Mostly I Do Art...

"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