dear little universe ///
even just a tiny bit / and you / open up. /
peer out into the nightless
sky /
feel the stars, that /
“you, dear little universe” /
are always coursing /
through
your
veins.
— Neon Spencer
India ink on tissue paper. I had never used ink on this kind of paper before; I really liked the results! There are some folds and wrinkles on the paper that give the pattern some interesting details. The paper is also super absorbing, which plays nicely with the quantities of ink. Since it's very thin, there can easily be overlays between textures. And finally, when trying to use less ink (so that it wouldn't seep through and cause a big dot - the absorbing quality is nice, but it was also somewhat of a challenge!) I used very little ink on the lettering, causing a scratchy, dry look.
I feel kind of lost these days...
I am an artist, this is who I am and this is the only thing I wanna be, but can I really do it?
Can you do this, even though everyone around you say it's impossible? Do they all have a point when they say that "but you are so smart!!! Why would you wanna waist it and be an artist" thing?
Other people may see my job as a dream job, but I hate it.. all I want to do is create, be an artist, be me. But is it really possible?...
This coffee cup doodle is in honour of everyone who works or who has ever worked the night shift. For those of us who work all night and still have responsibilities that can only be dealt with during the day, sleep often seems like a luxury for those who work the day shift. Coffee is our go to comfort and caffeine kick, our best friend who we can always count on to help us through those working nights when everyone else is sleeping.
(2B pencil on a 87mm x 139mm postcard) The idea of owning an exotic pet was always used in comic book adverts. The most well known one being the sea monkeys. People thought they were getting something really special, until it was pointed out to them that they were just brine shrimp. But imagine if something like a pet demon was available!
(black biro on 74mm x 105mm card) When there were more pubs, you'd see many a wandering drunk around the streets at chucking out time. Zombie-like beings with only a strange homing-pigeon instinct left as intelligence.
Jury Duty, June 2013
Fifty of us sat in that room, each one staring at a phone or scribbling in a notebook, killing time. The lawyers asked their questions, picking us off one by one like a slow game of dodgeball. I wasn’t chosen, so I drew instead—earbuds, slouched shoulders, the hum of waiting caught in a few quick lines.
Super Nationals at the Gaylord—two rivers running through the lobby, actual boats gliding under glass ceilings, a nature center tucked between restaurants. Noise everywhere: kids, clocks, pawns and queens. Yet here, in the middle of it, a pause. A man leans back with the weight of waiting. A woman sits, at ease but still seeking. An empty chair remembers everyone who has rested there. In a place built to dazzle, what lingered with me was not the spectacle, but the silence. To draw is to honor the quiet within the clamor.
thinking and seeing for better being — https://forming20.com/
Sometimes the quickest drawings hold the deepest truths. During an after-sermon discussion about understanding the love of God, I found myself listening with one ear and drawing with the other. Frank, seated across the room, made a natural model—relaxed posture, thoughtful presence, and a face full of character.
With a pen in hand, I traced his form in a quick contour line, following the folds of his shirt, the tilt of his jaw, the stillness of his hands resting in his lap. Contour drawing asks us to see more than just the surface—it demands patience and presence, a slowing down until the line itself feels like prayer.
Frank became more than a subject; he was a reminder that the love of God is often revealed in ordinary moments and everyday people.
Imperfect Lines, Honest Presence
This sketch is not perfect—and that’s exactly why it’s alive. The bold figure, the dissolving hat, the tilted chair: all of it feels unfinished, fleeting, caught in motion. It’s what the Japanese call wabi-sabi—finding beauty in the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete.
But there’s something deeper here too. A quick sketch is not just what the eye records. It’s what the soul permits. To draw without fixing, without polishing, is to admit the world will not hold still for us. Life slips past. The lines break off. And yet, somehow, the essence remains.
When you sketch this way, you are not the master of the moment—you are its guest. The pencil does not carve permanence; it pays attention. The act of drawing becomes an act of being present, of honoring what is already vanishing.
So here’s a challenge: grab a pencil and sketch someone near you in sixty seconds. Do not erase. Do not perfect. Let the lines falter. When you finish, ask yourself: What truth did the imperfection reveal?
Perhaps presence itself is the real art.
