I had some family at my house this week and my niece kept wanting to play my ukulele, only she called it "kookulele". It made me laugh every time and in the morning before they got up I sketched this real quick to remind me of it.
The product of a collaboration with a very good friend of mine's; I did my usual squid thing and he supplied the Mr Oizo homage-themed collage bits! Check out his work here: https://flynnsego.bandcamp.com/
I helped create the Island in the Sun can for Conshohocken Brewing Company a couple years back. They release it every year in the summer and I drew this up to celebrate the re-release this year!
The kids jump, and call, and send koo wees up to the koo wee sky! When I draw happy characters like this I find myself smiling and I don't even realize it. I hope that happiness comes through in the art. - From "Graham's Up the Tree"
So Mum goes for the phone and these guys slip out the door to see what Graham is doing up in the tree... I can't believe they'd just leave their food behind like that. I mean... look at it. Mmm.
“If someone says ‘Give me one word of advice,’ I say ‘be fearless.’ And knowing without any shadow of a doubt that what they have to give - who they are - is totally unique and not shared by anybody else.” - Sir Patrick Stewart (1940 - 2026).
Blue ballpoint pen portrait built through line, repetition, and accumulated marks. I let the background grow dense and restless while keeping the face comparatively quiet—using the brim and shadow to divide the portrait between what is revealed and what remains hidden.
These were drawn on different days, in different places.
A salt shaker and sugar rack at Beans & Barley on Milwaukee’s East Side—a place that is gone now. A chair at Starbucks, which is still there.
When I go places, I wait.
Waiting is filled with observation.
Observation is recorded with marks.
Marks spark memory.
I can look at a few pencil lines years later and remember where I was.
Maybe that’s what a sketchbook really keeps. Not drawings of things, but evidence of moments.
For Doodle Addicts, I would use this rather than making Beans & Barley the whole story. The loss of Beans & Barley gives one sketch poignancy, but your larger idea is better: drawing converts otherwise disposable waiting into memory.
