Continued study of wrinkles

In my last post, which was a hundred years ago, I spoke of wrinkles, and how many I am getting...
My time to doodle has been vastly diminished since August, but over the past few Saturdays, taking a few minutes here and there, I have continued to play around with wrinkles, and in a medium that I haven't used for a long time...the trusty graphite pencil.

There is a lot in the expression. Part of it is fear, part surprise, and a twinge of anger maybe. The eyes tell the most...

post birthday tinkering

Another birthday has come and passed....have you ever got the feelings that your wrinkles are coming faster than the birthdays?
I wanted to play with contrast this morning, so I pulled out the gouache and found a great portrait off of flickr, and started to play. This is the result.

Another moly 24 contribution

I did a little painting in our moly 24 group on a moleskine that I received in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Sorry about the poor quality photographs. The computer that I have my scanner attached to is in the shop getting a new power supply.......

more HALLOWEEN eggs...

The egg painting continues. Hopefully I'll have enough time before the 31st to do a few more, at least enough to fill a half-dozen container.

It's ALIVE...ALIVE!

This morning I woke up with Halloween on my mind....that, plus a hankerin' to paint. So, as any other LOGICAL person would conclude, I decided it was TIME TO DO HALLOWEEN EGGS! This was the result...brahhhaahaahahaaa!!

I will say that my wife was pretty disappointed when I went to the fridge, got out the eggs, and it WASN'T because I was making breakfast!!
I can't wait until next Spring to do Easter Jack-o-Lanterns.

returning to youth, yet again.....

I've been journaling and remembering with a brush odd things here and there from my youth. This is what came out the last couple of days.

Journaling...again

After a brutal day at work, I found myself longing just to doodle aimlessly. So when I got home, I rummaged through some old photos and journaled a train of thought that ended up somewhere I wasn't expecting, but had fun anyway. My favorite was going back to a journal from when I was 4 and copying a picture that I drew when just a youngster. I liked the way that it's innocence contrasted with the other images.
I enjoyed it, the journey was fun....

It's been a long time....

Some changes have recently happened in my life which have made it necessary to shift my attention and time elsewhere. Consequently, I haven't had a chance to draw/paint for a bit. Thankfully, I got a moleskine in the mail the other day from our swap group. Knowing that I HAD to do my part to not hold up the process, I was somewhat forced to sit down and let the paint flow. I'm grateful, it was good to escape with ol' jack into the bean maze.

Whirlwind...

For the past two weeks I have been on vacation far away from home. Consequently, I haven't had access to computer, email, blogs, etc. I did have a lot of time to sketch, however. In fact, as I was scanning everything that I did, I surprised myself with the quantity (not quality on most). In the spirit of posting, here is everything with a bit of description for each doodle:

On the plane trip from Rome to Utah I drew this little guy...possibly capturing the elation of being away from work for an entire two weeks.....ESCAPE!!!!!

Then as soon as we landed, we packed up our campin' stuff and early the next morning we were on our way to the Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone. I did a couple of doodles while there for a week. I don't particularly care for the mountain doodle...frankly, I don't have much talent for landscaping, but I enjoyed being in the lake playing with my family. The next is the camper that we looked at everyday.

Then we were back on the road to Salt Lake to enjoy a week full of parades, movies with friends, talks with family, strolls through graveyards, revisiting key memory filled places, and just hanging out. The following sketches just filled in the time...

This last bony faced man was done on the plane back to home...I was contemplating the piles and piles of work that were awaiting my return to work....alas, vacations are joyous!!

blog award...yipee

... I was surprised and humbled to receive a compliment from Karen Blados today in the form of a blog award. A big thanks to her and her thoughtfulness. I've been watching Karen's blog for a while now and am constantly impressed with her ability to journal her life and package it in such a delightful presentation. Take a look at her stuff!

The rules of acceptance are:
1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Consequently, here are the people that I'd like to suggest...

