Bubbles. It's how stuff moves around.

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Graphite pencil, India ink, watercolor, crayons on Bristol board, approx. 6"x4.75"

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Cracker Lamp RGB

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Pigma Micron 005 in 5x3.5" sketchbook.

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Therapy Bridge

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Pigma Micron in 5x3.5" sketchbook. So titled in reference to an exchange Nicola and I had last time acknowledging the therapeutic effect of artwork. The conversation sorta stuck with me so I thought I might oughta get me some this morning. It worked.
That's actually not a "bridge," per se, but the walk over the ditch in front of Mom's house. And no, I didn't squat down in the ditch to do this; it's from a photo I took about this time last year, and it's a lot easier on my old joints to hunker down for a snap than it would have been for the 40 minutes or so I worked on this. 😉

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...departed

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Pigma Micron in 3.5x5.0 sketch book. "Departed" just came to me as something to call it in the files, I guess since the building depicted is all that's left of the old mall. That's the remains of the old Sears store, and where I'm sitting is probably about where the food court was. I was drawn to the science-fictiony post apocalyptic look, which may be just in my imagination due to the absence of what I know used to be there, 'cause I don't see it in the sketch.
I also don't see proper perspective on the building; I let my hand drift up toward the right when it should have been angling slightly down; a beginner's mistake that creeps back in when you haven't drawn at all in almost a year...due to 'difficult' situations...that I'm looking into...
A bitter irony is that drawing and painting shore me up, help me cope in the face of 'difficult situations', better than anything else(almost?) yet that's often the first thing, the first activity I tend to drop when these kind of situations arise. Perhaps I need to strategize...

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PS: Just in case there might still be someone out there who doesn't know, you can see a larger version of the sketch by clicking on it. I just like it better smaller.

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(Hey Google, you need to update your spellcheck. It thinks "strategize" is not a word.)

Sans-Pentimenti Rear View Cartoon

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Next page in the new 5.5x8.5" sketchbook, after Underhedge; without guide-line pencil this time and the result looks kinda cartoony to me, but that's ok. Mainly, I learned something: If I want it to look like I want it to look, I better use the pencil undersketch. Or else be ready to explore sans-pentimenti, that is, without any chance for corrections. Could be interesting...
Meanwhile, this is both an entry in a long standing personal tradition (more of which has been posted   HERE   ), and a bit of a break from same, in that previous "rear-views" have always been from life whereas this one is from a photo. Well, I was sitting at an intersection --busy, I should say-- waiting on the light to change.

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Underhedge

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No, it's not a Hobbit. It's where the Fairy Folk play--well, one place they play--although I didn't see any, I could feel them watching me, laughing derisively 'cause instead of staying and playing, I was 'busy' making pictures...

My new 5.5x8.5" sketchbook with one of the photos I used. Just getting started with the pencil "underpainting"; guidlines, you might say, for the ink to come...

The finished sketch-in...

And my first hour long inking session. At least an hour...

More, maybe two hours...

From here on the "sessions" get hazy. I'm working on it every time I turn around...

Til finally:   Underhedge
5.5x8.5" sketchbook page, various technical pens over pencil, from photos I took in the back yard. I learned a lesson from this project: Don't mix brands of pen! Unless you do it uniformly I guess, with the different types of ink all over the page, but in sections the variations in ink quality can really show up. I was able to save this piece by going back over everything, almost, with one type of ink and re-establishing some uniformity, but it really shook me up about three quarters of the way through, when I realized Eberhard-Faber Uniball ink is warmer and shinier than Pilot Precise V5 ink. My terror was relieved by going back over the disparate areas with Pigma Micron, my drawing pen of choice from now on.
Oh, in case anyone wonders, 'cause it's a common question, "How long did it take you?" there were about six sessions of at least an hour each, and more like two or three hrs.+ on two or three of them. I finally called it quits about 1:00am this morning...

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Burning Fields Walk

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First page in a new 3.5x5" sketchbook, with a Pigma Micron 005. Really fine lines gave me a good chance but smoke is hard with pen. Pencil would have been easier. Fun trying though.

I also had a little camera along...

This was my first clue that fields were burning on down 8th Ave. You can see the haze in the distance, where the grass meets the trees.

It was really rolling across here, back by the horses. By their whinnies and snorts I don't think they liked it.

Finally on the scene. As evinced by the truck pulling tanks, there were plenty of people around keeping an eye on things.

Like fog in a horror movie...

Humans weren't the only ones around though. This little gal tagged along for a while.

 Outta control! But all it's heading for is a ditch full of water.

Not sure what that's bales of but...it ain't no more. Held the picture down well for the smoke rolling across in the background, I reckon.

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