Mixed bag

Sometimes repetition can become monotonous. Marks and shapes come out on the paper and I think I know what I'm doing ... but then I never do.
On the brighter side, my friend Wayne has a birthday coming up. I spent part of the day making small notebooks for him. Here's one of the covers, front, back, spine and end flaps. Way more fun. The images came from the Internet... weird what comes up when one plugs "naked gay man" into Google images. Yikes. I hope he likes them.

Camels and o-rings

What is this strange new thing I've found?

Apple and Twinkie

I'm not sure where these are going, but I find the effect intriguing. The basis for these pieces is
ink drawing made with a bamboo stick. The large black areas are added in Photoshop and have an incongruous smooth edge to them. It puzzles me, sort of awkward and graceful at the same time. Both processes happen quickly. Zen and not-Zen. Sort of like broom and leaf-blower. Apple and Twinkie.

Rip van Winkle ...

... wakes up from several days in dreamland. The idea that I've missed some days here, and not posted a drawing since Sunday, surprises me. I didn't know this would happen. What was I thinking?? Not thinking.
So, try to let go of my own expectation. Let drawing unfold as it will. Which, mostly it does. Dry spells can serve as a regrouping, recharging, re-energizing time. Today I feel I want to make drawings like I have never made before. Whenever that comes to mind, new work usually happens.
But, just now, I'm on my way out the door to work. My pea brain is working on a plan for a new animation, beginning with a story. This story must be subtle, enigmatic and smart. A bit of humor would be great, and an ambiguous ending. Dialogue? Maybe a few words here and there. I suspect that my Tai chi man will make a cameo appearance...
And blah blah blah. This is another addition to the ink/stick drawing series. Something slightly different about it...

More mark making

Sunday's edition. Not a stack of pancakes... I love the marks made by this pen. So, not much more to say. Happy Sunday Monday.

Saturday afternoon

Saturday after the chores were done, sitting on the floor of the studio with Hal, drawing on paper with bamboo and wooden sticks. Not meditation – but no-mind – dragging pen gently across paper, again and again.

Mark making

I made this drawing with a bamboo pen I got from my friend Lori in Ireland. I actually did try to fine-tune the pen a bit, sanding and sawing etc., but it's best when I just forget about how a good pen should behave and let it have its way... and I'm working on paper that allows for lots of feathering.
I think about it a lot more after it's made than before – a good thing – at the time I was just dipping and layering. Noticing the negative spaces, noticing the repetition and the humor. After, I think the crop is important... accenting the listing of the stack. And preserving the 'tail'.
So much happens in a minute.

Wall/not wall

I'd like it if all my walls and fences and trellises were made out of slim branches of willow or bamboo. Earlier in the week I was cleaning vines out of the pine trees in front of the house. I roped them into circles and love the way the leaves flow out of the wreaths... but they wither and die.
This is wall/not wall. It's as much there as not there. Shielding, but not hiding.

Drawing from within

This was such a good morning for drawing. The weather has shifted – from blustery and violent to foggy and mystical – and I feel much calmer. A deliberate meditation before drawing (why do I forget how good it is?) seemed to pull everything out of me through the bamboo pens so easily... if I hadn't had to go to work, I'd probably still be out in the studio on the floor, scribbling and daubing.
This one hearkens back to my early college assignments, when we wrote words to create form and shadow and light and volume.
Today's words? "Never, not ever."