them are any good except for this small brown one. And I don't even know where it's going. A lot of the recent pieces suggest animals to me: horses with strong backs; sea lions at rest; pterodactyl trying to scratch its own back. I've found that this deep black china marker I've been using lately (which I love )is taking over, but not in a good way. Trying to reign it (or myself) in... before it overpowers the delicate ink.
Now it's good to be home for a holiday weekend. The weather has been fine, ritual fireworks on the beach and the Bay cool and calm. Time to draw.