Mostly I Do Art...

An experiment in composition called  Have a Drink , drawn with plain old #2 pencil on bright white copy paper. This was not meant to be a finished drawing, only a sketch to illustrate certain principles of composition. In this case, I have used the principle of thirds. There's no real important reason for doing this - just trying to get in some practice.

Table for Two,  a sketch done with graphite and vine charcoal on 80 lb. cold press paper. There's a certain aesthetic in the functional simplicity of ordinary things - the symmetry of bar stools, the regular perfection of kitchen tiles, even the intentional alignment of sodas on a counter. Our lives as humans seem to be so filled with chaos that we exert extra effort into imposing order on ordinary things, even where order serves no real purpose other than to please the eye. Perhaps it's a calming device, a way of making ourselves feel better about being adrift on a sea of uncertainty.

My latest composition, entitled "Have a Smoke" . Drawn with graphite and PITT charcoal on 80 lb. cold press paper. I don't smoke except for the occasional cigar, so all I can say about this composition is that I've been working at a gas station. I guess staring at tobacco products all day was my inspiration. Maybe I should do a whole series of compositions using only things I find at work. It wold definitely be different. Not that I'm drawing while I'm supposed to be working, you understand. In this case, I took a few pictures on my phone of different items and then went home and recreated the scene in my studio. It's probably not the most awesome art you've seen today, but it's definitely unique.

"The Un-Jolly Elf" Ballpoint Pen on Arches Cold-Pressed Paper So, I haven't posted in a while, but to be honest, there wasn't really anything I felt like posting about. I mean, yeah, it's the holiday season and all, but I'm afraid I'm one of those strange people who doesn't get a lot of joy out of it. Now before you go being all judgmental, I'm not materialistic or selfish. In fact, you can ask anyone who knows me, and they'll all tell you that I'm about the most un-selfish person they know. And no, I don't have unrealistic expectations or unreasonable goals, and I'm not one of those so-called bleeding hearts. So why, then, does the season of giving always give me the blues? In a word, people . I may not be unreasonable, unrealistic, shallow, greedy, or demanding, but I can't stop other people from behaving that way. It's funny how an event that's supposed to foster kindness and good will tends to bring out t...

"Calico Koi"   Prismacolor pencil and PITT graphite on Strathmore 400 series 80 lb. grayscale paper. I often have people ask me, "How do you do that? Where do you get your ideas?" In response, I decided to show some of the initial process that goes into creating a finished work like the one above. There's a local Chinese buffet that features a beautiful indoor koi pond in the lobby. The koi here are somewhat shy but if you're patient you can watch them slowly, gracefully circle the pond beneath an arched bridge. The lighting here is too poor for good quality photos, but I wanted an image of these majestic animals for my bathroom wall. The trouble was, I had never drawn a koi fish before. To the internet! My intial designs were made on newsprint with PITT charcoal pencil. The first image here was nice, but a bit too stylized for what I wanted. To me, it looked more like a Chinese kite than a real fish. The pose seemed stiff, like the fish wa...

After spending a brief amount of time on G+, the Sketchbook weekly feature has returned to its proper home, our blog. When I first moved the feature over to G+, it was an attempt to separate my personal art from that of the studio. I never realized how much traffic the sketchbook feature brought to the blog, and in return, to Studio 71. So, without any further nonsense, the Sketchbook... Inking Cultural Expression: Tattoo Design Experiments "Thug Life" "Skull and Roses" #sketching #drawing #sketchbook #penandink #tattooart #skull #roses #rosary #thuglife

The flood waters of Hurricane Harvey have not yet receded from Texas, and the storm is poised to make landfall again in Louisiana. Of course, this is normal behavior for a hurricane, but the damage it caused in Texas was far worse than anyone expected. I can't help but ask the obvious question - Why? According to many sources, Harvey may not have been caused  by #climatechange, but it was certainly fed by it. Higher sea levels due to melting arctic pack ice caused storm surges to swell far above normal, and higher than normal temperatures on land created the potential for higher humidity and extra rainfall. Those higher temperatures also had an effect on the Gulf of Mexico, where most hurricanes begin. A hurricane that forms over warmer water will be more intense than one that forms over colder water. Climbing temperatures also affect weather patterns, causing storm fronts to move much more slowly than normal. A stalled front and weaker jet stream meant that Hurricane Harvey l...