Same idea, in progress, in another direction

Drawing in progress, graphite, ink and acrylic on paper, 18" x 24"

Unfortunately, nature seems unaware of our intellectual need for convenience and unity, and very often takes delight in complication and diversity.

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Man as Sunflower Painting

Acrylic and ink on paper, 2014

Neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal once said:  "Every man if he so
desires becomes sculptor of his own brain."  (Source:  Recuerdos de mi
vida, 1901).

Man as Sunflower Drawing

Color drawing of a man as a sunflower, ink and pen on paper, 14" x 17"

Handmade accordion sketchbook, summer 2014

First four pages of sketchbook, summer 2014

"Having arrived at this glacial summit—old age—we realize that we have lived many successive existences, strung together by a luminous thread of conscious memory. Like prehistoric geological formations, our memory contains various layers that preserve artifacts from ancient human tribes. In the cerebral cave, the solitary old man must look with pity upon his primitive ancestors and declare his independence of thought and action..." 

-Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Sweltering for art:

I am continuing my summer tradition of plein air drawings.  Today!, the crocodile tank at the Zoo.  The environmental conditions are accurately kept, so the morning was spent sweltering for art.

Sketchbook Aquarium drawing #2, marker and pen on paper, 9" x 12,"  2014

"Our organism’s complexity has spread a rich and noble life throughout sensations and thoughts; however, as a counterweight, this complexity has also brought us distressing fragility. We live with the constant threat of catastrophe. . . ."

by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Café Chats (translated by Benjamin Ehrlich)

Aquarium Drawing

Sketchbook Aquarium drawing, marker and pen on paper, 9" x 12,"  2014

". . . Faith vigorously promotes longevity, while doubt can doom us to an early death."

"Blessed are those who give their lives to a great idea, for they will endure in and for it! . ."

Both quotes by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Café Chats (translated by Benjamin Ehrlich)

Aquarium Explorations

This week I explored different types of space by observing the Aquarium at the Riverbanks Zoo.  Fish, crocodiles, and urchins.  The colors, atmosphere, and compression of the Aquarium demands a different palette and aesthetic considerations than I am accustom.  A new beginning, I will be returning to the Aquarium to do more drawings...Let's see where these drawings lead.

Sketchbook page, Aquarium Study #1, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, Aquarium Study #2, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, Aquarium Study #3, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, Aquarium Study #4, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” 

- Henry David Thoreau

School is out for summer...

...and so the sketchbook drawing commences.  Looking forward to the discoveries and activity everyday in the coming weeks!  To kick things off, some May Day celebratory drawings of flowers.

Sketchbook page, May Day Birthday #1, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, May Day Birthday #2, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, May Day Birthday #3, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, Finlay Park 2014 #1, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, Finlay Park 2014 #2, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Haymarket: May Day, by Burton Jerome Barnett, 1939

August Spies: You may strangle this voice, but there will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.

Albert Parsons: O men of America, let the voice of the people be heard!

Still bright, and searing ignorance and fear, 

This stronger beacon that you tended burns 

And on this day of each advancing year 

The memory of that first May First

returns.

But now the widespread fingers strengthen, 

grow 

More lithe, and flexing at the wrist--

O fingers forming to the fist!

Now is the imminence of commmonweal--

The turgid lambency of molten iron

Hardening in even lines of steel.

Spring Break

Sometimes nothing is better than long days filled with uninterrupted hours in the studio.  Newly completed work below.

Acrylic on Yupo paper, 26" x 40"

Details of the work, below:

Spring by Gerald Manley Hopkins

    Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         

   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.