Craig Chesler at Banjo Jim's

Not quite my usual setting or materials: a very dark bar and a Japanese brush pen that my friend Walter gave me last Christmas. But when someone you sort of know announces a last-minute solo instrumental ukulele set at in the East Village on a Tuesday night... well, it's caution to the wind.

The music turned out to be great: not only Craig's, which is always delightful, but the other musicians on the roster as well. In particular, a kid called Alec Gross was amazing.

Craig is actually better-looking than this. Sorry Craig!

CLE-LGA

JFK-LAX

Spent most of October in airplanes, which meant, among other things, lots of time to draw with very limited materials in very limited physical circumstances.

Lots of seatmates to frighten, sometimes on purpose (I sat next to some whiners I didn't want to encourage in conversation).

JPEG's are named by flight. Sometimes it's the only way I remember where I've been.

LAX-JFK

"At a certain point, he realized that the others were not coming back..."

"... because they were, in all likelihood, already dead."

Ink monsters on watercolor paper

This set (including the drawing in the posting above this one) was drawn in a watercolor sketchbook, which I don't think took the ink very well. It'll be OK for watercolor sketches but for in-flight monsters, I think I need a more absorbent paper.

These were part of a Newark-Phoenix round trip.

State of the Sketchbook

One of the things I'm pleased about with the street and subway sketching at the moment is that I think I'm expanding and experimenting with style... different looks for different days, but building an overall vocabulary at the same time.

Project in progress

One of my projects in September was a book dummy. I don't like to talk too much about things that are still in progress, but here's a hint: it involves dogs.

September Monsters

I rented an outside work space back in September, which was great, then spent October flying around the country trying to put some money in the bank. Blogging much neglected as a result.

Catch-up time! These monsters are a little bit of September's production. Just fooling around, getting used to watercolor again after much too much time away.

Characters

I've been trying to go to a new place with the live sketching: not just to draw the people or whatever, but to see them as characters. To connect the sketching I've been doing back to the idea of storytelling. These were done today at Chelsea Market... they're not exactly storybook characters yet, but they are a little further from the kind of watercolor people-sketching I've been doing.

Latest airport sketches

These people were real.

These were not:

Monsters of the air

We've all done our share of airport sketches. Some people make entire books about the stuff you can see from terminal windows.

But once you take off, it's all sensory deprivation. James Jean has done some dandy in-flight drawings (if you haven't seen them in his sketchbooks, go this instant and look at them... his site, annoyingly, doesn't let you link to individual pages, so go to 'sketches', then look at the '2008 Mole A' drawings. If you love art, it'll make you dance around the room; if you make art, it'll make you want to hang yourself). Yes, I'll wait here 'til you're done.

*******

Awesome, no?

Anyhow, I had a different strategy for my August travels: headphones, iPod, monsters.











































Seatmates a little freaked out.

Airport sketches

Did some traveling over the last week or so. Sketches from the airports in Kansas City, Cleveland and New York. Moleskine has some subway sketches, too...






















At some point recently, I made the decision to start including some upper bodies in these studies. Any more than that is often hard to see, especially on the subway, but I think it's helping differentiate the way each of the subjects sits on the page.

Fresh from the Laundromat

Drew these this afternoon on 7th Avenue in front of the laundromat. Laundry and grocery shopping have become two of my prime sketching times...

Recent bits and pieces

Had actual work to do the other morning, did this hermit thrush study as a warm-up.






















Quick museum sketch using some of the new materials I've been working with.






















Figures along Seventh Avenue, drawn while doing laundry.

Brooklyn street sketch

Out for a day in Brooklyn with Ann Marshall and new friend Felix Scheinberger, joined briefly by the very hard-working Brian Floca. A new kind of sketching for me. This was my day's best.