This creation of mine is Adeline. She is from Paris,France in the year 1838. Made with watercolors (Jazperstardust, Rublev,Daniel Smith, etc...) and a bit of pencil (just the outline). Made her on my new Arches watercolor paper.
These are my drawings for Inktober 2018. I had set these rules for myself; Making a drawing every day with a dip pen within 15 minutes. Some succeeded, others failed completely, but I enjoyed the challenge!
"I remember you put a smile on my face. Now I got the crow's feet." ~ A blackout poem from a recycled page of Burnout, an Young Adult adventure/romance story.
This is a concept sketch that i might use on a bigger piece, it has a bit more to the design that ive added on to the top of the sketch as i was playing around with different ideas and angles to look at things. i love playing around with different symbols and markings that are quite tribal and almost mystical giving a depiction of mother earth or something shamanic also playing around with the vines and branches in the hair was a cool concept.
(Black biro on a 139mm x 89mm postcard). Another dreamscape piece that uses automatic drawing techniques to produce random imagery. I was going to call this one "bloodlines" due to the shaded central areas which developed, but the lettering in the bottom-left corner began to take shape and so I highlighted them and used them as the title.
(Blue biro on 125mm x 75mm notecard) A third in the guardian spirit works that I've done. When it comes to these kind of things, who wouldn't prefer a pistol-packing angel like that?
A simple ink sketch of a bird at rest. Sometimes the quiet moments—watching, pausing, waiting—are the deepest teachers. This drawing is part of my exploration of what I call the Quiet Practices—small ways of living from the inside out.
If you’d like to see more of my reflections, I share them here: https://forming20.com/
This portrait of Mr. Joshua Anderson—our resident Shakespeare whisperer—was drawn by student artist Covey Garrett as part of a school-wide tribute to our teachers. Students photographed, gridded, and drew 18x24” posters of their teachers, each paired with a favorite catchphrase. Mr. Anderson’s? A classic:
“Hint, hint. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.”
We think the Bard would approve.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely teachers..."
(okay, we may have paraphrased a bit).
I am an art teacher with a master’s degree—trained by brilliant professors who believed that art could do more than decorate walls. I offer safe spaces for teenagers to grow—nourishing soil where their imaginations can take root.
And yet… I am assigned to hallway duty.
This is compulsory education, after all.
So I sit—posted like a sentinel—watching young lives stream past.
“Get to class,” I say with a smile and a nudge.
The system wants attendance; I’m hungry for presence.
Armed not with a whistle or clipboard, but with a pen—
my scribble’s soft insurgency.
The hallway stretches out like a geometric hymn.
Columns and corners chant structure.
Teenagers swirl past—half-formed galaxies of limbs and laughter—
their orbits chaotic, their gravity pulling time forward.
I begin to draw.
Not their tardiness, but their motion.
A shoulder. A blur of sneakers.
A tilted head chasing freedom.
Feet flickering like seconds.
Each mark a pulse.
Each smudge a breath.
My paper becomes a seismograph of seeing—
trembling gently through the mundane.
This isn’t about making art for a frame or a feed.
It’s about refusing to leak away in the fluorescent hum of obligation.
It’s a quiet mutiny against the clock.
I do this on long car rides, too (passenger side, mind you).
Letting the lines grow wild, jagged, and unapologetic.
Not for polish—
but for presence.
This is how I remember I’m still alive.
Still growing.
Still watching.
Still choosing to see.
Because sometimes mental health looks like
a piece of scrap paper,
a moving pen,
and the simple, sacred act of
marking time with wonder.
Ms. Nathan was a play production teacher with flair and a big personality. She wore colorful clothing and loud socks that never matched. Her joyful, chortling laugh filled the room—or the hallway—wherever she happened to be.
Staff meetings and PD days have always been strong invitations for observational drawings. Over the years, I’ve found that there are many boxes to check in a wide variety of systems. I often created my own boxes—and checked them with sketches of my colleagues.
This one goes out to the colorful Ms. Nathan.
