A Curve in the Norrkoping Library

A Curve in the Norrkoping Library. Libraries are warm and free. The library in Norrkoping not only had books and windows for walls, but also a stone statue carving of a curve.

Which is nice.

This library also had an indoor water fountain. I can only presume that placing a statue of a curve next to the water was an attempt to evoke a three-dimensional manifestation of a ripple.... We'll say, "A Ripple as it Emerges in Time". But, maybe not. I can't read Swedish... Actually, that's what's so nice about curves... they can be used to model lots of things...

Notice the English Bookshop bookmark?

The English Bookshop Guestbook

The English Bookshop Guestbook. We were wandering around Stockholm, looking for a warm place to have an adventure. Enter the English Bookshop in old town Stockholm.

"Yes! Julie, they have a guestbook... Grab a book to read..."
-Which book?
"Any book... You only have to pretend to read it anyway..."

Little did either of us know that she would pick the Horrible History of the World. Which is my least favourite type of book. Hers too...

-Do I have to keep reading this? I hate it.
"Yes! You picked it... Just pretend that you like it."

Sometimes I have a demanding personality. But fifteen minutes is not so long, is it?
The English Bookshop. Old town Stockholm, about 8pm. Fifteen minutes later, we were warm. Time for Julie to sign the guestbook too...
...so she signed the guestbook in the guestbook... get it?

Old Town Stockholm, Drawing in the Street

Old Town Stockholm, Drawing in the Street. Cold. I was hanging out with Julie in Old Town. We had been walking for hours, so I begged to take a break and make a drawing of some buildings in a particularly picturesque old town plaza. Which meant sitting on the street. Which was cold. Ice cold.

My use of the word picturesque is a bit of a play on words.... only later did I realize that every painting, photography, and postcard shop in Stockholm has their own version of exactly the same buildings. It is impossible that I had not seen those pictures earlier in the day... We were scavenging through shops looking for the perfect viking t-shirt.

Which begs the question: Was I compelled to draw these buildings because they had an original glow? Or, was the glow a consequence of my seeing all the other pictures of the same four colorful buildings in old town Stockholm?

Waiting in Heathrow Airport

Waiting in Heathrow Airport. I was waiting in Heathrow Airport, waiting for a trans-Atlantic flight from London to New York. December, 2007. One of my last drawings from 2007, in fact.

From the Warm Blanket sketchbook.

A London Phone Booth

A London Phone Booth. From January, 2008. One of the first drawings from my Warm Blanket sketchbook. I was doing loads of drawings in red pen... like Two Chairs in the Camden.... call it a glow from the fire...

I'm still in Sweden.

Five Sketches of One Nude

Five Sketches of One Nude. From the Long Dark sketchbook, sometime in January or February 2007. I like the way all five drawings exist on parallel planes within the same page.

Ewelina Has Many Faces

Ewelina Has Many Faces. September 27. 2008. We were going through my briefcase.


Ewelina was wondering why I carry so many sunglasses. So I explained how each pair carries a different personality. Which is when our conversation began to focus on image and projecting a certain character.
Which is when Ewelina admitted to having many faces.
Recently I've been fascinated with putting portraits and drawings together with thoughts... When I make this into a painting, I'm going to paint both panels and show them together. The portrait. and the context of our thoughts.

Sorph and Bobby at the Sunrise Festival

Sorph and Bobby at the Sunrise Festival. From the Sunshine sketchbook, June 2007.

Black Lamp on the Southbank of the Thames

Black Lamp on the South bank of the Thames. Today was beautiful. Sunday, 21st September. 2008.
Blue skies and happy people walking along the river Thames.
I've decided to focus on some of the non-ubiquitous iconic Londonesque imagery...
... like this black lamp from the South bank of the Thames river. There are the most amazing fish at the bottom of each lamp.

Incidentally, this is what I was watching just before I decided to draw...

Two Chairs in Camden

Two Chairs in Camden.

January, 2008. Warm by the fire at The World's End. Pen on Paper. A drawing of two chairs. From the Warm Blanket sketchbook.

I Only Know People I Know Through Other People (If You Know What I Mean)

I Only Know People I Know Through Other People (If You Know What I Mean). This sketchbook was a gift from Holly (Christmas, 2006) and really impressed me at the time. Because it was perfect for me. Only, I didn't realize it at the time.

