For our 10th anniversary this past Monday, we went on a hike at Land's End. It was cold and blustery! Got a quick sketch in from the labyrinth. Rain lines added as it started to rain by my son.
Second post here on Doodle Addict. I don't know why but this reminds me of Spirited away....or just studio Ghibli. All their art just makes me feel like i'm actually in that place; i can feel the breeze, hear and feel the grass.....Anyways, that's the image i get in my head when making this. Feel free to give feedback or comment on my art, i would appreciate it!
Finally started back on a regular sketch schedule. Once a week on Thursdays, and I really look forward to it. I tried to tone down the orange marker with brown ink, but no luck. It really was a bright and sunny fence, though.
After a gorgeous sunny day in the garden, the wind picked up in the late afternoon. Too windy for a walk, so I drove my son to the GG bridge for his nap and stopped at the welcome sight of St. Ignatius on the way back.
Class assignment: draw a crowd with layers and overlapping. I took this class because it is my artist heart's desire to capture people in real life action. We did learn a technique for that, but we did it from video. It was so stressful, and I'm considering practicing that 10 min a day for Lent. This one was a compilation from photos my teacher provided. What are your tips for capturing people in action? For me, the challenge was deciding what the action was. I kept changing the action as I saw it because it is SO FAST. I felt like I couldn't "see" fast enough.
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.
The Dark. How are other people finding time to draw with the schools closed and your four year old on top of you 24/7? There's a story by Lemony Snicket called The Dark. I really enjoyed making the closet shadow, so there you go. This actually started with my raincoat beckoning to me for many days.
Apolonia Cacadu (her family is calling her: Polly) is a working girl. Very hard working. During the day, she works part time in three different places, and in the evenings she professionally swings on a swing above the bar counter, in the "Under parrots" pub. Because of this constant running around the city, there is little time for her to eat, and often her daily meal is just a handful of crackers (which she loves) and a few green olives with pepper. That’s why her weight is rather featherlike. She dreams about a trip to the Amazon rainforest and spreading her wings as a dancer (she’s great at dance hall and twerking).
Once, my parents and I visited the zoo, I came here very often because my parents let me go out every weekend, as well as to let them relieve the stress at work. Every time I come, I visit the king of the forest. Its body is also very large, it is short, not as tall as zebras or antelopes, but on the movie channel we see that it can catch those horses. Why so? It is because they are so fast even though they are short that it does not become the tiger's limitation. Its whole body is covered with a beautiful plumage of black and orange, which looks very beautiful. The color scheme on that body is also very delicate. In places like: the neck, inside the legs… there are beautiful white hairs that look like cotton cream that I'm holding.Its fangs are very sharp like large, sharp needles. Every time people feed it, those sharp teeth come out looking really scary. It used those jaws to tear raw meat into pieces. The tiger's paws have very sharp claws, the very paws that help it grab food. I like it because it is a powerful and powerful animal. It is that curiosity that helps me get closer to it and see it in every position. And the weekend comes to see how it grows bigger and stronger.
On t-4 days before the shelter in place order came down, I went to the library and checked out a bunch of books for my son just in case the libraries closed (the libraries closed the next day). Two of them are on tsunamis, which my son is obsessed with. We were reading them this morning, and they put Bali on my mind. This voice kept singing, "jungle, jungle, more jungle!" while I was drawing this.
Playgrounds were opened in October then closed again the first weekend of December, and then re-opened yesterday! So grateful. This is one of the renovations by SF Rec and Park while they were closed: Alice Chalmers Playground. It's a pretty crazy climb inside (my five year old needed me to help him down the slide). The Q-bert type iceberg things are super cool, too.
Behold the Chair
(inspired by Wendell Berry)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
The chair does not strive.
It does not speak loudly.
It simply is—
ready to receive,
to hold what comes,
to honor the silence.
This drawing does not shout.
It listens.
It does not disturb the quiet—
it joins it.
Like a prayer whispered
to the One who listens back,
this mark is a presence,
not a performance.
You know you can always count on me, friend
Like no one else, I've gotten used to the coldness of the stone
So I can be with you often
Silver rain will wash away the tears of the Dread Sky
I will rise with the sun…
I will rise with the sun…
- Valyrym.
Referring to the story "The Dragon In The Dungeon"
Some say I'm hitting the point.
So I strike again.
When the Writer dies, the World creates a seemingly imperceptible void, a void waiting to be filled, greedily begging others for revelation.
For the next One to take its place in this great spiral.
Light.
Narrow tunnel.
Echoes.
Arise.
Rest in Peace
Coyote - Of The Wilds was a talented writer, author of many fantastic stories which he never managed to finish.
He was able to convey true, deep emotion through words, through many unfinished stories. Now, through the ending of the Story.
These stories have contributed a lot to my life in 2020, as I wrote about in “Split Of… Personality”. Like for many others, he inspired me to create. I wrote “Split Of Fate”, deleted it, now I'm bringing it back to life, but I also have other plans - regarding the stories of Of The Wilds… but more on that later…
This was difficult to draw. Difficult without getting eyes wet.
Just a quick doodle…
Well, if I were nearby, I would place an apple on his grave.
Found a shady spot to sketch a little street in our beautiful city of San Francisco. I have been surprised to learn how much fun vehicles are to draw. My four year old loves them.
This is no landscape you could ever stand in.
No observational drawing, no safe horizon line.
This chalk experiment is a dream unfolding in color: a golden field lit from within, a scarlet seam of fire at its edge, and a storm-heavy sky pressing down with ancient weight.
It feels like a place between worlds—where the conscious and unconscious meet, where memory and imagination blur. Some might see a battlefield, others a meadow after rain, and still others a veil between life and death. That is the beauty: the painting does not tell you what it is; it invites you to confess what you see.
Psychologists say we project ourselves onto images like these. So—what do you notice first? The light? The darkness? The burning red?
Perhaps that is not about the drawing at all, but about you.
We took the Tuesday after Memorial Day off and rode bikes into GG Park. We found a mostly empty patch of green to picnic and play across from the Conservatory of Flowers. Our social distancing signs are blue with four white arrows pushing four people apart. Every time I look at them, I think, what if people think the length of those arrows is actually 6 feet? What do yours look like?
A sketch recalling an era when smoking indoors after a meal was commonplace—a fleeting pause of stillness before continuing the journey ahead. Done with mechanical pencil on scrap printer paper.
