Buttnekkiddoodles

 

several years ago I visited Portland and went to a really pleasant park in the Pearl District of inner city. Loads of people were enjoying the sunny weather and a couple artist friends of mine and I decided to draw folks in the gracious surroundings. There were lots of moms out with their tykes and so I set up to sketch the view just behind one particularly relaxed group that looked really settled in.

Since then, I’ve reviewed this drawing many times having brought it along for many of my demonstrations and classes. Within is a figure of a young woman with a nifty hat that has become rather iconic to me. So I worked up a page of studies of her and how her limbs and muscles behaved in a posture that was both relaxed while requiring the ability to brace herself comfortably. I had my girlfriend pose and I looked at photos of me, shirtless, holding the same pose.
 
you can see relative to the woman next to her, that as her arms support the weight of her torso allowing her spine to curve as if resting against the back of a chair, her shoulders are pushed up, closer to her ears. This lets her head, which weights in the realm of 15 lbs, hang out over her clavicles with her chin just above her sternum. As for the muscles of her back, while they are elongated to follow the arc of her spine, (as shown in the following scan) they are also gathered as the shoulder force compression of her shoulder blades and the trapezius which forms the squeezed diamond shape from her neck to the crest of her shoulders and down to the middle of her back creating a furrow atop her spine.
 
To me, this was a useful exercise to help understand substructure and be mindful of how the body adjust to accommodate its own mass and the way in which some muscles contract while others simultaneously relax. You also become more explicitly aware of the elasticity of the body, at least youthful or limber physiques and the way it shifts to maintain balance against the forces of gravity. A person’s condition also determines what you can “read“ beneath the skin. If you are trying to compose figures from your imagination, studies like these give you loads of valuable info that help you make informed sketches and give your conceptualized drawings naturalism that have suitable proportions,  graceful flow and appear weight bearing, with the defining sub structures in credible locations.

 
These final 2 close ups also show how I like to use directional hatching or mark making in places to help describe the curvature of volume. Known as cross contour drawing, you can see me making use of it on the muscles of the left figure’s back, just as I have done on the marks on the right figure’s hat and pants.

Drawn with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens and two fountain pens, the F-C Grip and the F-C Essentio Black Leather, both with Broad nibs on a Clairefontaine Goldline Watercolour sketchbook.

The latest installment of the graphic novella,”The Java Knot”. – The morning cafecito had already greased the nervous system as the crew were putting on the harnesses and saddling onto bosun chairs. He was not one for those clunky scaffolds. Less mobile & less safe to his way of thinking. His mind was made after high winds slung those 2 dudes & that scaffold into the intersection of Market & 17th.
Crew readied, they strode to the edge & swung a leg over. At fifty stories, this was the moment no matter how cavalier, when the pecan sack clustered into a tight ripple skinned lemon. Over the edge & down to work. If you weren’t in free fall now, you’d set your lines properly. They’d begin where they left off yesterday, the 38th floor.

In earlier than usual, the office hadn’t gathered its sonic hubbub, so before the flurry of calls & office catch-up pulled him in more directions than a crab beset by a romp of otters, he went online to look over specs of that new Ducati he intended to have. Out the window the morning sun was still below the building across the street. Two slender ropes flirted with his window.
Andrea, the secretary he shared with 2 lugs in the adjacent offices, broke his concentration, brusquely sweeping in & setting a Dunkin‘ Donuts bag on his desk. “I was reminded to see you had everything for the conference call from Germany which got bumped to 9 sharp.”
“Somebody’s eager. All set.”
“They were out of Maple Old Fashion. I nabbed the last Chocolate Cruller”.
”Sweet”, his eyes followed the lines of the Ducati then slid from the bike seat to Andrea’s shrink-wrapped gluts as they rounded the door frame.
“Okay, time to pay for the new wheels”, he launched the balled up donut bag at the trash can placed purposely as far from his chair as the office would allow. A tightly crunched coffee cup followed. The napkin knot next. Ungh, 2 for three. He looked around for something else to pitch, then lit up the array of screens and dialed in the conference code.

It wasn’t so much the nylon ropes that kept he and his attached crew from becoming flesh bombs endangering pedestrians curious as to where that encroaching scream was coming from, as it was their mirrored avatars. It might be the touch of a boot toe or scraper to scraper kiss on the glass plane that kept a Rorschach twins high wire dance above the patient vigil of a concrete death. How much it reminds one of the cat’s optimistic glare at the butterfly fluttering ever so much closer, closer….

