short circuit

My clearest recollection of these drawings in process is me laying in bed at a little boutique spa/hotel in palm springs and adding colored pencil to the yellow one.

At that time, Carrie was getting a massage elsewhere on the property.

Early February? The calm before the storm. Our last weekend getaway, pre-kid. Less than a month later the boy would be joining us.

I have a couple more that I have never added color to. Pattern making and repetitive mark making have always been very calming for me. Makes sense that I was getting into these as we were nearing the birth of our first child.

Didn't have a preconceived composition in mind, just responding to the previous rows of shapes that I had completed. I like the compactness and density of shapes in the drawings. Nothing touches one another, but the shapes have a charge or energy to them. Static? Potential?

The blue and yellow ones are framed in the house. I came across the green one as we were clearing out our spare bedroom closet in preparation for our new floors to be installed, and realized that it was not finished. I'll get back to it... some day.

folding. and folding. and folding.

wow.
between the folds. remarkable film.
i love the transformational aspect of the medium. you do not remove. you do not add.

the mathematical nature of it kills me. in a good way.

what the?!

woke up yesterday and before my morning coffee, looked at a drawing i had been working on before going to bed.

it was awful. the objects were fine, but the pattern i laid down on top killed it. and not in a good way.
spent any free time during the day trying to subdue the suckage that was present. breakfast time, diego time, and naptime. the boy got up early from his "nap" and drew and painted alongside me at the kitchen table for a bit. nice.

the dino is one that the boy wanted me to put into a drawing after i chose a couple others for a previous work. i mislabeled this one in an earlier post as a hadrosaur. it is actually an ankylosaur.

the banana peels are from a collection of felt foods the kids have. carrie made felt sushi rolls and others from all over did other food items, and then they swapped. some pretty cool stuff.

i think it's fixed...

i've got to get into school mode and start investing time in lesson planning. this summer vacation has been a treat. lots of me time, lots of me and kiddo time. wish the missus had the same schedule, but somebody has to bring home the bacon.

froggie and friend

summer break is winding down. first hot day in a while. beach day. glad to have these days with the boy and the girl.

started this one while watching "this american life".
continued while the kids were eating breakfast.
finished while they were napping and then drawing next to me.

i love working at the table and them drawing on both sides of me. logan has actually stayed with it than he has before. his first love is still building with legos though.

jammed with the kiddos another time to arcade fire's "month of may".

Pa C d2

inspired by our movie night with the boy. he loves this droid.

coupled with the girl's night time companion and calm mood inducer.

i like the neon in this.

dinos and legos

puzzle pieces and a one winged creation by the boy. i wanted two wings, but i compromised.

he liked the dinos but was disappointed i didn't use the hadrosaurus. i'll have to get that one into a drawing soon. need to keep the boss happy.

the pattern comes from the skin of the apatosaurus.

late night session with arcade fire on the daily show. they sounded good. morning wrap up out in our west wing. still listening to the tunes mr. torrieri sent my way. good stuff.

8 drawings since getting back from the east coast on the 2nd. not bad.

i'm planning on doing a workplace series once we start back up in a few weeks.

this is my fancy combination drawing board/portfolio. its where my drawings live while awaiting shows and buyers.

hoot.

one of the sweetest sounding words that the girl says. more like hoo, hoo, but every once in a while she gets the "t" at the end.

the pattern is inspired by the owl's belly and back.

no background music. a collection of tv offerings- bukowski's factotum (really? matt dillon as chinanski?!), futurama, the daily show, and phineas and ferb.

i commissioned another lego creation.

looking around the yard.

countless hours of soaking wet fun courtesy of the water table. in fact, the boy was doing the la mesa championship slug races in it yesterday.

the pattern element is from the vents on our patio heater.

i love my new mechanical pencil.

squidy.

so the missus sewed the kids a couple things for our vacation trip back east. she made these way cool backpacks so they could put essential travel items in them. she also sewed these stuffed squids that have a variety of fabric patterns all over their bodies. big hit! i'm a bit disappointed that i didn't get one...

the boy named his, drum roll please... squidy.

to keep the girl occupied in the car for stretches at a time, all we have to break out is her little boombox. this assumes her to no end. great gift from the number one day care provider of all time, teresa.

thought i'd go with a miami dolphins color scheme on this one.

the creative process was accompanied by dane cook's "employee of the month" (nothing else was on, i swear), more mr. swift, dave rawlings, justin townes earle, and the sound of our back yard sprinkler.

roto completo.

i'll have to see if the boy approves of the treatment given to his lego creations. i don't think he'll have to much of a problem.

after all, i went over them with a shiny gold pencil.

richard swift on repeat for a spell with a little bit of arcade fire's latest offering.

roto. rotomatic.

the boy's robot creations are featured along with a car that brought me back to madison drive.
the boy had a backup hot wheels "just in case" my choice wouldn't work out.

some cool kids i got to hang out with in new hampshire had the rotomatic die cast metal mini auto in a bag that contained toys for their daughters. i love the cutting edge rotary technology used in the car design.

i can't remember if it was chad, walt, or myself that had this particular model in their collection...

in progress.

progress.

may be done.

dinking coffee. kids working their magnadoodles on opposite sides of me.

logan is going to build me a couple robot vehicles for the next drawing.

thursday.

quality time.

logan got up at 5am. its worth repeating- 5am. kept himself occupied until 7, bless his heart. the girl got up after i did. bless her heart too.
while the kids played with legos i drew.

then we went to the zoo. great time.

during naps i finished one and started another. grooving.

every year i have one productive year. looks like this might be it.

yellow hat

well, i failed.

set out to get three drawings done in new england, but i only got two done.
the second was completed in waterville valley, new hampshire. 16 people under one roof for a weekend. a blast, really, even if the majority of the group went to syracuse university.

on saturday night we played the second annual game of yellow hat. whoever has the hat, gets to pick the music. pretty simple, pretty darn fun. the items in the drawing were all found in the living room of the condo while listening to a wide variety of tunes and stories. good times.

and that was all she wrote. or all i drew.

we got back to la mesa late monday night. took a lazy day on tuesday. and kicked it today. completed a third drawing based on items i saw at the local coffee shop, cosmos. had my latte by the front window, scalded my tongue on the damn drink, drew, and had matt pond pa's green fury coming through my earbuds. 

started another drawing along the street, then finished the coffee shop drawing back at home after picking up the kids from daycare.

white noise coming through the baby monitor.

the little house in la mesa

the boy was still crawling when we finally sold the place with the blue kitchen. that place had served us well in san diego, but it was time to move on to a place that didnt overlook a dumpster.

that didnt have smelly neighbors.

that had businesses other than liquor stores and a nudie bar we could walk to.

its not mayberry, but we've got our garden (that's out of control), we've got our yard (that's barely hanging on). we've got our main street and classic car show.

i painted (the house) and planted, but did not draw until the following spring. dang. our friend jason had started a blog called napkin canvas, and it got me going on some silly little drawings. on napkins. during the boy's naps.

subject matter? our home of course. and maybe a foot and a leg thrown in.

playing on the laptop- in rainbows by radiohead.