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.

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...

It's almost September, and it's back to the good old sketchbook. I'm trying to get in some practice on my portrait expressions, so I've been playing around with anime, trying to convey difficult expressions like anticipation, inquisitiveness, and paranoia. Here we have a young girl who seems to be hanging on your every word. One might imagine she had just asked some life-altering question and is anxiously awaiting your reply.  She almost seems to be pleading, wanting something from you. #sketching #pencildrawing #portraitdrawing

In spite of everything #Trump has done to discredit #climatescience denial of the consequences of our rampant consumption does not make them go away. Flooding, droughts, and monster storms are just some of the signs that the planet is poised to reject us. Climate scientists have done their best to convince us that unless we do something soon, our way of life is in peril. But when we talk about #climatechange, it's easy to get bogged down in charts and numbers without really understanding what those statistics actually mean. A lack of understanding breeds a lack of interest, and as a result, a lack of #action. The problem then becomes, how can we put #climate information into a form that the average consumer can understand? What expression of this data can we use to motivate the common citizen to be concerned about climate statistics? To me, the answer to this question was obvious. Nothing motivates the masses to #actonclimate than being faced with a physical representation of ...