Bike Freeway

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    Two things about this one:

     #1) I got a new bike recently. I LOVE it, and I ride it everywhere, so I'm kind of bike obsessed at the moment. It shows up in my drawings. 

     #2) It has been scaldingly hot out recently. Triple digits, which always plays havoc with the "brown" part of my black-and-brown ink. It partially dries out while I'm working with it, then I add water and it gets a little less like gooey tar. This happens several times. 

     But on the drawing too, it lays there kind of gooey and "never quite dry". And a smart boy would remember to stick a piece of blotter paper between the sheets before he closed his Moleskine book and clamped it shut with a bunch of spring clips*. But in this case I didn't, and the gooey ink kind of blobbed onto the opposite page, especially where it was folded over against some white Cel Vinyl. 

     Oops.

     But fortunately for you and I, I made my big book-folding mess AFTER I had scanned this piece. So it still looks okay here. 

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    *I clamp my book shut with clips for the sake of the pieces that I paste in. They are usually kind of wrinkly from the watercolor washes, and my Moleskine too is kind of round and wavy after a few months of wear and tear. So nothing really wants to lie down in it. But, if you clamp a bunch of spring clips around the edge (three on each side, one on the top, and one on the bottom), it really forces every bit of the wrinkly wash drawing down upon the paper of the Moleskine. Then when the paste dries after ten minutes or so, one can remove the spring clips. 

     JUST REMEMBER TO PUT SOME BLOTTER PAPER BETWEEN YOUR MOST RECENT DRAWINGS SO THAT SOME OF THE GOOEY INK DOESN'T BOND TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PAGE!   …like I just did. 

Palm Star

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     I had too much to do this last hot weekend. But all I really wanted to do was  to draw and ride my new bike until the wheels fell off. 

     Summer lasts too long here in LA. We won't really be into the cooler weather until we get on the other side of Halloween. 

     For example, today, the very first day of October 2012….it's supposed to be 106 F. 

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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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