I always tell students to start a project with quick sketches to develop a shape language. Plus research, then you can start to generate ideas. This is one of who knows how many small sketches I'll do to start this project. #ideation #designsketches #pilo
I have dragged this typewriter around for more than 50 years. I found it in an antique store when I was in college. It's still fully useable, except that it's REALLY hard to find ribbons. Basically, it's just another object to dust. But it is a beautifully made object. The basic shapes and perspective were blocked in with a 2H pencil, then I used a Sakura 005 micron pen to do the contour drawing.
Once again playing with shapes, colours, marks, and loads of squiggly, smudgy ink lines. No pressure. Just trying to get back into splashing around with paint and seeing what emerges.
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
All the faces above have the same blot or cloud as a base. When I am sick of the faces I draw automatically, I make a nice, oddly shaped blot and then look for faces (or whatever) within it. This time I did it digitally so I could see how many different faces I could get out of the same cloud. This time I stopped at thirteen, but I am sure there is more.
In celebration of Year of the Tiger, I illustrated this Tiger with vector shapes and then shades the shapes with a variety of pixel brushes. Then I doodled some abstract brush strokes as the background with a red and gold color theme.
An automatic drawing, everything is out of my head with only the briefest idea of a story line. I played around with shapes and lines and shading to see what affect would result. It was fun, but time consuming.
Temperature, polarity, pressure, molecule size, and stirring all increase solubility. Yup. The background is stained from food coloring swirled in shaving cream, some AP Chem practice problem notes, and some shapes for spice. Also, I submitted 3 college apps yesterday, so here's to that.
A vibrant, hand-rendered standing strawberry illustration featuring rich textures and expressive marker strokes. This piece captures the organic beauty of summer fruit through a modern, illustrative lens.
A predator reduced to bone but not to silence. The body is gone, yet the motion remains — jaw open, spine curved, still moving through water that no longer needs flesh to carry it. This is not a fossil resting in sand; it is a hunter that never learned how to stop.
The ocean keeps its shape alive. Instinct outlasts life.
Some creatures don’t die — they continue.
Pipe Wrench — 16×20, graphite & acrylic accents
The next addition to my growing Tool Series. # 6
A classic pipe wrench rendered with tight line work, layered shading, and subtle grit that brings out every ridge and tooth. I leaned into the industrial personality of the tool—solid, heavy, built for work—and let the shadows do the storytelling. It’s a tribute to the objects that shaped my childhood and still live on in my shop today.
