My sabatical

Wow, it's been a long time. I almost forgot my password to get in here. The last time I posted some sketches was getting ready to set up at our local pow wow and do some caricatures in my brother's booth. I was a wary about doing this because i'm not very confident about my skills but Courtney, my brother, told me to get over it and come set up with him. So I did and I had a great time. Because I had so little experience with this I charged only five dollars a "head" and made about three hundred dollars over the weekend. It was cool. Pow Wows are a great place to meet people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors and most are in a great mood. When the weekend was over I went home and set up my large sketch book and continued to draw more caricatures from memory. It was weird but I made great strides in skill after my weekend and during my practice.
I finally went out and bought some watercolors. I got a cotman field set. I thought this would be a great starter and I could easily use at home and outside with excuses. I have a lot to learn but I think I'm going to have learning and I'll worry about the Smithsonian Pieces some other time.

CHECKING IN

I haven't posted any drawings for a while but I've got new stuff I'll put up soon, but first I want to just something while I've got my mind on it.
Regarding Native American mascots.
I'm really intrigued by this issue and why america is so resistant to letting them go. I think the reason is because in order to do that Native Americans may have to be recognized as U.S. citizens or maybe even as real people and not symbols of some mass fantasy of a "noble savage". And if Native Americans are seen as real people then African Americans, Latinos and poor people may have to be recognized and accepted as humans and if that happens then we may find ourselves seeing Iraqis as real people who love and fear and hope just like us. If all that occurs, we may just then realize what we are doing, have done and plan on doing. And that insight may be too overwhelming at this point in our country's history. Yeah, that's it. Thats why america clings to these idiot mascots the've constructed, it keeps the truth out of their reality just a little longer.

yet more biggstuff

It's been a while

This is an example of what happens when I fixate on a particular subject. In this case it's the hand. It occured to me how the hand is connected to the arm. How the wrist might work and what the relationship is between the hand and the thumb. I learned this all years ago in some Art School I flunked out of but for some reason it clicked today.
A diagram. What happens to us when we can't connect and why does it happen?
Courtesy CNN.com
Me obsessing with hands again.
Heroes out of ordinary folks.

The week at a glance

Well, here's a collection of drawings in a format I chose arbitrarily full of subjects I sketched with no apparent relationship to each other. Take it or leave it.

John Lennon

When I was a kid I would sit down at the table with a stack of notebook paper (taken from my older college student brother) and draw pictures of the Beatles. I spent 3 hours shading the upper lip of Ringo Starr.
My favorite was always John Lennon. I could never draw his guitar quite right or his face ( and I still can't) but I knew if I could get the way he stood while performing I was halfway to a good drawing. I remember one time, with my brother Courtney, doing a drawing of them performing and cutting out the figures and placing them in my grandparents headboard, which had a light, and playing the recently released, "P.S. I Love You" over and over again and pretending we were at a concert. Excellent.
His lyrics were more biting and creative causing me to think more. He was more of a smart ass ( which was a quality that went a long way with me), and you've got to love a famous artist that can flip off the world and do his or her own thing.
I think that the best thing ever said about him after his death was in a song by a punk band I can't remember in a song called "dead rock stars" and it goes like this, " I never cared much for John Lennon, but at least he didn't die in his own vomit". What an honor.

Catching Up

These are just a few of the things I have been doing since last I posted. I'm looking at the pencil as an alternative. I would like a little more variations in my line weight that my one pen is not giving me. I can see myself buyin a larger sketch book real soon. That doesn't mean I'll abandon this one, I'll use the larger one for my weekend field trips.
I was pleasantly suprised by recent visitors to my site. They were my first ever comments since I started posting my own drawings. Thank y'all for that.