Getting in some quality time at the Evanston Public Library. Pitt Artist Pens and a Graf Von Faber Classic Ebony fountain pen filled with Platinum Carbon ink on Tomoe River Paper.
An extended stay at a downtown restaurant, from two visits actually, yields a textbook example of the School of American Hodge Podge architecture. Pitt Pens on Tomoe River Paper.
 Saturday, 9/9/2017, I join Pete Olson and some of the NIU crew to make our way to the 130th Sandwich Fair in DeKalb County. I don’t often look to wedge into large crowds but after my experience a few years ago at the mamouth Minnesota State Fair, I now have quite the appetite for these events where culture; food, farming and social, are on such ostentatious display. As when I work as a product demonstrator and representative, the people working the animals and booths were very accessable and despite the emense crowds, willing to answer a steam of both thoughtful and poorly considered questions.
The day began scurrying to the Ravenswood Metra station where I promptly sat down to make a quick sketch of the station and tracks looking south. I’ve only ridden these trains for 17 years and know they run in opposite direction as automobile traffic. So, when the train’s arrival was announced, I quickly realized the mistake had left me no time to race to the correct place. Fortunately the Brown Line station was a brief walk away. Eventually I made it to Ogilvy Station with enuff time to have breakfast, and it was there I tried to capture the hurried expeditor Rigo whose shirt inform he had been handling customers huevos since 2006.
 
The goats came first, and as with the other fairly open exhibits which were cross between a large tent and small barn, the smell was surprisingly modest in part due to the mild Fall day. Even the pigs weren’t so pungent, and there was evident and regular defecating at every turn.
Perhaps one of the most anticipated and auspicious days of my year is the 12 hour life drawing marathon at The Palette & Chisel on Labor Day. Though I am 63 years old and have had a number of jobs over the years that were not based on the semester structure of schools, the hangover of all that early life preparation, and the change of seasons, still creates this sense for me of new possibilities. Thus, when others look to take the day off from the grind, I look to put in one of my longer days working towards the betterment of my craft.
The sessions start at 7am with a model in the third floor studio, and later, models may be posing on the second floor and out in the coach house. Forty-five minutes to an hour are set aside for lunch out in the courtyard, but then I head back upstairs till the sessions conclude at 7pm. On average, I show up at 7:30-8 in the morning and last till 6:30-7 at night. If I get in some sketching on the 40 minute train ride to the Palette & Chisel, that serves to warm me up and gives me a sense of what the day’s efforts may yield.
 
 
 
 
Fountain pens, Platinum Carbon ink, Pitt Artist Pens, Tomoe River Paper, ledgerbook.
Heading to The Palette and Chisel’s Labor Day 12 hour Life Drawing Marathon in two days and feeling very rusty. Posting a few nudes and life drawings from the past couple months. I’ll put up stuff from Monday’s session, the good, the bad and the just plain ugly. #figuredrawings #lifedrawings #ledgerbooks
 
All drawings in ink, ( brush pens and fountain pens with Platinum Carbon Ink ) on either Tomoe River Paper or ledger book. Y