Thursday, August 28, 2014

This is how it's done

Thank you KB.





(Way better resolution here)

(No, I'm not in this one, in case you were wondering)

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Weather

Sometimes your mind's eye can fail you. For hours or days you might struggle with ideas and images that refuse to crystallize on paper the way you want them to, deadlines and expectations looming. For some reason it's hard to remember that stopping for a while, going for a walk in the park, and maybe looking up at the sky can help. The other day the clouds were being amazing. I bet it was cool to see from the window of the plane.




Monday, August 25, 2014

Bugs

I drew some insects last week for a piece in the Times Sunday Review. Below is the final. I haven't seen the paper, but word was that it was going to be printed 14.2 inches wide, so if you're looking at this on your iphone please just throw it out the window. Further down are a couple of the other sketches I liked.



Monday, August 11, 2014

Conversation Gardening Questions and Answers, part 1

In order to start things off right, the first two people I asked to pose questions for the Conversation Gardening project were my niece and nephew. After some thought over cheese pizza my niece (age 5) decided her question would be:

As you can see from the drawing, I don't. I did a second version later, using reference.
My nephew, age 7 asked "can you draw a centaur?" (the main character in the mini is, of course, a centaur, but not a very well-drawn example). I do sometimes take drawing dictation from these two, and so while I was drawing the centaur I asked what it should be holding in its hands. The answer: a picture of president Obama. Dialogue was also dictated.
I've been on the road for the last month and have collected a good stack of questions at signings and talks in Anacortes, Washington; Besançon, France and Brooklyn. The next three are from France:


(This is from a friend in Besançon. We were planning a side trip to the region of Ardèche my second week there. But it didn't work out)

Some of the questions are very long and complicated:

Sometimes complicated questions have simpler answers.
Sometimes the questions are simple.
More soon. Keep them coming.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Reading and Talk Tonight at Desert Island in Brooklyn

I'm heading to Desert Island tonight to talk about my new book God and the Devil at War in the Garden, and discuss the Conversation Gardening project, including what the question was for which the drawing below is an answer:
I'll be showing a few more of these 'question and answer' drawings and doing a slide reading as well. Come say hi.