An hour into the conference and having concluded his part of the presentation, his mind wandered back to the Ducati when the slightest change of light in the room turned his head to glimpse a murky figure creating foamy graffiti on one of the three large windows in his office. Now he fancied himself an upper tier thrill seeker. Totally dug high finance with dizzying sums, no stranger to the poker table, & he expected to find out if that Ducati performed as advertised, but dangling in thin air from a couple shoe strings??!! And while the city looked great from here & he was mindful of the corporate cachet & bragging rights of a desk with a view, the thought of feeling the breeze on the other side of that glass made his loins wither. For sure if them ropes snapped, that little orange sucker in dude’s hand wouldn’t hold his ass.
He turned back to the screens to follow the numbers but he’d already gone over these stats umpteen times & his mind just as quickly returned to that Ducati. He swiveled in his chair to watch his man just finish soaping the center pane. His eyes traced those snaking curves of soap & as the scraper cut a clear view of sky he was now gliding along the serpentine roads of Passo dello Stelvio. The husky rumble of that Ducati reinvigorating the dwindling his family jewels had experienced only moments before.
As the window washer switched to the last of his trio of windows some blur caught his dreamy attention. Following behind his man, about ten feet off his right shoulder, was a drone. Wait. What the..? How cool is that? Is someone shooting a movie? Awesome, I’m in a…wait, they’d have to get a release signed. Might be a training film. Just then Andrea popped her head in his door,”Upstairs said to say thanks, you don’t need to hang for the remainder. I’ll fax the statements and leave the contract on your desk. The others are going off for an early lunch and asked you to meet ‘em at the elevators”. He followed her curves out the door and caught sight of his team gathering by the elevators. A round of high-fives ensued, a quick exchange of who had what on the latest round of Fantasy Football and he promised to catch up with them soon as he ordered a shiny present to himself and shut down his computers. “Oh hooooo, you’re going for the Ducati?!” More high-fives. “Congrats Guys!” Andrea said as she went past the congregation. Their eyes followed her and then settled on him. “Bet your gonna love taking some curves on your new D!”, offered one. He backed towards his office with a smirk and prolonged shrug.
The corners of his mouth were still nudging his earlobes when he strode into his office. He shut his screens off and then, still facing his screens, his mouth went slack as his brow knit. The now dark screens bore the reflection of his figure back lit by the squeaky clean windows. And on the center pane, was a round shadow. His turn was measured, but he came full around to see it. And just it. A black circle with a smaller disk in its center. It was about 6 inches across and on its other side, an orange handle. Bright orange. The drone was gone. The ropes, also gone.

Drawn on a Stillman & Birn Gamma Series sketchbook with Faber-Castell Essentio Broad nib fountain pen end Pitt Artist Pens.

 
So, Joe. Enigmatic. Been seeing him every so often over the last seven or so years whenever I need hi-fi ink jet copies of my drawings. He’s good. Very technical. The strip mall store he works at is pricey but Joe’s tops. I know if he’s on the job the moment I walk into the place and look in the direction of the frame & print department. Whoever’s working is seated behind a large screen computer. If they’re not sporting Tin Tin’s haircut…I leave.
I’m quite fascinated with Joe. Told me once he was a history major in college. Eastern European events. Knows a good deal about the Vikings in Russia & Byelorussia, about the Balkan Wars, Crimean War, all that Iron Curtain stuff. I had heard about the connection between the words ‘Slav’ and ‘slave’ but it was Joe who told me of the derivation of ‘cíao’ from ‘slave’. He’s keen on mechanical pencils and fountain pens and is usually sporting an ever changing pair. Likewise here. I comment on his. He on mine. A couple of hopeless gear heads. He likes plaid cowboy shirts with Mother of Pearl snaps, lots of panels, exaggerated cuts on the yoke. Dude must have dozens tho he favors a powder blue and brown combo.

