Buttnekkiddoodles

After 57 years, I finally return to the Land of The Midnight Sun. Glorious light. Flowers going crazy in long luminous days. Met up with some of the local talent for a plein aire event and a drink-n-draw at Spenard Tattoo. The above log cabin is the home of local artist Don Kolstad who has been an educator and fixture on the scene for years.

  

Above, drawings done on the flight to Anchorage. An attempt to capture some cloud and mountain formations somewhere over British Columbia.

The following drawing of Columbine flowers and the following paragraph I did and dedicated to a young woman who passed away just days before I arrived in Anchorage. I also dedicated gave it and gave it to the owner and staff at Blaine’s Art where she had worked for about nine month’s prior to here death at 21 years of age.

Ashley, I never had the privilege to have met you. But I have met wonderful people who did , and clearly, your spirit touched them. You are missed. I believe life is a supremely amazing gift, and the people who come into our lives, are a large part of that gift. I was told of your departure as I sat in the car outside the store you worked at, having been driven there from the airport. The first things I saw as I stepped from the car were the Columbine flowers at the store’s entrance. They were the first things I drew after stepping on Alaskan soil since I left as a child 57 years ago. They were purple, one of your favorite colors I’m told, and radiant in the incredible searing light. It was the first I had ever seen Columbines. It will not be possible for me to see them again without thinking about you and the emotional way those who knew you, spoke about you, your radiance, your accomplishments, your wit and brilliance. The growing season in Alaska is brief, and like those arresting Columbines, you had an all too brief but intense presence to those whom you encountered. I know they are grateful to have met you.

Above, a view from the water’s edge of a Salmon catching contest near the mouth where Ship Creek empties into Cook Inlet by downtown Anchorage.

 

Seth and his shy friend at the Drink & Draw at Spenard’s Tattoo when Seth works. I could tell she was watching me thru the veil of her hair.

The Anchorage Plein Aire group with Don Kolstad on the right from an overlook facing the estuary alongside Turnagain Bay.

 

Above, a dorama in the Anchorage Museum of Art and my lunch counter view of the kitchen crew at Anthony’s in Sea-Tac International. Airport.

Drawings done in a ledger book, a Strathmore toned sketchbook, a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook with Faber-Castell Basic and Pelikan M215 and Pelikano Jr. fountain pens with Carbon Black ink and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brish Pens and White China markers.

Vintur ist icummin in, lowdly sing the thrush. It’s here for real. Maintaining a regular practice of catching scenes and studies in public, in coffee shops, eateries, and on public transit systems.

            

Man, while I love the Southwest and south and central California, I have to live somewhere where snow is a winter feature. Even if it is wickedly cold as has been the case here in Chicago this year. One of the more brutal winter’s in the 15 years I’ve made my residence in the Midwest. I have a super warm and cosy apartment and I know how to dress for it even though I damn near lost my dick to frost bite one night while tromping for 20 blocks in 20 below zero weather. Last time I head out with boxers on. But the weather here has been beautiful and the feeling of living on the edge of climatic habitability gives one a sublime sense of the amazingly special place in this Universe we call home. Don’t know if y’all are getting a little bored with the usual drawing tools and predictable line quality, but I have been thinking about changing to bristle brushes or something a little bolder. Platinum Carbon ink in fountain pens, and Pitt Artist Pens in one of my favorite ledgerbooks to date.

One of the country’s largest kilns, the Anagama kiln at Montevalo University. I was so smitten with this place that I managed to walk off with just my sketchbook: leaving behind my backpack in which I had the rechargers for my cell phone and iPod. More importantly, I had about $1,000 worth of pens among which were a Graf von Faber Guilloche fountain pen which I had just picked up in Nashville, and one of my very favorite fountain pens, a Pelikan M215. That was November 6th and I just got all that returned via Fed Ex yesterday, Friday, November the 28th.

  

Made it late and left early to the Palette & Chisel’s 12 hour life drawing marathon. Didn’t come away with anything stellar. Been consumed with buying, packing, and moving to new digs and will flatly state that my drawing has suffered. Looking forward to heading out on tour to hopefully knock off the rust.

                           

Man, when I say “Slung” I wasn’t joking. What a crazy month. Bought a place and in the midst of painting, having electrical work done and moving into the new place, I had to work in New England & NYC, took a side trip to Philly, flew back to Chicago long enough to do laundry, paperwork and then get ready to jet to Washington and Montana for whirl wind tour of several cities and colleges. Still a bit too much running around and not enough time drawing what I witnessed. Have to return to NYC and hang out on the High Line, was a bit crowded but what a vantage point of Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen. Plus you could see Jersey as it starts to create the Palisades. Using the Pitts and fountain pens. Back in a Moleskine watercolor pad and also have a hefty and lovely ledger book going.

