I was tired of carrying around a bunch of Microns. I want one or two refillable pens so I started with buying a new Lamy AL-Star Fountain Pen. I love it. I got the medium nib and am able to get a nice range of line width from it. This and maybe a fine nib and I'll be all set for a travel kit. This is the first page I drew with it.
Pasha was a beloved German Shorthaired Pointer rescue dog. He came to us a bedraggled youngster and lived to become a "grand old man." This pencil drawing was done as a tribute after he "crossed the rainbow bridge."
An article/rant/annotation to an illustration. A #Hackney bar and its flies.
This picture is not as sad and blue as it might at first seem, I promise.
It is early in the week and the pub becomes the territory of the most outspoken drinkers. Raised somewhere between Churchill and Harold MacMillan, a night such as this is time for them to spin out a yarn of nostalgic fantasy. Encouraged by the lack of a crowd and with space to fill, statements start to fly.
In the opening rounds the barman athletically hits back with factual blocks and reality-check haymakers; statistics and personal experiences are given. Two histories cross examined, one where 1982 means Thatcher and the Falklands, the other renders Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Stoicism and national pride vs mental health and realism.
In the latter rounds the barman is fatigued, swaying on the backbar, glasses begin to stack up as form begins to drop. The older men seem stronger than ever.
The barflies come in close now, they scrutinise his generations work ethic and make wild political comments on poverty, immigrants and the minimum wage.
The barman is close to sheer bloody despair, he maintains his defence and focuses on breathing while maintaining his professional stance.
But at the end of the night the barman knows HE will ring that bell, they will politely leave and they will return again in a week and maybe, just maybe there will be a change, common ground or maybe at least polite silence.
But what these interactions have given despite the salt in the eye is community and an exchange between generations, culture and class of those participating. No home is ever straight forward, no relative without their good and bad traits and in a world where we often slide into echo chambers online or in our physical environments, the pub is still a place where society is family, face to face, pint to pint. Or maybe it's just a room with alcohol on tap?
Drawn from a garden photograph. This took me much longer than expected. I kept stopping because I was getting discouraged. I still don't like the leaves, but there's not too much I can do about it at this point.
Ah yes, another hand. I never really realized how expressive hands can be, and I've been drawing them a lot more recently. (I swear I won't only draw hands.) This week has been quite the experience and has made me step back and look at certain things. (Who knew physics could be a metaphor for life?) Anyway, hope everyone is doing well, have a great weekend/week.
A Bob Ross inspired painting, for the Digital Painting Studio challenge, I know composition is a bit off, but I'm still pretty satisfied with the end result, and sometimes, you just have to let go of the image and work on something else...
I share with you a very special project I had the pleasure to participate in 2021, an initiative of @humanityonthemove.hom with @thisisastromag
There were more than 70 artists who, in collaboration with refugees, worked together to build artistic pieces. The result was a virtual exhibition, which culminated in an online auction to support @donate4refugees .
With all the art pieces sold, they managed to raise 3336 euros. Here is the result of my collaboration with F.!
Steve is a musician and head sound engineer for Microsoft in Seattle. I drew him after visiting, trying to capture a bit o the otherworldliness of his music.
Artwork on "the other side" - playing with the bleed-through from the watercolor and intuitiviely allowing the shapes to arise. Created using watercolor, coffee, ink, graphic pens and unipen
I was looking at what Pixabay might offer as inspiration, and found this fish. Perfect for a ballpoint pen drawing. The incompleted drawing in the second photo was taken before the final "glaze" of little scribbles of turquoise pen across almost the whole surface. It was a happy accident that made for a shimmery, iridescent fishy quality.