Latest installment from the graphic novella The Java Knot. “So, it’s more than a habit… this pull to draw out in public. I don’t bring a book to read, I’m too fidgety for that. I’d rather check out my surroundings. Mostly, if honesty overtakes me, I prefer to watch people. Closely. Some would call it staring. But that sounds too passive to me. I go over them like an eagle casing the river below, looking for movement beneath the surface. Trying at times to understand the substructure of cheek bones, jaw muscles, the coordination of a hand’s architecture as it returns coffee cup to saucer then glides to flip the page of a book. But I also watch, as if, like the eagle’s penetrating glare beneath the waves, I can sense a current of thought. Knit brows, pinching lips, the coordinated grip of the masseter and temporalis muscles setting molars firmly into their opposing cousins. Frustration? Displeasure? Disapproval? Disgust? And will my drawings capture a fleeting moment of unguarded commentary, which, if elusive to presumptuous certainty, feels as though I’m now driving the streets of that someone’s neighborhood.
I sauntered to my recently favored cafe to find an interesting looking gent, with long uncoiling ringlets of Grey hair, seated curbside at a table, both hands occupied, one with coffee, the other with cellphone. I seated myself at an adjacent table such that we were facing each other, if obliquely. He no sooner placed his cup, empty, upon the table than the waitress appeared from within the shop and replaced the depleted cup with a full one. ‘Keep ‘em coming?’ she asked. ‘Keep ‘em coming’, he said. She turned directly to me, and asked my pleasure as I pulled sketchbook and pens from my satchel. Hot cocoa, bitter, no whip.
About then, a bicyclist coming up the street, glided along side the curb, slowed, nearly stopping beside the gent working his second cup, deftly laying an envelop on the table before him, and continued on. No exchange of words, nor looks. No nod. As I opened my sketchbook to a fresh page with little fanfare, the envelope slid into his jacket in like fashion with the hand returning to cradle the cup. His heavy lidded eyes never wandered from the cell’s screen.
I had payed little attention to the parking meter directly behind him, but as I began laying in the preliminary lines of his head, torso, the table and meter, I was amused to see the words PAY HERE backing his right arm. The very arm which had retrieved the envelope as if an extension of the meter.”

Drawn with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens and fountain pen on Stillman & Birn Beta Series sketchbook.

 
Maybe this will answer some of your burning questions connected to Geese. Giamila and I were walking along the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. Chitown has a large resident population of big and beautiful Canada Geese. Well, they’re ardent grazers and Christ on a bike but do they leave a whole lotta fowl loaves where they roam. So, in the interest of science and understanding Nature, let’s talk bird poop. Okay then, uppermost in your minds….”What’s with those Green & White Lincoln logs “? Well, that earthy green is due to their primary diet of grass and green vegetation. Lot’s of it. “How MUCH Doc?!” you ask…well, enough that the end product yields about 2 pounds a day per bird. Your average human drops a daily no. 2 at around 1 pound – give or take depending on height + weight + diet and if you’re an active bowler. A 6’5” Texan pushin’ 300lb that consumes a full rack o’ ribs, 3/4lb of brisket, smoked turkey drumstick, 2 links of smoked Polish sausage, 1/2 pint o’ pinto beans, 1/2 pint o’ potato salad, 1/2 pint o’ slaw, 2 squares of cornbread, cup o’ rice puddin’ and big ol’ wedge of peach cobbler with oatmeal crumble and 2 softball sized scoops of vanilla ice cream on top each and every dinner….well, we won’t go there. “Uhhhh… well how ‘bout that White stuff?” Good eye! That signature look is due to the evolutionary efficiency of simultaneously eliminating #1 & #2. #1 comes out as a white paste of nitrogenous uric acid that minimizes water loss to the bird. Two for one. Cool, eh? Now them birds can have a go up to 28 times a day, with the resultant dropping as represented in the upper left of the sketch. But Giamila & I saw the occasional pilling like that shown in the center of my sketch and the accompanying close up. We refer to this as ‘stool stacking’ and believe it to be the result of multiple excrements of perhaps 6-8 birds. This could be territorial marking in several ‘overlays’ or it could be a form of clutch bonding. Either way, the activity appears to be well rehearsed and tidy to boot. Just remember to to keep the dogs and kids away as that honker’s stool is a mini bus bursting with pathogenic passengers. Get a load of the list of ‘em on my sketch. In fact, a substantial population of them creatures can overwhelm the chemistry of small bodies of water. “What’s the solution to THAT Doc?”, you ask. Well, it IS Thanksgiving. Maybe you give turkeys a reprieve this next year.
 
Drawn with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens on a Stillman & Birn Gamma Series sketchbook.