Happy monday

“Tapestry,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink.

Hello, and happy Monday! I hope you are having a good beginning to your week. As someone I saw this evening at the grocery store said, “I could be better, I could be worse.” That’s not a bad attitude to have—it is the nice medium type attitude that gets you through the day without much trouble.

The drawing above is just another one that I’ve had lying around half-finished. I call it “Tapestry” because of the way the lines come together into some sort of textile block. I just put it up for sale in my shop, so have a look!

Wishing you a week of relaxation and restful sleep.

Understanding

You may remember a series I was working on a while back about “How to Save the World.” Well, I finally finished the last piece I intended to do for that series—it had been sitting on my desk unfinished for quite a few weeks while I dashed back and forth between other projects.

You can see the final 8 x 10 below, with a print of it for sale in my shop, and you can see the complete series on my flickr page.

“Try to Understand Other People,” 8 x 10 inches, pen and ink.

These pieces are not exactly subtle, so you can probably guess what this is about. Mainly, I think that a lot of the big and small problems in this world are caused by not understanding other people—either mis-communications or an unwillingness to try to understand what someone else is experiencing or doing.

It is so hard sometimes to put in that effort (I, for one, am pretty stubborn), but if we could all just take that little extra time to think and empathize, we could do a lot of good.

Little leaves twinkling

“Everywhere Birds,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

Another little “poem” for you today, inspired by walking and bike riding around. Can I call these poems? I’m not sure what the definition of a poem is, but I’ve always loved writing these one-liners, and I may have finally found a way to convey them that makes sense. This one’s available in my shop right now. [Edit: this original is SOLD (thanks Erica!) Please look out for prints of it, coming soon to my shop!]

Lots of exciting things going on in my art world—I have a couple different opportunities for upcoming art shows! It looks like it may turn out to be a pretty busy November and December with getting artwork framed and prints printed. Right now, I am feeling that combination of nervous energy and excitement that comes when you feel like you may be pushing yourself to the next level. It’s a good, although scary feeling.

The first will be coming along very shortly—I will be showing with a group of artists as part of the downtown Sacramento 2nd Saturday Art Walk on November 8. Marla, over at The Inky Pomegranate has invited me to show in an office space (turned gallery) at 1817 K St., suite 200 in the Eason and Tambornini building. I will give you more details and a reminder closer to the date of the show, but if you’re in the area, come on out for a visit!

The second opportunity is still in the works, but I will let you know more later. The most amazing thing is that both of these opportunities literally came to me, via my Etsy shop! Don’t you just love that—when good things just show up at your doorstep?! That will show you who’s boss!

Late

I haven’t done an Illustration Friday drawing in quite a long time, so I gave it a try again today. The word is “late,” and of course, time came to mind.

Specifically, I thought of two lines from the poem To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, which I first read in high school and has stuck with me since. It is more about the fleeting nature of time than being late, but I think it’s an amazingly poignant couplet of poetry, and a great poem:

“But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”

And here’s my drawing for Illustration Friday:

“Late,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

To the letter

I love letters—they drive me wild! I’ll admit it. I love words too. Of course, if you’ve been following my blog, you already know this.

I’ve now realized that I could probably draw letters all day long. I don’t know what it is about them. Each letter, and each version of each letter, has its own personality—especially if they’re hand drawn. The moment I complete a letter, putting it’s black outline on the paper where there was just blankness before, my pulse quickens.

I get excited about other shapes too, but there’s something about a letter that really says something, perhaps because it does actually say something.

Now it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to figure out that language holds a special place for me (I studied literature and writing in college and have been filling journals since I was 12), but it is a pretty recent realization that I love these base units that make up language, this l m n o p (which for the record I thought was one word when I used to sing the alphabet as a kid).

I’ve been doing a lot of word drawings lately (as you can see below), but I haven’t done an alphabet other than just doodling. So I got to work today, and you will see the product below, which is now on sale over at my shop.

“Alphabet I,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

Apples and walnuts

~And today, a culinary interlude, as food is the stuff of life~

Another great thing about Fall: it’s apple season (at least for most of us in the northern hemisphere). And what goes better with apples than walnuts, which are also coming into season? I highly recommend taking a trip to your local farmer’s market (or a farm) where you can find out that apples don’t naturally shine like bowling balls!

