A few weeks ago, as I mentioned in this post, I found a discarded table around the corner from my apartment. It's a modern reproduction, a simplified (straight legs not curved) variant on a Queen Anne style (yay, more QA!). It's a gaming table to boot, as the top flips over and the obverse is felt-lined.… Continue reading A table restoration project | Process
After a week of percolating and indecision, an idea for this table hatched and I began the work (unironically) on labor day. I've stripped the top surface and all four legs, and have a plan to create a backgammon pattern on the top. Having seen how beautiful the wood beneath the old finish is, I've elected to leave… Continue reading A dilemma, revisited
You don’t even have to think about what you’re saying, the starets said. All you have to have in the beginning is quantity. Then, later on, it becomes quality all by itself. — Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger This passage is from the first of several ‘acts’ of the short novel, when Franny is describing… Continue reading What the starets said
Here is a portrait I did this week in memory of my horse, Red, whom we lost on Monday. He was 35 this year, and feisty as ever— now running and grazing in the Elysian Fields. I've been planning to write about him this week, but the portrait was a softer catharsis. Instead, I've unearthed what I wrote three summers ago, late one August night at the Farm:
Here is the fourth in a series I've been calling, alternately, 'Don't see, don't speak' or (informally, and more frequently) 'The Red Hand of Shut It'. Symbolically speaking, it's about being lied to and/or being silenced— not having a voice. Or, I guess, any nature of marginalization or suppression, whether personal or on a larger scale. It needs expanding.… Continue reading Red Hand No.4 (pencil and watercolor)
The third in a new series. Above is the finished version; this one is on 9" x 12" bristol paper. (The two previous were done in my moleskin, 5" x 8".) PROCESS: (These were shot on my iPhone, so not nearly as crisp or clean as the final, which was scanned.)
Here's a piece that I initially intended to (1) sketch quickly in pencil in the Moleskine, and (2) finish -simply- with red watercolor and my new Micron™ pens– high contrast, no shading. Instead, it turned into a rather detailed pencil rendering, finished with several layers/workings of watercolor, and only a few lines with a pen (ears, jawline, eyes). I kinda… Continue reading Don’t see. Don’t speak. | a sketchbook painting
Tuesday was a BAMF TCB day. (That's acronymic for Badass Motherfucker Taking Care of Business day.) Today will be more of the same (because #deadlines, as the kids say). After a solid five hours of focused client work in the morning, I spontaneously went full berserker on the decrepit grout and caulking in my shower. I've been wanting to… Continue reading Sneak-attack home improvement
This map, which I designed / illustrated for Pendergast in Amsterdam, went live on their website a week or two ago. I worked with them to articulate entryways to the neighborhood, highlighting routes for cyclists, cars and public transport. In the midst of designing, I traveled to Amsterdam. We held meetings. I went to the restaurant a… Continue reading Cartography of Amsterdam West
Yesterday I was tidying up. As I lifted a pad of bristol, a half-sheet fell out, and this image was on it. Charcoal smears, with a faint but delineated pencil border (crop lines, obviously). I don't recall what its original intent was— perhaps a layer to be added to some digitally-finished illustration. It struck me at the moment, though, as… Continue reading Reflexions
e daggar art: THE MUSEUM 