Cloud Fire

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     Ho boy. 

     Hard week with waaaay too much work at my day job. 

     But sometimes you are already committed, through momentum, pride, tradition, and misplaced priorities to make a new drawing every business day. And to put some heart into it…to not just do small tweaks to the same drawing that you've posted a million times. 

     What are we capable of, really? Only one way to find out, and that is to push yourself WAY out of your comfort zone. To add another job to the two or three that you've already got. That's how we get to that place. 

     It's way too late for me, I'm punchy as hell, but I did it. I feel exhausted, and kind of proud. The old me never would have been able to push this hard. 

     I've got another post for Friday morning.

     Yay. The hard part of the week is over. I made it. 

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A Practical Guide to Mending Fences

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     Another type of art: Fence Mending Art!

     I bought a really nice bike earlier this week from a bike shop run by two very cool guys. But later there was a little bit of a blow-up about some parts that were maybe going to be included for free, but then they weren't … and I personally didn't care about a few measly bucks but another person in my life thought that this was really important so this other person made some phone calls and people got mad. 

     Normal everyday stuff. Some people get excited and other people think it's no big deal. 

     It all got worked out in the end, but artists like me have the advantage of mending fences by giving a small gift of art that is no big deal to us (quick an easy to make) but to people who receive it, it's a really special thing. 

     So after I add some funny words to this piece, I'll put it in a frame and give it to the guys in the bike shop. In most circumstances, people really like to get an apology along with an unexpected work of art and it smoothes over any residual hurt feelings. "Wow, you're giving me this? This is really cool". 

     And then I'm back (hopefully) to having some good, bike-smart allies in the bike shop who can help me out when something comes up with my bike. 

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Disco Ball

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This is the last of the Emmy sketches that I inked later that weekend. 

There are a few more in there, but they are kind of rough and not really "post worthy".

But that small little Moleskine notebook is so easy to haul around that it will probably get filled up with little sketches eventually (lots of places that I need to sit still: meetings, weddings, train rides, etc). 

Meanwhile, I still have my "big" Moleskine sketchbooks. 

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Smithery

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Here is a piece that I did last weekend when it was WAY too hot to be doing artwork. Hot as the iron upon devil-troll's anvil. 

It's my usual madness: Brown ink mixed with black, washes, white Cel-Vinyl highlights. 

Going dark is always hard with washes. I don't know why I keep doing it to myself. I should start with black paper and work up from there with lighter and lighter whites. It would be easier for everybody, and probably yield a better result. 

Or I could be like everybody else on the interwebs, and toss all traditional art media out the window so that I can make yet another too-bright, too-slick painting in the digital realm ("pah-tooie!"). 

I tease. Those kids are happy doing their thing, I'm happy doing mine. 

Grape

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To This New World

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Tourists walk to new places with light hearts, because they want to.

Refugees run to new places with heavy hearts, because they have to.

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Weight

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Another drawing that was roughed out in pencil while I was at the Emmys. 

This is the smaller Moleskine book (the one that slips neatly into my jacket), so the dimensions seem a little different. Probably the kind of thing that only I would notice. 

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Dry Dock

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     Ever dream about fixing up an old boat and sailing away into the sunset?

     I do. 

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Goggle Cat

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     I roughed this out at the Emmy awards last weekend. I took a Moleskine notebook in my jacket, a very small one, and doodled stuff out while the ceremony was going on. After our category went by (we lost to another show, BTW*), I used the time to draw. The Creative Arts Emmy show is almost four hours long, and people warned me about this ahead of time, So I made sure to bring a sketchbook and some snacks. 

     Inside the Nokia theater, it was actually pretty bright and good for drawing. They kept bringing up the house lights so that the awards winners could be seen hugging each other and walking down the aisles. Plenty of light for drawing. And it had blissful air conditioning, which was good because the whole limousine ride and red carpet stuff was blindingly hot - 102 degrees! As long as I had to wear a black wool suit, it was better to be indoors with the AC. 

     The small notebook worked out well, considering. It's easier to draw on the train, and I get better ideas when I'm clickity-clacking upon wheels of steel. But it was still a good time to draw, because nobody was bothering me and I had nowhere else I needed to be. 

     I didn't ink these at the show (Ha! That would be funny). I inked them later when I was sitting in my studio. 

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     *[I wrote for an episode of Disney's Phineas and Ferb: The Doonkleberry Imperitive. It was up for an Emmy in the category of Best Animated Program, Short Format. But we lost out to The Regular Show]

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Found by a Wanted Man

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     You are wondering if light bulbs really shave. 

     They absolutely do.

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     I did this one on the train last Friday, after grumbling (to myself) about one of my posted drawings being a little too "normal". I could have pushed the creativity a lot farther. 

     Is it possible that I'm getting a little burned out? Possible. This trick of drawing something every business day does take a fair amount of time and effort. But I probably just need to slow down a little bit. Take a drawing "vacation", as it were. 

