One Watercolor a Day

Some of you might be familiar with my friend and teacher Veronica Lawlor's book One Drawing a Day, a book of drawing exercises for the artist and non-artist alike that grew out of the blog of the same name from the artists of Studio 1482. They've recently put out new book on watercolor. The first exercise in the book is an easy one: just play! It's been a while since I sat down with the intention of just playing, and it reminded me how fun and how necessary it is to do. January's a great time of year for bringing yourself back to good habits!

I was surprised as I did these, that so many of them took on the feeling of landscapes or still lives. This first one is especially landscape-esque to me.







Get your own copy of the book here, and Happy New Year!

Ye Olde Information Age

Back before computers and the interweb, the printing press was the cutting edge technology that circulated information to the knowledge-hungry people. So here's to those creaky old cast-iron giants! I've been on a kick lately drawing big, dirty machinery, so these fit right in (though I made them more Deco than dirty). I'm particularly intrigued by all the gears and wheels and inner workings, which is why these are details.

1000 Voices Part II

This illustration if for my friend Mimi. It illustrates her opinion for Evan Turk's A Picture for a Thousand Voices project.

Often, I do a couple of versions. Here's the other one that I liked:

Equality is achievable if we keep our hopes alive,

because the minute we back down is the minute

they'll think they've won! - Mimi

Mostly I wanted to express Mimi's determination to persevere, and her hope that, through that perseverance, over time we can achieve equality. Since Mimi's opinion was fairly general and abstract, I kept the illustration abstract. I hope she likes it!

A Picture for 1000 Voices

My friend Evan Turk has a blog called A Picture for 1000 Voices that seeks to" create a dialogue about the individual hopes for the LGBT equal rights movement through the medium of illustration." I've submitted an illustration you can see below. Hopefully, you'll be able to see it on Evan's blog soon:

My illustration is about trying to quantify and weigh an abstraction like love. How can the law say that someone's love isn't valid and in some way not equal to someone else's? I think it's pointless to try to weigh them on some kind of scale. Anyone should be able to have their relationship legalized, if that's what they want. Please check out Evan's blog, and if you are an illustrator, definitely submit a piece!

Olafur Eliasson at Moma

I went to the Olafur Eliasson's Take Your Time at Moma and was inspired to make some drawings at the show. If you've been to the show, you can probably tell which piece inspired which drawing.





I like them because they are drawings that help me understand what's happening - drawings made to figure something out and explain.