...and you know what? Drawing this really did assuage my fury.
(from the counter of The Counter in the Miami airport--yes, The Counter in an airport. Left drawing as a protest gesture... after miles of ratmaze trudging toward relocated passport control/customs, I now know why their airport code is MIA)

Spent the last week in "the Islands, mon." I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

The miracle of beach time....(sun dries my brush pen out something fierce).

Confused in the airport.

Travel sketch (Miami Airport clothing clash).

Happy Boxing Day!

The Pageant Director.

Beatles cut.

She's a little snowflake....

Four year old flash mob Xmas program.
 The soloist.

Working the split nib. It's heck trying to get these posted without home internets!
(Stay tuned for Holiday kids program assignment....)

It's cold around these parts, but that didn't stop this kid from visiting Starbucks after swim practice.

Our trip to Virginia in a nutshell: from Woodbury to Woodberry!

(Should be the -berry spelling on his jacket--he disappeared before I got a full visual.)

OK, this one's pretty rocky. But I'm putting it up for JOE, who said a nice thing about my drawing for Willow/Bris/Biz (my ol' childhood pal).

Thanks, Joe!

From the wilds of Virginia, a birthday card interior for Biz. He got to go to the Dallas game last Sunday! Said it was great, even if the Cowboys lost.

(Yeah, guess I missed a few days with the move and all....)

Racetracks bring out the flinty types.
(Del Mar)

The lonely jockey.
(From Del Mar.)

Finishing up our Willamette University symposium, "Lines of Attention":

Attentive.

Day-dreamy.

Conversion experience.

Two of the presenting professors and one of the attendees.

The young lady on the left (an art history prof. @ M.I.T.!) gave a paper about an 18th Century collector and dealer of drawings. His name was Mariette, and he was famous for his blue mats. Also famous for the impressive ability to split a sheet of paper down the gizzard, so that a single sheet with a recto and verso side could be divided into two separate pieces of paper--quite a feat!

Here's a blue mat of his (landscape by Claude Lorrain, 1645)

(Claude's really brushin' that breakfast!)

In addition to all this fun, Mariette would sometimes cut up the old master drawings that he acquired, sometimes he'd "restore" them by darkening their lines, or adding lines and even adding highlights and wash to make them look more "finished."

For this he is known as "Naughty Marriette."

Audio-Visual guy @ Willamette. Every conference needs one, and he was great--a calming presence,  never intrusive, always watching from the wings, ready to solve any mic malfunction or projector rejection.

I'm trying to spool-out a "YOU-WERE-THERE" documentary feel with these series of drawings, but this one drawing a day pace is killing the momentum.

I'll have to work out a different approach. We're getting to the point where daily drawing bundles may be necessary (for instance, I still have more than a dozen Del Mar Races drawings from August to share. Sheesh!)

Thunderstruck.
In the best possible way.

Skeptics. (They got into the swing of things eventually.)

The ubiquitous bearded young.

Dear Wife gave her first conference paper last week @ Willamette University. Wonderful place, wonderful people.

And she was so good, she knocked their sneakers off.

Harley envy.  Missed this page in the sketchbook first time around.
(Really should have fixed those legs....)

I get the feeling a lot of people leave Medford this way...except without the capri pants.

Why does this couple look so happy?
Maybe they went to San Luis Obispo and checked into a hotel called The Madonna Inn. They probably spent the night in a room like this:

We were assigned this room Wednesday night--room 139, "JUNGLE ROCK." My worry was that the place would be run down, and seedy. Not the case at all. Those are real rocks--giant boulders, really.

The entire hotel has been expertly assembled back in the 40's-50's, and it still looks...rock solid.
Lots of great details everywhere--the shower was an all-rock waterfall! Even if you don't stay, pull off the 101 and check out the cafe/restaurant and the bathrooms downstairs. All I can say is...whoa.

It was the combination of insensate fury in her face and coursing muscle in her arms that made her such a funny sight--that, and her driving the "healingmassage.com" company car. If she got you on the massage table, there might not be anything left of you after 45 minutes.

(Formica tabletop courtesy of a great fast food chain in the Portland area called Burgerville. Dear Wife claimed their veggie burger excellent, and I thought their breakfasts and beef burgers top-drawer, too. All done with local food, prepped fresh, etc. Give 'em a try if you're cruising the PacNorWest.)

A tea towel of mid-forties (or earlier??) vintage which has accompanied my grandmother from Oklahoma to California in '48, and from California to Oregon in '88...and still looks new!

But what horrible impulse could have begotten such imagery?

Gran told me that back home in OK. they used to buy a particular brand of boxed oatmeal, and in the box there would be, in addition to sensible oatmeal, a bonus goodie; the sensible oatmeal makers shunned frivolities like action figures, or decoder rings or marbles: they gave you a towel (big business still groping to find that sure-fire route to the kinderhart).

The towel came striped but naked, bereft of animal ornament except for a sort of connect-the-dots stencil that, once properly stitched with color-coded yarn, yielded the satanic character you see here. The idea was to so flummox some desperate country child with the dot-to-dot mystery that they would be forced to create something of household benefit.

That and prime them to worship the bone-wielding arch-demon you see here.

They were sick in those days!

We're traveling, so posts have been sparse. Been to an Art History Conference where Dear Wife presented a paper--great stuff! I made lots of drawings, too, so expect a survey of Salem, Oregon faces and fashion....

9 year anniversary today. Love you, baby!

Girls.

Yesterday I did some pencils from photos of fun-faced folk.

Invented skulls for warm-ups. A little wonky on the top-down.

I totally forgot to post these drawings from my day at the Del Mar Races last month.
Where the turf meets the surf!

Targe-geddon.

Dear Wife had it in mind to be at the local Target Tuesday morning 8:00 a.m. Why? The launch of their new Missoni line. She wanted to get a vase, and look at a cardigan. She'd heard there would be a lot of demand for this stuff, so she figured we'd stop by first thing, see what we thought, then hit the road.

As if.

The crowd wasn't huge--maybe 40 or so woment--hardly what you'd call a flash mob. The doors opened at 8:00, and by 8:02 (the time it took us to walk to the Missoni area) there was literally nothing left on the racks.

Now, I'm not against a good old-fashioned, fashion feeding frenzy, but there was something supremely cynical at work here: women were just grabbing as much as they could, stuffing it into their cart, and rushing to the next thing. There was no, "I need a 6 in that dress." Indiscriminate fistfuls were yanked from the racks; once stripped, the looters absconded. Everyone's cart looked like the above. All of it to be resold on Ebay?

Worse than this was the joylessness. These were hollow husks of humans, retail zombies with a naked "me-first" attitude that really jarred.  Nothing hip and beautiful about it. I used to like Missoni, but the whole scene left me with an ugly association.

That word was the take-away: U-G-L-Y. Ugly people, ugly manners, ugly impulse.

A sight to behold....

Really not doing Lizbeth Scott justice here....

Been sick the last week. Did a few drawings from the TV. Kirk in his first role--"The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers."

Another gouache from the balcony, this time in the pre-dawn light. If I hadn't left so much white around, that street lamp in the palms would have really worked to set the hour. (I was experimenting at "vignettes", something I still have no talent for....)

Sculpture with a view.

Felt-tip Portofino. Sketched dockside--not from the deck of some ugly yacht.

Does the internets give you an acute sense of the present-tense? Like, does a drawing from 2004 seem not only dated... but dumb?

Night gouache. I was so excited to be in Italy with my paints. Our first night there I woke up around three and just had to paint this view from our balcony. I think the town was called La Grazie.

More travel album, more color. We are in...Italia!