Felicity
Miguel
Mrana
Nina
Juj
Szaza
Ester

Seer

Last night I couldn't sleep because of the hundreds of work items that were spinning and bouncing off the walls of my mind. So to extinguish them I went again to my trusty moleskine and started sketching. I found a picture on the net of a blind lady, and did a little rendition of what I saw.

Prelude to the fireworks...

A quick sketch of the band before the sky show at the park....

Patriotic lemons...

This morning we took the kids to brunch just to get out and enjoy the day. Here's the lemon from my drink in the most patriotic garb I could muster:

After we got home, the kids and I had a massive water fight on the front lawn. It was perfect to beat the Georgia sun. After drying off, we all sat down to the table to doodle and paint away the afternoon. I had nothing in mind, and so my pen just drew. This is what came out. (Don't ask, I have not idea either.)

I'm also adding a couple of doodles that I did a few days ago. One is of a fellow that was speaking at my church. I was intrigued with his comments and doodled him speaking. The other is yet another sumo sketch. I didn't like this one, but am posting it nonetheless.

more painting with my boy...

This afternoon was a lazy, hot, and relaxing time. I continued to paint, and decided to explore fear. This is what came out.

My son painted along with me, sneaking the juice from my palette. Here's what he did. It must be our "blue period."

Rainy Saturday...

This week my wife's sister came into town for an enjoyable few days. They packed all the kids (except for my youngest) into the cars this morning and headed for the Atlanta History Museum. That left my little boy and me with lots of time to play around and have fun. After a few chores, playing on the wii, and lunch, we decided to jam out to music and paint/draw.

He made these two little masterpieces:(this is his interpretation of the Death Star)


(and this is what he painted watching the rain outside our window.)

His attention span lasted almost a half an hour while painting, which is impressive. I started this little sketch, but wasn't able to finish because he was already moving to the next activity...which happened to be "How many things can I stick in the aquarium before dad notices?"

More stuff for the Moly-x-24 group

It was a CRAZY busy week, but despite the lack of time, after I received the most recent "hand-off" from the moleskine exchange, I had to make time to finish my section. I gave more detail about the process on the Moly-24 website, but thought I would post the pictures on this site as well.

E.D.M. Challenge #3

A while ago I promised myself that I would do all of the "every day matters" challenges in order to keep the creative juices flowing. I puttered out after the first two. Mustering up my resolve, I have moved onto #3 (Draw a wallet, purse or bag.) This is a sketch of my watercolor bag. I've had this old rawhide bag since my mission in Brazil and have been storing brushes, watercolors, gouache, and pens in it for the last few years. It's been through the ringer...

A visit to the park...

Today we made an excursion to the park. It let the kids run around and go crazy, and also let the parents sit around and enjoy the shade, the green, the squirrels and not being cooped up in our house.
I did a quick journaling page while I was there, and was unable to completely finish the sketch. I added text just to fill up the area a bit.

Wood pile...

Today was Memorial Day and we spent the evening in our friend's backyard surrounded by our family and other friends from the neighborhood. It was a good evening eating, chatting, relaxing and watching the children play, get dirty and run, run, run.
I was fascinated with the woodpile by the fire and decided to whip out a sketch of the various shadows on the logs. This is what resulted:

The great chicken dilemma....

I've recently been trying to convince my wife of my genius surrounding my chicken dreams. You can read about my attempts on my writing site. I did this painting tonight after being thwarted.

Fiver

I have been reading "Watership Down" by Richard Adams for our book club. I'm about half way through the book and am enjoying it. There have been a few passages that have been extremely thoughtful, particularly when the little adventurers happen upon a warren that is seemingly paradisaical, yet is really a grouping of rabbits that have gone against their nature for luxury and are willing to pay the price of a farmer killing them off here and there.

"The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?"

As promised in other posts, I am continuing the tradition of illustrating something from every book that I read. Here is the sketch I did of "Fiver", a character in Watership Down.

