Odes to Animals

I've just finished up a short series of five portraits, this time the subject is animals. The portraits are odes to some of my wild friends, including: Brown Bear, Sparrow, White Tailed Deer, Fox and Jack Rabbit. I've surrounded them with some of their own loves as well as some of my own.

My friend was leaving his house the other day to go feed birds in the park. "I love animals!" He smiled. He pointed to his shirt, which was teeming with bears and trees and wildlife. "See?!" He gave me his 10 pound sack of bird seed and said, "You know what you can tell about a person that loves animals?" He paused and I tried to understand the question. "...They love people even more." He gave me a hug and we went our separate ways.

Animals have a soft and mysterious place in my heart. They seem to know something we don't and we've been given the unique responsibility of caring for them and sharing this world with them. These portraits are my small attempt to capture their majesty and mystery.

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I'll be turning one of my five portraits into a beautiful letterpress print. Please vote for your favorite here.

Learning to Ink, Part III

Ugh. I think I'm getting worse at drawing with ink. I drew people and parts of people at Alex Bigney's reading from his Talking to Tesla (more on that later), then went home and drew some more, but the magic never seemed to happen. 

Well, that's not entirely true---I loved the process, loved figuring out how to interpret hair and soft edges, etc., but I was pretty bummed by not being able to make anything that was even okay. 

It was just one night, and who knows what'll happen with tonight's drawings. It's nice trying to draw things I've drawn my whole life, but in a new way. It's a good challenge and a different kind of fun.

Ink Drawings, A Dream, Photography

Here are a few new pages from my sketchbook. What's different about the drawings? There are heads! Entire heads! Oh man---I took a deep breath and tried some faces.

I was still nervous enough that I worked out a pencil drawing first, then picked up my favorite lines in ink and corrected the drawing as I moved the brush. 

Pulling a brush across a page and slowly turning it is such a great action to be a part of! I closely watched the tiniest hairs on my brush tap the page and then stiffen up again. I absolutely love repeating the fragile creases around eyelids, and around corners of mouths, and in subtle folds of skin. Last night I even dreamed I was drawing these same pictures, and I was still paying close attention to those little creases and folds in skin.

A lot of these eyes look very photographic to me. Do you see it? I'm pretty sure that, even if I were making these drawings from life (which is also on my TO DO list), they would look pretty similar to these (which have been drawn from photos), because most of the images I've ever seen have either been photos or heavily influenced by photography. 

There is so much to be had from cave drawings and I'm always picking up a new book or looking for new pictures of them. For one thing, cave drawings have such a different visual language. Even the syle (for lack of a better word...I'll have to figure out what that word is, though, sometime) used by cave painters has such a life to it. 

These eyes I've drawn look photographic---like they're snapshots of someone who knows they're being photographed. It's funny how, in some ways, the camera doesn't really capture life after all. Think of a photo of a pitcher throwing a baseball and a blurred crowd in the background, standing anxiously. There is no time where we'd see a baseball frozen in the air like in the photograph, yet most people talk about realism as an integral part of photography.

That's not supposed to be a knock against photography---just a thought. A nice hike up the canyon Saturday led me to attempt drawing the rocks and water in the Provo River. I hope to do it again soon, even if it means coming back with sorry attempts.

Learning to Ink, Part I

On my list of goals to accomplish for 2009 is "Learn how to ink with a brush". Well, really, it's just to start toying around with a brush and learning how I draw with one. I'm really timid about the whole thing (which is partly why it's one of my goals), but I finally started spending some time making careful lines with my brush, and falling in love with the wet depths of black ink. 

These photos show a few pages in my sketchbook. I've been focusing on eyes, which is kind of strange, now that I think of it. I've been making well thought-out dots for eyes at best in my other drawings, but using a brush pulls out a different focus for me---allows me to see things differently, and see different things differently. 

I like drawing eyes, because of how recognizable they are---if I mess up drawing an eye, everybody knows it. The delicate lashes and masses of eyebrow hairs are a lot of fun to draw, and I'm figuring out new ways to portray the effects of light and shadow. Leaving breaks in dark areas for light to peek in, and noodling with narrow creases around the eye and lids are so much fun to draw. Now I'm scared about drawing full faces and figures, but its the next step.

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Did I mention you can buy some of my paper cut-outs here?

Sketchbook Throw-Down

A while ago, I noticed that I really savor the drawing process. I noticed I wasn't in a hurry to finish 'em, even if I knew how I wanted the whole thing to look.


I was in New York with Rob and Gheybin and Kelly and James and Gerald and everyone, drawing on the subway. I was filling in a shape I drew and noticed I had been filling it in for a while----I was taking my time and enjoying it. Huh. I was really in no hurry at all to fill it in!


These drawings all came with no hurrying attached. They belong to a world of no hurry.


By the way---you all know about Craig Thompson's ventures, right?

Ladies Man

FROM MY SKETCHBOOK:
I drew the ultimate ladies man! Sideburns. Glasses. Mustache. Receding hairline. Button-up shirt with tie. C'mon, gals---you know you want him.

Way To Go!

The Gallery One Ten is having a visual arts show on transportation. It sounds really great and it open today. The show will run until February 12, and then the show will be taken over by the Temporary Museum of Permanent Change, which is HUGE!
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My submission is a 30x40" watercolor and ink illustration, showing how various important people from around the world traveled. Hopefully it shows how these people did what they did in large part because of how they travelled.
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Woody Guthrie, for example: Woody rode ontop of and inside trains. This allowed him to travel all across America and learn songs from other people. Get to know their lifestyles. He wrote the song, "This Land Was Made For You and Me", and who better to write it than someone who really experienced the people living all across America?
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The Beasts Are Among Us--Wrestling, Feasting, Hunting

Your Wish Has Been Granted

Yes. For all of you wishing to see a drawing of a genie, your wish has been granted. If you get bored checking out all this stuff, you might want to swing by my myspace page where I have goodies that can't be shared here. For you. From me. Okay?

Colored Pencil Wanderings