New Year

These drawings are framed up and ready to go to Copper Moon Gallery in Taos, NM.
These images are used on the gallery holiday card. "New Bird" and "New Flower", ink and watercolor on paper, each 9 by 12 inches.

Happy birthday, Willie Nelson

His birthday is actually tomorrow, April 30, and he'll be 80 years on earth. Willie Nelson is one of those musicians whose music transcends its genre.

When I was still in college he came to the university to play a concert and I had the opportunity to illustrate a t-shirt for that show. I depicted him riding a guitar like a horse. A couple of years later I was at another concert and saw a young lady walk by wearing the t-shirt.
Flash forward twenty or so years and Willie's bus is parked outside the building where my wife Becky once worked. He was in the building on business visiting a lawyer or something. When he returned to the bus there was a throng of fans, including Becky, wanting his autograph and he graciously complied.
When she called me to let me know he was there and that she was going down to meet him I said, "Ask him if he remembers the t-shirt at East Texas State University in the 1970s."
She asked him and he said with that famous smile, "Well, tell him I remembered."

The Sunday, April 28 edition of The Dallas Morning News featured 80 artists' images of Willie and here's mine. The rest can be seen at this link.

It's Arbor Day...

And I think the trees are mad at us...or chipped off, as one friend said.

Folk typography

My father, gentleman farmer/rancher, was also apparently an amateur typographer, evidenced by this aluminum name plate he made for himself back in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It's as fine a piece of folk art as I can imagine.

Hands

These drawings of hands clasping are for a painting I'm sending to an invitational show at the end of this coming week. More about that when I post the painting.
I was listening to Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" while I was working on the sketchbook drawings. That fact is unrelated to the subject, but "Sketches of Spain" is always good drawing music.

"Big"

In the course of making my rooster series of paintings, and particularly in the case of the 7th Street mural project, I would hear many variations of the same joke about the term "cock" and the size of same. So I decided to make a piece that addressed the subject in an ironic way. Ironic, that is, in the sense of this piece not being "big" at all, at 7 by 5 inches.

Is it too late for an Earth Day drawing?

I don't think so.

Jump

This is a rejected (apparently, since I never heard back from the potential client) sketch for a diptych painting intended for a children's hospital. The kids depicted aren't exactly jumping, but they're flying after navigating through a series of challenges. But one has to jump before one can fly, don't you think?

Sketchbook section

I have added a new "Sketchbooks" section to my web site, showing random drawings in pencil, ink and sometimes ink and watercolor.

Square the circle, or circle the square?

That's the puzzle for our time. One solution may be to just blend the colors, but as that process becomes more common I'm always amazed at the resistance to the idea.

Twittering vs tweeting

I have now joined the Twittering Machine (with apologies to Paul Klee) and be "followed" via Twitter.

Barefoot Hippies

I did this piece for my friend Kathy Corbin and her band Barefoot Hippies. She didn't ask me to, I just did it because the name inspired me. I was thinking of a bare foot and the shape of the foot and the image of the guitar seemed to come together naturally. I like when that happens and I wish it happened more often.
She likes it, so what is done with it remains to be seen, but it will be fun to see it used.

Fluid

I'm looking forward to the return of hummingbirds this Spring. Their doppler effect arrival and departure sounds are more like a buzzing than a humming to me, but "buzzingbirds" sounds more threatening than "hummingbirds", I guess.

Wasted energy

Having energy to waste, and wasting it, in a futile effort may be the ultimate vanity. But we never know what might be futile until it we've tried it.

Beethoven

It's 34 days until Beethoven's birthday.
He lived in a world of silence, but created some of the greatest and most important music.
This image has been used by a local Beethoven ensemble for the past several years.

Two media, one subject.

The piece on the left, "Suddenly Last April", is an acrylic on canvas painting. It's small, 8 by 6 inches. On the right is "April", a mixed media and digital piece, 7.5 by 6.5.
"Suddenly..." is going to an auction for an independent film company, raising money for a project about the "therapeutic process of Art Therapy as a healing and life enhancing practice", according to their brief.
"April" is another exploration of the "Neo-Retro" style I have been developing over the past couple of years. It has evolved from a kind of brutish and primitive look to something more, if I may say it, elegant and refined. Examples of its evolution can be found at this link.
Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting juxtaposition to show the different styles. Interesting for an easy Saturday morning, anyway.

Here's some coffee!

Last year I participated in "secret gift exchange" with a group of fellow artists. The way it works is a website called "Elfster" automatically picks a name for the participant, then each participant posts on the site what they like or might want. There's a price limit of $15, so it doesn't get out of hand.
I'm in it again this year, and my picked person said she wanted coffee, more or less. She listed some other vague items, but included the phrase "Coffee...I like coffee!...Did I mention coffee?". So I decided to get her some coffee. Oak Cliff Coffee is a neighborhood coffee company, so I bought a bag of their beans. I hope she has a grinder. Maybe she'll get one of those from somebody else.
To artsy it up a bit I made a package for the coffee out of 300 lb watercolor paper and painted coffee related images on it with watercolor and a Sharpie. Besides a cup ringed with birds and a coffee pot topped with a bird, the inside flap of the lid includes a wide awake eyeball. Pictures are below.

Drawing Inspiration

I'm quoted and a few of my pictures are featured in this new book by writer/artist Michael Fleishman.
It's available on Amazon at this link.
This cover illustration is by David Bowers.

Still Life with Birds

This was for another one of those "draw names, exchange gifts" holiday things. The recipient described herself as liking anything "girly" and that her favorite color is pink. I did this piece with those qualities in mind. I had a good time with it. It's another use of Sharpie pens and watercolor. I think I may have overworked the vase a bit, but overall I'm pretty happy with it, and I hope it's soon-to-be-owner is, as well.

Chicken on Sunday

I guess most people are still having turkey leftovers today, but I don't have a drawing of a turkey. I do, not surprisingly, have a Sharpie and watercolor drawing of a rooster, though.