Buttnekkiddoodles

Back at the Palette & Chisel where I drew Anne sporting a new hairdo. You may have seen her, a model I’ve drawn several time (refer to posts “Sprints and Longer Poses” and “Nudes from the Past Month” where she can be seen with her signature Page Boy cut. A very good model, imaginative poses and really clear definition of muscles. She brings a very bright personality and baked goods. Drawn with Pitt Artist Pens and white China marker on recycled Utrecht paper.

The above drawings are from the tremendous show of WWII posters at the Art Institute of Chicago “Windows On The War”. Go on line and check out the large format, stenciled prints by the Soviet print collective TASS. I got stopped from sketching in the galleries by the guards who informed me of a sign I had walked right by without noticing that precludes tripods, flash photography, and sketching. I’ll make an effort to secure permission next week to do so but I’m not holding my breath. I guess it’s largely for insurance reasons but it’s gotten to be more of a pain in the ass trying to draw in some museums.

The blue ink is largely Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron though I make some use of Pitt Artist Brush Pens.

My darling Jenny in dirt farmer hat, ever the reader.

A view of Rachel’s super cool mid century modern kit house on bluffs above Lake Michigan. The reflection of the trees on the bedroom window had a spider web appearance.

I’m chained to the drawing board with an illustration job, hence not much drawing from out and about the town. So……..I thought I’d post drawings from sketchbooks past. Some of the drawings go back 30 years. The sketch books usually have titles, you’ll see that plus the dates they were done when you put the cursor over the image.

This is about the time I was playing around with fountain pens. Just little affordable Sheaffers, since I had ruined a Pelikan by putting the wrong ink in the reservoir. This was the late 80’s early 90′, and about that time I discovered brush pens and got very excited about those. I initially used Tom Bow and Staedtler but was never happy about the inks not being waterproof. After a several pages got ruined from a water spill I started pulling ’em apart and filling ’em with Higgins, or Pelikan, or FW acrylic inks, or special inks Robert Doak in Brooklyn made for me.

So there’s a bit of drawing from life, drawing from references and just drawing straight out of my head which I haven’t done so much of over the lest couple of years. That I hope to return to in greater measure this fall.

I sat on the back porch and knocked out this 2 page drawing of some of the most turbulent skies I’ve seen over Chicago. Those little blue grey buildings just visible above the trees on the left page are the tallest buildings in Chicago. The tallest being the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) some 6 miles from my apartment.

Even though I thing Lake Michigan is magnificent, I rarely draw it. But the day of the 4th of July was hot and brilliant so I strode out and parked my ass on the Hollywood beach jetty and banged out a sketch of some beach revelers just in time to avoid a really nasty sunburn.

Happy Birthday….