     In that vein, I've already done my drawings for this week. They are solid drawings, but simple. I found myself sitting in one place for four hours last weekend (and I knew I would be ahead of time), so I took a small sketchbook and doodled out a bunch of simple stuff. 

   So now the pressure is off this week, which means that I can become seized by a new cool fancy drawing, or I can just sit back and daydream as I look out of the window of the train. 

Sub

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Barn Stormer

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Here is a mellow piece of art. Or what *I* consider to be mellow. A few characters floating around in space, with no real background to speak of. To my mind, this isn't really the kind of piece that will resonate with people. 

But I've learned to stuff my preconceptions about my art in the trash because-

It turns out that I am a horrible judge of what pieces of mine will resonate with people. Sometimes the drawings that I think are just so-so get a HUGE reaction, and vice versa. I've learned (at this late point in my life) that my job is to draw a whole lot, and then to throw absolutely everything at the viewing audience so that they can do their job, which is to decide what's worthwhile and what's not. 

True story about an artist who had no idea which of his works would resonate or not: 

Rod Stewart, the singer (look him up, you young whippersnappers) almost didn't have a career, but he put one of the songs he thought was pretty lame, Maggie May, on the B side of one of his singles. A bleary eyed late-night radio DJ mistakenly put it on one night, and the song took off like a rocket. Rod Stewart got to have his singing career after all, but he had to learn to put ALL of his songs out there where people could hear them. After that, he learned what his job really was.  

Joan Rivers put it another way. She said that when she was young and just starting out, her intention was to be a great actress. But just in case the actress thing didn't open up for her, she learned how to dance, how to sing and as an afterthought, how to tell some jokes up on stage -and that turned out to be her big break. She has often said, "I wanted to get into the world of show business, and I was smart enough to walk through any door door that opened for me". Wise woman, Joan Rivers. 

So yeah, the lesson is to put it all out there. Even if you think it's only so-so. 

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The Unwelcome Return of the Rat King

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     I did this entire drawing in brown ink, before I actually realized it. Normally, pure brown ink is a little too faint, and a little too…what is the word?… "bleedy". If you try to put white over pure brown ink the brown bleeds right up through it. It's more of a dye than an ink. 

     But if you mix it with a bit of black india ink- beautiful! (and it lays down better too). 

     Because I wasn't paying attention, this one ended up in pure brown, so to darken it up for the inter-webs I did a bit of contrast/saturation work. But I didn't DRAW it on the computer (or draw any digital "fixes"). It's true pen and ink, mistakes and all. 

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Furry Balloon

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      My youngest daughter opined: "If this is a real cat, then I don't like it.". 

     Daddy assured her that it is not a real cat, merely a cartoon, and that no actual cats were harmed during the creation of this drawing. Daddy also told her that, because of the limits of our physical world,  pumping up a fake cat with a bicycle pump wouldn't cause a cat to float anyway (whereas a helium tank…). 

    "Well," she said, "I just really hate the idea of people being mean to cats". 

     So, we can safely say that this one wasn't a crowd pleaser, even though it has a cat in it. 

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Lasso-ed

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     Did most of this on a bike outing with my youngest daughter. She and I shared an inkwell, and she made a little kitty drawing of her own. All while sitting in the shade of a tree at a tiny little park in Orange County.

     It's so nice to have a small portable sketchbook and a very small art supplies kit. It goes anywhere, and you can be creative almost anytime. 

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Skater

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     Sometimes, everything just works out in an unexpected beautiful way. 

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Tour Tram

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     A tour tram in a distant place with lots of high mountains. And funny birds. Pen and ink, ink washes and white highlights of acrylic (Cel Vinyl). Acid free Moleskine paper underneath it all. 

     My daughter wandered into my studio after I was finished and pointed to the lower right hand corner. "Cute" she said. "I like this part". 

    I dreamed of boxes before I did this one. I thought that they would turn into a snake made of boxes but somewhere along the way I thought of a little train conductor guy driving and controlling the snake, and then it became a tour tram. Just because that's where my mood took me at that moment. 

    

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Lost Now Found

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     Pieces of random, doodled in abandon. 

     Grey paper is soooo pretty. It's funny, because it seems like it really wouldn't be. But once you get turned on to these neutral colors (browns, greys), they are hard to walk away from. Darks fall back, whites pop forward. It's a beautiful thing. 

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Shopping Cart

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     Hello to my international friends. Today is the start of the week here in America, because yesterday was Labor Day, a national holiday. 

     I've been trying to post something every American weekday:  any normal Monday through Friday that isn't a holiday. My idea is that people get bored at work, or during their breakfast on the way to work, and they need a little something to help them along in the mornings. 

     I live to serve. 

     But some of you went in to work yesterday, sat down at your computer in Germany or India or someplace, and there was no Bernie drawing to get you through the day. Sorry about that. In the years to come I'll try to wrap my head around the idea of posting on "Holidays". 

     At least we Americans aren't given (and often don't take) very many holidays. So there really won't be THAT many interruptions to the normal weekday flow.