For those who follow my artwork, you must be as confused as I am when a drawing like this suddenly pops up. I’m never quite sure where these come from. Maybe it's those many years creating images for advertising and hanging out with major photographers who made the ideas come to life. The thing about being a creative director is that 99% of all the creative images I came up with never saw the light of day. They were mostly all dead on arrival. Rejected even before being presented to the client. Most concepts I did were to impress other art directors in meetings, who were about to present their own work. All of which were to be killed, except for the very rare survivor. After seeing what was in my brain, other art directors always gave me the side glances. In the words of the Mandalorian, “this is the way.”
Life On Our Planet
I watched a fascinating eight-part series on Netflix called, Life On Our Planet. It is the history of earth told using incredible CGI voiced by Morgan Freeman and produced by Spielberg. It perfectly explains our world’s five mass extinctions. I was so engrossed that I ended up watching it twice. I highly recommend viewing. I was inspired to do this drawing of all the crazy mixed up creatures that have evolved, died and re-evolved over hundreds of millions of years.
The Genius of Birds
I’m reading “The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman. It’s about how intelligent birds are, especially certain species. Gabi Mann, an eight-year old Seattle girl began feeding crows when she was four. She’d leave them peanuts on a tray in her backyard. After the peanuts were consumed, trinkets began to show up on the tray: an earring, screws, hinges, buttons, crab claw, and her favorite thing, an opalescent white heart. Leaving gifts suggests that crows understand the benefit of reciprocating past acts that have benefitted them and also that they anticipate future rewards. How amazing is that?
Acrylic Ink Painting
The next painting in my acrylic ink series is a broccoli lighter and a pot of brussels sprouts tea. I’m sure everyone anticipated this one coming down the pike. A natural progression. Most of you can now probably predict what I’m going to paint next. It’s fairly easy to guess.
Blue Lobster
I was going to suggest to the Museum of Natural History that they do a few real dioramas based on my, “Future of the Ocean Floor” series. It may freshen things up around the old joint. I have a feeling they might revoke my membership for blasphemy. Grammer school kids would appreciate what I’m going for though.
The Met
I’ve been reading a biography of the Italian painter, Caravaggio by Andrew Graham-Dixon. My obsession with his work has grown since seeing several of his paintings in Roman churches recently. I happened to be up to the part in his life where he was working on his final two paintings before his untimely death. I was engrossed in this chapter as I was on the subway heading to Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to draw. The Museum actually owns the second to last painting he did in its permanent collection. So, there I was standing in front of it. Funny how that happens in life sometimes. After spending time with the piece titled, “The Denial of Saint Peter,” I went off to draw statues in the Met. On a side note, Caravaggio never did any drawings in his life.
Natural History
Kids always approach me when I’m sketching at the Museum of Natural History and ask me the exact same question. “Are you drawing?” It’s very disarming even though it's very obvious that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not sure how they all seem to have come up with that very question. It breaks the ice and we do get to chatting until I have to answer the same question 10 minutes later from some other kid. Keeps me on my toes while I scribble though.
Radicchio
This is my second acrylic ink painting. Radicchio and artichoke make for lovely vegan portraits. My sketchbook is filling up with new paintings. The new me. Paintboy.
Drink And Draw
I’ve written about this twenty times before but I might as well say it again. When I go to life drawing class and they are doing all the one minute, two minutes, and five-minute warm up poses, I draw the unsuspecting artists while they sketch. They are mostly unaware of my shenanigans. After a few weeks of this, I’m left with a drawing like so.
Tree Grows
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn And My Ass Sits In Front Of It For A Few Hours. No, this is not the title of a new book. It’s something that actually happened. This is a Japanese flowering cherry tree that lives in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I sat and drew this on our last Indian summer day in late October. This cherry has quite a personality which I managed to capture
Groundwater Problem
America is draining its precious groundwater to make more chicken wings and pizza. The reason is the feed for all those chickens and dairy cows requires huge supplies of alfalfa and soy. It takes massive volumes of water to grow these crops. The effects are being felt in key agricultural regions nationwide as farmers have drained groundwater to grow animal feed. Since the 1980s, cheese consumption has doubled and Americans now eat 100 pounds of chicken a year per-person. Aquifer depletion is happening in Texas, California, Kansas, Arizona, and Arkansas. People are aware of the greenhouse gas issues but not water sustainability when it comes to these foods. Something to think about while chowing down this Super Bowl weekend.
Collage
This is not so much a drawing as it is a collage. A little doodle here and then a few weeks later, another doodle there. Over two months, an illustration comes into view. These sketches are good time wasters.
Dream
Did you ever have a dream where you wake up naked in your place of work or in a shopping mall? You find yourself in a crazy predicament. Sometimes that’s what my life drawing class is like. Recently, the model started talking to me for a second during a break. It seemed just like the dream I described. She was so calm being naked in front of a bunch of strangers. I’m always amazed.
