If you’re broken hearted (pun fully intended) over Sweet Hearts being out of production this year, then this is the print for you. I made it so there would still at least be something Sweet Heart-themed available for Valentine’s Day. Now 2019 doesn’t quite have to be the year without Sweet Hearts. You can find this print on everything from cards to skirts via this link and the Redbubble, Society6, Zazzle, and Threadless buttons it directs you to: https://linktr.ee/okhismakingart
A page of comic for a conquest
The story
End of the project: human species. The simulation has been achieving unexpected outcomes. Was increased free thought and the doubts fade away.
At that time, I recreate my own image. However, it's behaviours came with anomalies. We aren't.
You can't run away from you. Dreams were unexisted memories.
The likehood was that we're living an illusion. But, we change our view.
I couldn't attain the freedom I looked for. Everything became real. Everything came down. Am I still dreaming?
This is a piece I did, based off of a prompt in a daily creating group that I am a member of on Facebook. The theme was Polka Dots (If the title wasn't obvious). Looking forward to trying out DoodleAddicts!
Final Drawing. Progression drawing 7 of 7. This is an earlier drawing of a how-to video from Emmy Kalia. All credit to her. Link: https://youtu.be/80ewdDwAVk4
One thing I love about natural objects is how they often remind me of handmade objects. Like these acorns--the caps look just knit caps. So I scanned in a handful and used them as the basis for this sketch.
"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.
(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.
Following the daily painting challenge with Lisa Congdon over at CreativeBug though I haven't quite managed to keep up daily. Still, it's wonderful picking the brush up again and splashing around with paint!
A reminder to myself:
On rough days when I feel lost, rudderless, overwhelmed or without direction, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through tough times is 100% so far. And that’s pretty darn good in the scheme of things.
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/
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.
A Brief Pause at the Edge of Becoming
It seems I am always seeking a place to sit—
not just to rest the body,
but to settle the soul.
Yet even in stillness, Gary Brecka’s words whisper:
“The quickest way to old age
is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.”
So I do not stay long.
I walked until I found a picnic table
beneath a canopy of bare-limbed trees,
branches like open hands waiting for green.
The blue spruces nearby—
stoic, unchanged, whispering that some things endure.
I sketched.
Not perfectly. Not for anyone’s praise.
Just a mark to say: I was here.
Alive in this in-between.
Waiting. Listening.
Not for leaves—
but for something truer than comfort.
Thank you for joining me in this small noticing.
A moment borrowed from the rush.
A table. A tree. A thought.
A gift.
It has been a delight to share with my students the incredible resource of people. Over the years, I’ve had the great privilege of connecting them with inspiring individuals such as Lois Ehlert, Dave Nice, Gregory Martens, Colette Odya Smith, and—as seen in this “Behind the Professor” sketch—Dr. Gaylund Stone. There’s something powerful about the presence of someone who lives their craft with humility and depth. In moments like these, my students are reminded that more is often caught than taught.
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.
Taking some inspiration from some things me and my girlfriend talked about regarding old highs in one’s past and asking yourself if revisiting them later on in life is worth it… the usual stuff I guess.
