This work is purposely incomplete. I will facilitate a group of people who will color in the black and white template as well as have the option of making their own art freehand. Individual and couple contributions will be combined to make our composite mural. People who participate in this event will thus listen and speak while creating artwork for the mural. For my part I will explain the latest research concerning the hormones involved in the physiology and neurology of falling in love and remaining in love
And that’s a wrap from this current sketchbook! Closing things with some Peter Falk wisdom I’ve shared before, I think…
“My idea of Heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.”
The meal was my attempt to bring a little comfort into the rugged outdoors. The sketch was my reminder—to hold onto the moment, even when mosquitoes, ashes, and deflating air mattresses had other plans.
Introducing “Home Is Where Your Head’s At” :-)
Starting a new sketchbook as we leave the summer and head into the autumn again… with things like Halloween and Samhuinn rearing their heads it’s liable to sway what goes on here as it always does!
Two wicker chairs in the sun.
One for the waiting,
one for the hoped-for.
The table between them
holds its silence,
its place set for bread or talk.
I draw what is here—
lines quick and unerasable—
and what is not here,
her presence,
waits with me in the white of the page.
Imperfect Lines, Honest Presence
This sketch is not perfect—and that’s exactly why it’s alive. The bold figure, the dissolving hat, the tilted chair: all of it feels unfinished, fleeting, caught in motion. It’s what the Japanese call wabi-sabi—finding beauty in the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete.
But there’s something deeper here too. A quick sketch is not just what the eye records. It’s what the soul permits. To draw without fixing, without polishing, is to admit the world will not hold still for us. Life slips past. The lines break off. And yet, somehow, the essence remains.
When you sketch this way, you are not the master of the moment—you are its guest. The pencil does not carve permanence; it pays attention. The act of drawing becomes an act of being present, of honoring what is already vanishing.
So here’s a challenge: grab a pencil and sketch someone near you in sixty seconds. Do not erase. Do not perfect. Let the lines falter. When you finish, ask yourself: What truth did the imperfection reveal?
Perhaps presence itself is the real art.
For this piece I used acrylic paints and acrylic markers. My inspiration was my love of tattoo flash and traditional/neo-traditional tattoo designs. I grew up flipping through pages of tattoo flash catalogues and the art inside was a huge influence in my own art. Some of these pieces are my versions of popular designs and some are originals.
This is an acrylic painting that I made for someone I was close to. We would often take turns of one of us being overly affectionate and the other being playfully annoyed. I tried to capture this dynamic in the painting of these two owls. This painting was an experiment in portraying animals, something I don't do often, and using my paint knife as a tool in my paintings.
This drawing was done with pen and colored pencil. I wanted to create a self-portrait that could also serve as a profile picture for my art accounts. My other self-portraits tend to be realistic, so I decided to try and depict myself in my own illustrative style instead. My artistic influences for this piece include tattoo styles, pinup art, and art nouveau as well as inspiration taken from some of my favorite portrait artists, Sargent and Rockwell.
