Happy Year of the Snake

I made a print for the Lunar New Year to celebrate the Year of the Snake! It's supposed to be a year for steady progress and attention to detail. Does it sound like a barrel of monkeys? Perhaps not; I guess it's time to straighten up and fly right! There's a methodical side to me that loves the idea of steady progress, even though in practice I'm usually about fits and starts. Here's to a healthy, happy and prosperous Year of the Snake!

Happy Holidays!

I can hardly believe it's that time again already, but all the Christmas decorations are up, so it must be true! Wishing you the best of the holiday season and all good things in the New Year!

Time for Friends

The Dalvero Academy has featured a drawing I made of a crit in progress on their homepage and it made me think of sharing a few more of the many, many drawings I've made of my friends and classmates over the years. I like being able to draw the same people over a long time. Each time I draw them, I know them a little better and hopefully am able to get a little closer to who they are.

Restoring a Past, Charting a Future

You may have noticed I have been a pretty absent blogger (bad blogger!), but I haven't been idle! I am very happy to announce that I will be in a show with 23 other very talented artists of the Dalvero Academy, opening April 28th at Mystic Seaport. Please be sure to visit the show's website, and definitely stop by Mystic after the 28th if you can.

In preparation for the opening of the show, I am sharing some drawings I made while inside the hull of the Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling ship in existence! The director of the shipyard, Quentin Snediker, made it possible for us to go inside during the ongoing restoration. Being inside the ship like that felt very special, since few people get to see the ship that way. From every vantage point, the wood curved around and toward me in so many different directions, I felt as if I was in the ship's embrace. That seemed appropriate when I thought of all the men the Morgan carried, out on the vast ocean. That feeling and the series of drawings I made over two years were the inspiration for a piece called "In the Morgan's Embrace." Here are a couple of the drawings made in preparation for creating that piece.

As the restoration goes forward, it's fascinating to see the new wood replacing the old.

And it's always fun being on a work site. Seeing things while they are still under construction is like being in the middle of a drawing—all process.

Definitely check out my fellow Dalverans' work:
Rosa
Julia
Danielle
Christine
Evan
Si-yeon
and Alex, who has been posting a drawing a day since March 24th, and will continue to do so until the the opening of the show!

Golden Gate

I was digging through a pile of old drawings and came across this view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a gorgeous, windy day back in July when I drew this. What a beautiful city!

Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street protest in Liberty Square isn't far from where I live, so I took some time last Thursday to go down and see for myself what was going on. For the most part, I'm going to leave the discussion of the protest and its agenda for other forums. I'm all for people exercising democratic rights at all times, no matter what their message and that's all I'll say about that. As a reportage artist, I love to draw a protest, although it's not something I often do. People that are passionate, that are committed to what they're doing are interesting, and interesting to draw. They want to talk, to communicate, and that's something I understand.

One of the first things I noticed was the number of very fancy cameras around. The protest isn't really getting too much press, so I can only assume these are just people who came out to take pictures.

Here's someone taking a picture with their iPad. The guy didn't feel like a protester either (although statistically, the 99% does cast a wide net).

I'm not sure what to think about the high-end video cameras.

Here's a protester whose opinion is pretty clear.

And it wasn't all young people (although there did seem to be a lot of students). Here's a member of the Granny Peace Brigade.

And who's this fellow in his striped button-down, tie, and suit slacks? Possibly a Wall Streeter on his smoke break?

The protesters are prohibited from having any amplification system, so they've worked out a way to communicate without one. Someone in the center would make an announcement, just a few words at a time, and the message would be repeated by anyone who heard it in a rhythmic singsong that would ripple out towards the edges. It was interesting, if not always perfectly effective.

If you agreed with the point being made, you could put up your hands and wiggle your fingers. Jazz hands, everybody!

And no protest reportage is complete, in my opinion, without the cops. I know they've behaved abominably at times, and have now been accused of luring people onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway only to arrest them. While I was there, though, the cops were standing around the perimeter of the square, making sure traffic wasn't obstructed, being pretty unobtrusive.

Let's hear it for democracy in action!

Gasworks Park

Last month, I took a trip with the Dalvero Academy to Seattle and San Francisco. I'm just starting to go through those drawings now, and I just knew the first thing I had to share was my favorite place in Seattle, Gasworks Park. As some of you may have seen in past posts (like here) I love drawing big, dirty machinery. Basically, if it's industrial, I love to draw it - bonus points if it's old. Gasworks Park is the site of a coal gasification plant that closed down in 1956. Then the city of Seattle bought it and said, "So what if tar still occasionally oozes from the ground? Let's make it a park!" And so they did, and it's awesome!

Frisbee-players and bike riders frolic amongst the hulking machinery of a past era. (Click on the drawing to see it larger)

They even built a kite-flying hill. I love Seattle!

I might post some other studies of Gasworks Park another time. In the meantime, check out my friends here and here to see some of their Seattle drawings!