Sketching face doodles from imagination. At this point, everything I’m drawing is from my head only. Here I’ve transformed pen and ink on watercolor paper to a png with some modifications–text, cleaning up, background and color burns, etc. I saw this through a cloud of faces and hoped to represent it that way. I am calling this group the Curly-Q’s. I hope to incorporate them into one of my little picture books. I am sure I will find the right place for them. Here is another shot of how it started out. The whole image began with pencil swirls on watercolor, scanning and then went through a lot of changes in photoshop.
This is a scratchboard color engraving I did a while ago. I am feeling nostalgic these days and I love the way the old city’s lights shine the streets in rainy weather. People are walking around shopping and visiting, maybe getting hot chocolate or coffee at the local cafes. This is from a long time ago when there were horse drawn carts and a great old trolley car. I wish I could have been there. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong time. Art and books give us a way to transform our everyday lives into something magic. See the art here on my Fine Art America site.
Once upon a time in a city or state I was living in that I can’t remember, there was an exhibit of many original drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec. I had always admired his work but really never known much about his life. The exhibit was downstairs in a kind of basement setting. I remember it was very dimly lit down there to prevent light damage to the art. All the works were small and intimate. This was fascinating as most of us know he painted very large paintings and posters, depicting Paris life and the can can as we know it. This was because he was not just a painter but an illustrator and just as importantly, a caricaturist. The exhibit feature many caricatures of the everyday people in his life.
The drawings seemed to jump off the paper and hit me hard. They hit me in my head, in my stomach and I immediately loved him. I stayed for a very long time, reveling in the idea that when you die, you will not be dead. I had just met a truly great man. The idea grew in my head that If you were born to connect with the history of the world, you would leave something behind. Here in front of me was a little miracle of sorts. This tiny man with his mangled body and his ill fate somehow managed to make his whole life a statement. Tragic though it was, he somehow turned this disabilities into something wonderful people could use as an inspiration. It left a mark on history. He left a permanent mark on me. I hope he will never be forgotten .
This little drawing was actually two that I put together. I was just learning photoshop and combined the Paris background with the pen and ink. It was a lot of fun to do. I don’t know why but I ran across it in my files and it brought back memories.
It got me to wondering that if you were born with the stack of cards this man was dealt, would you do as well in history or would you be as forgotten as the tiny spec of sand on an ocean shore? Is the world the same now or is it completely different: more cruel, more hostile? Is there more hate and bigotry or is it more exposed? I think it’s the world is the same but the language of survival is different.
We are finally having some sun here in Mexico. It’s been really cold and I can’t get used to it. So on my patio today I’ve been working on this large watercolor and intermittently putting the painting in the sun to dry. While it’s drying, I catch as many warm rays as I can. Boy, the sun feels great. I have not picked this painting up in a few months as I’ve been super busy with many things other than painting. So in a day or so, it should get finished if nothing else crazy happens.
This woman is a weaver and she was sitting in a dark corner of the marketplace. The sun shone through the archways of the Mexico town plaza. The cobblestone streets are a maze of patterns and colors. Piece by piece, she is coming together. I will add some cast shadows and some detailed drawing elements to help define her more.
This is large, a full sheet watercolor. When you get away from working big, it is scarey to pick it up again. This painting will help me re-discover my old self, when I painted big all the time.
The pallette is my full plastic stephen quiller pallette, now a good 15 or 20 years old. When I grow up, I will get the porcelain studio pallette.
Painting Mexico 
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