The Man from Black Shamrock.
Putting in sketches from life, transit drawings, and imaginary ramblings from the past week and from some 28 years ago. Loads of ballpoint and some of the usual suspects, Iroshizuku, Noodlers, Platinum Carbon inks and appearances made by some of my favorite fountain pens, a Pelikan M215, a Pelikan demonstrator with a double broad nib, an ebony barreled Graf von Faber Classic, and a beat up Visconti Rembrandt filled with Platinum Carbon. The Visconti has it’s drawbacks, some appointments falling off, and corrosion around the nib collar, but the damn thing feels good in the hand and is a blast to draw with.
 
 
And now, for as we flip the pages of time, the year is 1984 and our young master Donald sits at his desk in his China Town loft, busily scribbling away into the wee hours of the night.
 
 
Top image is the drawing I did back in August for the trade show poster. Pitt Artist Pens, Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils, and gouache on paper. Above left is aphoto of my ledger books and sketchbooks at my trade show demonstration table. Ducked into the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art during lunch for a quick look about.
Had to work 2 lonnnnnnnng days at the U of O Duck Store Tools of the Trade show in Eugene, Oregon which didn’t leave much time to scour about and draw so mostly limited to brief sketches. The hour and a half spent doing laundry late one night was the longest I had to just sit and draw. Drawings on the ivory paper we done with Pitt Artist Pens on Clairefontane paper in a Rhodia Web notebook.
I want to give a shout out to all the good folks at the U of O Duck Store in Oregon for all they did to support Doug Mooney and myself and especially to their crazed ring leader The Boodle’s Poodle herself, Rachel Witt and her Number One dude ridin’ shotgun, Mr. Dangerous, Christopher Smith, for commissioning the poster from me and for just being a tornado of inspired madness.
That’s my wheel man Doug Mooney puttin’ some wear and tear on the auto via the scenic route. Doug, my gal Jennifer, and I were hurrying and scurrying from a demo at Dots and Doodles in Astoria to a demo at in Portland. We were half an hour late. My sincere apologies to the good folks at Columbia Art & Drafting. Drawn with Pitt Brush Pens in a Bee Paper Super Deluxe sketch book at 65+ miles per hour.
After giving an afternoon demo at Central Art in downtown Medford, I checked in to a motel and went strolling for to take in the views. I’m often asked about the responses I get from people who see me drawing in public. There is quite a bit of curiosity, especially from children, and I’m generally open to sharing a glance at what I do. So when a fellow, who introduced himself as Dave, in an Oklahoma Univ. baseball cap, out walking his dog, asked if he could see what I was drawing I said sure. He was quite enthusiastic as I showed him several pages and described how I liked to draw from life and document my travels.
Our conversation seemed to evolve into personal histories fairly quickly and he explained that he had recently been “released” and had landed a good job as a machinist, had a good lady and was working to get back on his feet but was looking to move back to the Southwest. After describing my itinerant life style and being that I was parked on a bench a parking lot from the Greyhound bus stop, Dave asked how I was fixed for food and did I need a meal. I greatly appreciated his gestured and assured him I was all good in that respect. He said if I had some time in the area there were great places to hike and explore and named several spots to check out. We bid each other well and away he went.
I moved from Philadelphia to Chicago 12 years ago. However, I took many trips back to Philly and visited as many friends as time allowed. About 10 years ago I started going to open life drawing sessions again so when I’d drop in on Matt, it became a shared activity to head off to draw at one of his regular life drawing venues. Six years ago, I started dating my current girlfriend , Jennifer, who was living in a bucolic, northwest section of Philly called Chestnut Hill. Jenny has since moved to Chicago, but for 2 years, I traveled back East frequently to visit with her, occasionally staying for weeks at a time. During those visits and extended stays I got to knock around with several of my long standing chums in town, most of whom lived in the center of the city. Philadelphia had an incredible infrastructure of public transit, possessing at one time the most mileage of rail lines of any city in the world. Many of those rails have been paved over but the commuter lines that head out to the suburbs and connect up with lines to cities such as New York, still operate and have magnificent 19th century train stations. I’ve always loved riding the trains and developed my work habits of writing and drawing in sketch/note books while in transit as a graduate art student in Philadelphia as far back as 1981. It was a pure delight when on days or nights that Jenny had to work, I’d hop a train in Chestnut Hill and ride in to join Matt for drawing, jawbonin’ and a little drinkin’ maybe. I’d have the train ride in to warm up by drawing train stations and fellow passengers. The above drawing was done while waiting for the R 7 line out of Chestnut Hill East.
My trips back East were getting to be so long, 5 week stays on 2 different visits, that I had to scrounge up a bit of employment. It was Mr. McGoff, bartending Friday night Jazz events at the Art Museum at the time, who vouched for me when an extra bartender was needed and helped defray the cost of killing time in Philly.
Below are some of the sketches I did en route to, during, and from those sessions.
Now the purpose of this website/blog was to have a place to display drawings in my sketch books, which are challenging enough to show in galleries though I have done so. And, since I have dealers and galleries where I hang shows of paintings and prints, such as those you’ll see here at BND under the heading “My Other Work”, to have a place to exhibit life drawings that my dealers have shown little interest or initiative in exhibiting.
So, for 30 years I’ve knocked on doors, entered juried shows, spent the sum of a couple hip replacements in photographers fees, shipping and framing costs, tried to hoard as many hours a week for studio time as a part time salary would permit, and discouraged relationships that believed things like health care, televisions, high end sound systems, $300 juicers, stylish furniture, safe neighborhoods, proper showers with shiny fixtures, vacations to places where you swim up to a bar for drinks called Mojitos, Caipirhinas, Sex on the Beach, and Fuzzy Navels, closets filled with clothes, and shoes, and a Christmas present for every relative, friend and business associate within 850 miles were necessities of modern life.
While Matt worked hard to support maintaining a studio, buy materials, and pay models, he spent nothing on promoting himself and threw the towel in after very few attempts at garnering representation. As with a great many artists I’ve known, he had no taste nor tolerance for the business side of the craft.
Just putting up a bigger presence on the landing page with an image from the previous post. This is a drawing I made in Portland at the home of Bill Sharp an artist who was a landscapist and put together quite a lush garden around his home over a couple decades.
