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Here’s something I’ve been working on for a long time. It’s at that fork on Creation Road where I the artist must decide whether to put a LOT more work into it, or wrap it up as a cleaned-up As Is. I am uncertain so I am soliciting input from whoever reads this, i.e. You.

This drawing is heavily avian. The temptation is to throw in not only more birds, but anything Bird-related, such as Larry Bird, Brad Bird, Harlan Ellison’s psuedonym Cordwainer Bird, Nicolas Cage in the movie Birdy, the American Eagle, etc. Maybe throw in an obscene gesture or two.

What is most likely to happen is I’ll do a LITTLE more Bird-stuff, clean it up, post it, frame it, and then consider the use of its basic structure as a springboard for a MUCH larger piece, either a large canvas or a mural. Give the elements a little more living space. Study Hieronymus Bosch and various Breughels to go to school on myriad-detail structuring, then set to on canvas, wood or wall.

Note about the fellow in the foreground: on his chest is a triple=acrostic, “Aero Dyna Mics.” It goes like this:

As Clara Blandick’s Auntie Em
Eliminates Your rootless stem, I
Raise a Sting and fell an Orc
Or skewer Bad Guys with my Forks

Any thoughts on where I should go with this piece, Friends?

2020 1011 bird

Here is an illustration for a story that has not been told, much less sold. I invite you to write that story and then either tell it in a comment on this post, or sell it on the open market. (No compensation to me, other than acknowledgment that I inspired you, is necessary.)

20200810_171649

 

20200704_172526

My mother has, or had, a drawing I made when I was two-and-a-half years old or so. It was a drawing of her. So I’ve been doing figure drawing for more than 63 years. I still cannot draw consistently well.

So I still need drawing exercise. This one is an exercise in patience and visialization. I didn’t allow myself to use a model or photo source, although I did take a peek at my drawing hand–and the drawing-hand part of the drawing is a botched disaster.

Total drawing time was about six hours, far longer than I normally spend on a given drawing. I hope to be doing this more, soon.

 

2019 0731 gossamer blossoms

Today is the last day of July, and the day of fulfillment for the Index Card A Day challenge. I end with some invented blossoms, drawing by the seat of my pants, with no photo source, and a minimum of word-clutter. Just thought of the blossoms as quiet, slow-exploding fireworks.

2019 0713 diverssimento

I went home early from work gratefully because my jaw and empty tooth-socket were aching, and slept and slept, and upon awakening found that I just wanted to dial at random on the Internet various animals and humans. No room for poetry on this one, just a pageful of scattershot portraiture.

First I watched FIRST MAN, which stars not Matthew McConaughey but Ryan Gosling. At the 2:07:33 point in the DVD Neil Armstrong is standing at the lip of a crater. Here is a drawing based on that shot, with grateful thanks to the filmmakers:

moon man 2019 0127

Next I watched Season 1 of TRUE DETECTIVE. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are partnered, and shown at two different times of their lives. So without freezing the DVD, I started imagining an older-yet McConaughey, and this quirky drawing came out:

mmccon 2019 0127

I feel proud that these two drawings seem to have been done by two different people. I worked harder on the first one–building up tone with the pastel pencil I was using was a tricky business–but the second drawing required a lot more than looking at something and recording and embellishing.