Shot down to the Cultural Center for some indoor/outdoor sketching with a group of about 15 f Chicago’s growing chapter of Urban Sketchers.
 
 
 
Woke early, made it downtown and into The Palette & Chisel by 7:30 AM, where I drew till 7 PM that night. Knocked out some sketching on the train to and fro as well. Opening drawing is DeLawn, hadn’t drawn him in many months. Brought a ton of stuff to draw with but wound up only using the black and grey Pitt Pens and a couple fountain pens gassed up with Platinum Carbon in my current ledger book. My figure drawing has been quite uneven as this post will bear witness to. Sorry if the images are not sharp enough. I’ve been photoraphing them with ahi-pod rather than scanning them on the hp because the ledger book is too large to fit on the scanner. Â 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Had to head back to the Northeast for demos in Portland, Salem and Seattle while it was very hot in Chicago. Lucked into spectacular weather on the West coast.
I had the first day in Portland to just run around so, I met up with Gail Vines and Bill Sharp and drew in Jameson Park for about 2 hours. It’s a beautiful inner city, block size park with a nice sloping and shaded grass lawn, and a water park with the stacked block sculpture you see in the full sun. It was teeming with way more kids and adults than I cared to draw. My work schedule was packed and that was the longest period I would enjoy to just sit and work on one drawing.
 
Hit the town one night and wound up in a club called Dirty where I made a poor attempt to capture some of the goings on in th pretty frenetic environment. Caught a quick silhouette of a patron enjoying one of 2 swings suspended directly over the bar. If you didn’t get stabbed in the ear with a stiletto heel, you might be lucky enough to catch some pocket change in yer martini. Made it over to Hipbone Studios east of the river for some late night nude sketching.
 
The drawing below began with a sketch made of a friend’s kid on the beach at Sawyer, Michigan, and developed over a couple of nights as I stood outside the John Helmon Haberdasher in downtown Portland.
Just got back from LA wherein I seent a gob more than on previous visits. Had the pleasure or runnin’ around with my grand niece Ariel and her beau. Ariel and I hit the Huntington Library in Pasadena on a gorgeous day and took in only part of the eye poppin’ gardens and the truely stellar collection of rare books and first editions of many of the high water marks of Western learning. Also spent Sunday at the Blue Rooster Art Supplies where Ariel and some of her pals from Center Arts School of A & D set up on the sidewalk and drew with the super gracious Nick Gallo and his store manager.
Setting off today to draw from a model with students at Rockford College.
Working in a spiral sketchbook of fairly heavyweight paper, with a plate surface, from the Stillman & Birn epsilon series with some fountain pen inks and gel pens but primarily Pitt Artist Pens. A wee bit of the grease pencil as well. Like the stiff cover and scale for sketching on buses when things got a tad crowded.
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.
 
 
