8/2, Pool side plein air ride.

Sketchbook page, Pool side #1, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, Pool side #2, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

-Thomas Jefferson

8/1, Another zoo day today...

Kicking off August by going outside instead of inside.  Will return to the long term work during the next couple of days, but for the next 48 hours indoor studio "vacay."

Sketchbook page, Riverbanks Zoo for long term drawing #25, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Don't wait for ideas, they come with production.  - Chagall

7/31(the AM), A morning at the zoo...

...drawing bamboo. 

Sketchbook page, Riverbanks Zoo for long term drawing #24, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.  -Briget Riley

7/30 & 7/31 (the PM), It always feels good...

...to be in the final stages of a painting.  This one is coming together this week, but I can get a bit anxiously excited, and not wishing to take a wrong turn, I might pace myself by leaving it for another work for the next couple of days.  The "7/22, 723, & 7/24 (the AM)" of this blog is the last comparable post of this painting at its previous stage.

I carry my ideas with me for a long time, rejecting & rewriting until I am satisfied. Since I am conscious of what I want, I never lose sight of the fundamental idea. 
- Beethoven

7/29, Figuring it out

Much of the early sketchbook work featured on this blog has been devoted to the environment and atmosphere of the long term, large scale work.  Now that the work is in the final stretch, the figures need to be finely tuned.

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #22, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #23, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

The artist does not ascribe to the natural form of appearance the same convincing significance as the realists who are his critics. He does not feel so intimately bound to that reality, because he cannot see in the formal products of nature the essence of the creative process.  - Paul Klee

7/26, Sketchbook Friday

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #20, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #21, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it? 

- Pablo Picasso

7/25, Zoo day...

...with the sketchbook.

Sketchbook page, Riverbanks Zoo for long term drawing #19, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

He who binds to himself a Joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the Joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise. 

- William Blake