Sometimes, I get behind in posting to BND, especially during the Fall when I’m tripping about the country lecturing and demonstrating at various colleges, stores and events. You can follow me at:  doncolleysroadtrip.com. Cheers.

Okay, I spent a butt load of time in coffee shops. I rarely drink the stuff. Have in the past. That and horse troughs full of hot chocolate. More so the later. But I’m largely a tea tipper now, and the green and herbal stuff at that. It got to where I was downing dairy farms of milk and wheel barrels of sugar. Now I sip my tea, draw, and watch others come in for the fix and to work on their spread. I’m already a touch hype so the heart just had too much fuel at a time where the only body part getting any exercise was my wrist.

Just making use of the Pitt Artist Pens and fountain pens w/ Platinum Carbon. Just a couple pages to go in this ledger book which has been an absolute gas to draw in.

I’ve been making observational drawings, urban sketches as some would describe them, for two plus decades. In the past, the practice served to cull ideas for paintings, or to record things of note as a way of keeping my own picture files. To grab an image because with my poor memory I knew I couldn’t depend on the ability to just recall something, even if I felt it was arresting at the time. I drew to study people, their anatomy and movement. To work on problems, i.e. the way hair behaves and catches light. Or the ability to quickly observe and record fleeting scenes and postures. I dread going to life drawing sessions and opening up with scads of the rapid poses. The 20, 40,and 60 second stuff; yet I give myself over quite happily to doing just that in public as I commute about the city or loiter in a cafe. Sometimes it’s for the reasons given above, but as often as not, it’s just because I love doing that. Looking, and drawing, and thinking.

I am going to have my work featured on The Scream On Line if I can ever make myself write a bio/statement. I’ve been dawdling and procrastinating about doing it for, I dunno, maybe a few months by now. It’s been 4 years since I’ve painted and tho I have worked on prints that are of a narrative nature, the bulk of what I’ve done with my time has been drawing out and about in public. Now a bit of that has been during my treks back and forth to work and on extended trips across the country during which I give demonstrations and lectures about drawing. So, many pages serve as journaling, and I have captured spontaneous events such as on-the-street police interrogations and was present on a fresh crime scene where a water main was geysering alongside a building after some perp had made off with the pipe cap. Drew that. I’ve drawn people at work, as I did in Tampa, of the gentleman who gave me a straight razor shave and the fellow who made my pizza. Many of my friends, collectors, and fellow artist know me as a guy who’ll mount a soapbox even when there’s no crowd to harangue. Suffering in silence doesn’t seem to be part of my DNA and venting, (with dependable frequency) almost seems as much an outcome of my parasympathetic system as peristalsis. Quite therapeutic to me at times and quite insufferable to those around me most times. All the “clown” paintings, drawings, and prints fell under this genre. That of venting. Thinking out loud if I can be fair to myself. Observations of my times and reflections on those observations as they may relate to other times. These came out as narrative like imagery and were quite different from the bulk of what I draw now. Gone are the 19th and 15th century references. Gone are the carnies and their bloody scrums with townies and brutal internecine wars. Gone for now are all the notes of financial mishugganuh and the portraits and caricatures of the public and political rogues who’ve played high profiled roles in the undoing of so many lives and fortunes.

But are they?  Gone that is. All that grist I’d been milling for twenty  some years. Six years ago the art market tanked after years where sales had buoyed my career among others. A couple years later, the banks started tottering and the housing market split it’s gut wide open. Huge layoffs saw scores people the very libraries and cafes I’d been loitering in, pouring down hot cocoa and pouring over the news and financial sections of the Wall Street Journal and The NYT. The unemployed found their way to the cafes and libraries where they worked on resumes, looked for jobs, encouraged and consoled each other, had interviews, talked to financial advisors about resolving mounting debt issues, read, slept, and drank coffee. Others took to airing out favorite beefs with no less restraint than the grouch writing this post. Bailing out the pirates who shocked the economy was a Siren song  heard in just about any public haunt  I could stumble into. The tug of war over immigration and hot button issues left and right could be heard gusting about  any city I visited. Energy prices, mineral extraction, perpetual war, perpetual political campaigns….Jeez, I even got into it over Tea Party positions and striking Teachers Unions, standing track side, waiting for a train in a damn near empty town in northern New Mexico. I’ve managed to dodge many mud fights over the Arab uprisings, Gay marriage, class warfare, sequestration, presidential retreats on campaign assurances, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack, North Korea,…..I’ll stop. Contentious times. Sitting in these cafes, restaurants, libraries, riding so much public transportation I do get wind of a lot of peoples issues. But I haven’t distilled all this journaling and drawing into resolved paintings or resolute images that encapsulate any zeitgeist. I’m just drawing them. My fellow citizens. Their woes and rewards in tack, they go about their days and I draw them.  And I look to see if the drawings say anything in themselves about these citizens, most strangers, about how they’re bearing up under the times. I think that is an important and tricky thing to capture. Their bearing.