Japanese "INK" drawing

As previously mentioned, I am participating in the Moleskine Exchange #24, which has been pretty fun. I got my first exchange in the mail the other day from Kerstin in Germany. She wanted to keep a "Japanese" theme for her sketchbook, so I pondered and puzzled about something along that line. I kept thinking of squid, ink drawings, etc. This is what resulted. The scan didn't come out as good as I'd have hoped, but it's fun to see how everything starts blending together in this project.

Moleskine Exchange 24

Recently I was invited to participate in an international sketchbook swap where we send Japanese Accordion Style Moleskine Pocket Notebooks around the world filled with sketches. I WAS STOKED TO BE INVITED. This little post is my homage to "Japanese Accordion Style" (I know, it's pretty cheesy, but I had fun doing it.)

A Grief Observed...

Yesterday marked the 7th anniversary of my father's passing. Time is only beginning to heal make the loss less painful, yet, the path of grieving has been enlightening. Tonight I tried to catch some of the feelings of lonliness, and insight in this little sketch. I've blogged a few more of my feelings on my writing blog.
Can you relate?

Be Nice....

Last night we took our family to see the Lion King Broadway show. It was fun, and visually spectacular, however, I found that there were so many people that were getting up and coming in late, going to the bathroom, etc. that I kept having my view of the stage blocked. I kept getting upset with myself because I found myself harboring bad feelings to people that were impeding my view. So, during the intermission, I began sketching this little guy to help me remember that I need to be less judgmental. I think I need to hire one of these guys to follow me around and to "toot" whenever I'm ready to pass judgment on others just because I have been inconvenienced....He'd probably run out of air with how much blowing that would be going on....

Brick Lung

At 2 in the morning today I found myself on the way to the hospital because I couldn't breathe. I've been kind of wheezing the last couple of weeks, likely due to the HUGE pollen counts in this part of the country. But it was pretty startling walking around the house early in the morning knowing that you weren't able to get enough air.
After a few breathing treatments, steroid injections and antibiotic doses, I was released and able to breathe much better. Doc's orders were to rest, put breathing treatments on my regiment for the next couple of hours, and continue the med's. Consequently, I found myself in bed, in a quiet house with a lot of time to think about what was going on inside my chest and how long it would take to get rid of this acute bronchitis.
When I was a kid, my parents purchased "Gray's Book of Anatomy", the classic compilation of pathological illustrations. I used to spend hours looking at the pen and ink drawings of hearts, lungs, legs, bones, etc. All of them were expertly drawn, and colored with two or three very faded and basic colors. The illustration below was a result of what I thought I would find in Mr. Grey's anatomy book under the "Respiratory Failure" section....

Sketching Night...

As promised in the last post, I have tried to give justice to the feelings and thoughts that I experienced while and after reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel. There really aren't words to attempt to describe it, and trying to do so might cheapen the impact that it had upon me. I suggest the book to others, so as not to forget what can be unleashed in each of us if we do not watch the demons within...

Saturday and Sunday Sketches...

I haven't done much drawing lately, so I only have two to post for the last couple of weeks.
First, my son has begun his baseball season again, so, I find myself with time to doodle at his baseball games. I was impressed with the trees around the field as compared to the lights, so I did this little sketch:

As for this last sketch, I have decided to try to start illustrating something from the various books that I am reading. I find that I read more often than I watch T.V., etc. Consequently, I have my nose in a book quite often. In seeking out ways to keep the creative juices flowing, I decided that I will try to make one illustration of at least every book that I read and enjoy.
This first illustration actually comes from a book of scripture that I have been pondering. You can read more about why I illustrated this scene on my writing blog. The approach I took was to steal the style of some of the old Japanese woodblock prints and run with it. I had fun, and even came up with a oriental-style signature to continue the motif. Enjoy:

Continuing the series....

A couple of other self-portrait sketches done from the same picture. I like the black and white one better. The color is colored pencil and watercolor mix and I didn't much care for the texture.