In January, I began the process of shutting down my second Richmond, Virginia art studio. The first one was shut down by redevelopment. This studio was shut down because I had lost all control. Hence, this particular sketchbook is entitled: "On Shutting Down and Starting Over. or. The Gaslight Search Engine Takes Control"

Travelling without a studio, sketchbooks have become my art for the last two and a half years (interrupted every now and then by the most beautiful paintings I have ever painted).

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paintings.drawings.arithmetic.

Second Letter to a Lost Love

Second Letter to a Lost Love. I really, really enjoyed putting this letter in its package. The people in the post office liked it too... I also included chocolate. and sprayed the pages with cologne. Dior. Fahrenheit 32.

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paintings.drawings.arithmetic.

Brown Corduroys (Recursive View)

Brown Corduroys. I was in Camden, on the upper patio at Lock Tavern. This time, no hail. Waiting for Deniz, I decided to write to Meral. Instead, I drew my brown corduroys. There are lots of implied shapes in this picture. FYI.

Discrete Drawing: Lessons in Black and White

Discrete Drawing: Lessons in Black and White. Chris and I met at the Spiral Id, cafe of choice recently. Cool djs. Loads of different types of tea. Big windows. By the way, none of these drawings were drawn by me.

Instead, each of these black and white pen drawings are from the right hand of Chris, from SomeMaths. Our topic of discussion was his first drawing lesson. And so we began his first lesson in discrete forms ie. black and white solid lines.

The lesson: Understanding Unfamiliar Media while Developing an Intuition for Parallel and Perpendicular Forms

First, ten one minute sketches. Warming up, developing a general sense of form...

Followed by two ten minute studies. Further specification of form, further refinements of volume..

And concluding with one thirty minute drawing.

Voyage Countdown Video Trailer

Voyage Countdown Video Trailer. Contains absolutely no drawings from London. Instead, a collection of thoughts, phrases, pictures, and places from the spring and summer of 2006. New York, Washington DC, friends, enemies, bottles, whirlwinds, the list of people to whom I gave over 200 paintings at my going away party... I drew numbers from a top hat (so as not to introduce favorites) to decide who would choose when... It's fascinating to compare the order of the draw (and more interestingly, the order of the choose) with my own estimations of a paintings strength...

Love Smells Like Flowers

Love Smells Like Flowers. I was wandering through the American Portrait Gallery, in Washington DC. It was 2006. Encountering a dozen new ideas about American folk art, and art in general, I made notes.

Coffee and Complicated Thoughts in a Red Chair

Coffee and Complicated Thoughts in a Red Chair. Lesson #6: Composition and Shape.

Downstairs in a London coffee shop, the chairs were especially comfortable. Chain coffee or independent coffee, I don't really mind as long as there are comfortable chairs. Especially during the long London winter, coffee shops are some of my favorite places to draw.

This is a picture of me from last week, complete with my adventure pack. Pen in hand, I was drawing a quick sketch of Meral. At the same time, I was explaining the importance of shape (particularly implied shape) in composition.


Meral seemed to understand, but thought that the picture made her look fat. Which is when I began another rant on the beauty of shape in form.


In this case, I was particularly fond of the three-dimensionality of the drawing (and the shapes found within).


Sometimes it's better for me not to talk too much.

Meral, Discontent in Green Jacket at Brighton

Meral, Discontent in Green Jacket at Brighton. I'm supposed to be at the Camden Crawl right now. My red glitter bracelet is still on from last night, thankfully. Somehow. So, I'll keep this short.

Meral and I went to Brighton this past Tuesday. No clouds, only sun. Brighton sure made herself beautiful for my first visit. A bit cold, maybe, but by spreading out on the beach, we could lay beneath wind-level.

Still, cold enough for coffee... Except that we decided to sit outside. And the place didn't serve coffee (hence the discontentment).

A Wrench Beside A Bottle Perpendicular to the Ground

A Wrench Beside A Bottle Perpendicular to the Ground. Get it? The bottle is parallel to the floor, but perpendicular to the ground (the canvas).

The Long Dark sketchbook begins with drawings from the night of August 13th, 2006. The last drawings I made in Richmond, realised the day before my original departure (I later decided to move my ticket back a week).

Notice the connection? You may also notice the flipside of my self-portrait, drawn on the same night).

Woman on a Couch, Looking Left

Woman on a Couch, Looking Left. It was February, 2007. Cold. Dark. In the basement of the El Paso pub on Old Street, a group of artists met to draw a model.