[a little linoleum block print I did a while ago, with apples on my mind]

Color comes just after flavor for me when I’m choosing apples; I particularly like the multicolored speckled/streaked varieties with varying shades of red, pink and green. I have recently begun to love Jonagolds, and am also a fan of Pink Ladies—how can you go wrong—the names are fun too!

I am baking up some bread to appreciate the tastetastic duo of apples and walnuts, and supply myself with an inspiring mid-morning weekday snack. I don’t want to share my recipe until I know it’s a winner, and it’s still cooling, but you can find a variety of apple walnut bread recipes at cooks.com.

Another really easy and amazing way to use these two ingredients is in a green salad. Just add diced apples and chopped walnuts to your favorite mixture of greens, top it with a vinaigrette or an extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice dressing, and you have a very dynamic salad. If you want to make it even more upscale, add some crumbled blue cheese for that amazing sweet, salty, tangy, crunchy effect.

While you’re at it, forget the greens and just put the apples, walnuts and blue cheese (or gorgonzola) out with some good crackers, and you have a great snack or appetizer. Drizzle the apples with a little lemon juice to keep them from going brown and add a little zing. You won’t be sorry.

This is the stuff of expensive restaurant menus, but there really is no reason not to do it at home. It’s inspiring, healthy, and affordable when these ingredients are in season.

Three cheers for nature’s bounty!

Goodmorning

Well, I had so much fun making “Fall Poem”, that I thought up another little poem to share with you. I call it “Goodmorning Sleepeyes,” and it’s about waking up—which is always very, very hard for me to do. It is available over in my shop right now!

These drawings are perhaps getting closest to a fusion between creative writing and visual art, which is very much fun for me (since writing is another interest of mine)!

“Goodmorning Sleepeyes,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

Hot off the press . . . a poem

In honor of my favorite season, I drew up this fun little “poem” of sounds. It’s available over in my shop right now (for a quite affordable price)!
**Update: “Fall Poem” has been sold! Thanks Tracy!

“Fall Poem,” 3.5 x 5 inches, pen and ink

Making things like these is kind of like riding my bike fast, down hills—it’s just flowing and hilarious!

Sunday

Well, my kind of weather has finally arrived—it was 70 degrees and sunny today! Fall is my favorite season, and it is starting to look like Fall around here, with a few leaves on the ground. We have pretty mild winters in this part of Northern California, so I think our November and December tend to look like many other people’s September and October, but people are starting to shop for Halloween costumes, and I wore long pants all day today, so I am declaring it Fall!

In no particular commemoration of the season, I drew the geometric drawing below today. I’m calling it “Sunday” because I am not getting any other particular title from it. It was a fun meditation on lines and repetition (two things I enjoy very much as you have probably seen).

I will be putting it in my shop now, and have been putting other new works up there recently too, so check it out!

“Sunday,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

The jaws of life

“Jaws of Life Quilt,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

I started out drawing something very different today, but I ended up with what I call the “Jaws of Life Quilt” you see above. One triangle just called out for teeth and then the rest ensued. Perhaps because I am extraordinarily philosophical and am always tossing around life questions in my head, I came up with this particular title.

I often feel tossed around by life, in both good and bad ways. Maybe, it’s more tossed around by myself—I never can predict how exactly I will feel at any given moment; emotions and thoughts are the real ride for me. But I’ve found myself thinking quite often about the grand old question, “What is this life about?”

Recently, I found the best answer I’ve found so far, (riding my bike of course—where I find so many ideas and thoughts), which is: life is about this moment.

This is not a new idea, of course—it is as old as human thought itself (and maybe non-human animals demonstrate it best). The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says it best in his book Our Appointment with Life:

“Our appointment with life
is in the present moment.
The place of our appointment
is right here, in this very place.”

Even though this thought is not new, and it is definitely not new to me as I have been thinking about it for quite some time, sometimes the air, or the light, or the moment is just right for the true gravity of a thought to dawn on me.

This time, the above thought, provoked a question, “What could I do right now to appreciate this day?” Since this experience happened a few days ago, I have been trying to remind myself of this question as often as possible.

Some of the answers I have come up with so far are:

-Cook and enjoy a wonderful dinner with Mike (my now fiance!)
-Go outside and draw
-Lounge on the floor with my beastly dog Lance

What answers do you come up with?