Some sketches ...

~ ... from late this year, all at once, before it's next year already. All on location at parks in the area, all on 3.5x5" sketchbook, with drawing pencils or Pigma Micron pen.

   Mistake: the "on location" part isn't 100%; the second one, the rearview mirror shot was made from a photo. But I did make the photo myself, on location, in the park.

 ~

Lake Log

 

6B pencil in 5.5 x 8.5" sketchbook. Log at lake's edge. I was drawn to how the texture of the bark defined the raking of the light across the shape of it.

A friend on FB said she thought it was a gator at first. I can see that, but what a hoot 'n' a holler that would be in northeast Arkansas!
 

 

 

 Okay, I just had to turn off Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox to get this to work, to load an image. Feels like manipulation. This may not fly either ...

Doppio

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“On the exoteric level the traditions are irreconcilable. On the esoteric, experiential level of the heart reigns an eloquent, reverential silence.”
― Frederick Franck, A Little Compendium on That Which Matters 

6b pencil in 3.5x5" sketchbook

Then and Now

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8.5x11 pencil drawing of a warehouse I did one evening back in 1980, I believe. So. 3rd Ave. and East Court in Paragould. It was still in use back then...

Not so anymore. This is a snap I took of the same place just the other day.

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Yin/Yang Climbing Tree

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8x10" oil on canvas, en plein air, 1996. Following are some photos from just the other day.

Are we all getting broader, and losing limbs...?

No photo of it, but it's hollow inside too...

Had a strange psychological experience when I first saw this and the next one. A flood of information that seemed to cover about the last 24 hrs. or so, like a gate opened up, and it was like waking up from a dream sort of, where certain images or aspects really grab your attention and then there's more and you can't hang on to it and then, what the hell was that? Shortly thereafter I became nauseous and nearly passed out. Like I said, strange...

Did I inadvertently photograph the tree's aura? Something weird there, kinda like psychedelics...

Anyway I finally...

...made my way around to the light again.

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Backyard Studio

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12x9" oil on canvas, 1993. The only time I've ever had a studio space that was not an extra bedroom--it was half of an unused storage shed out back of a house I was renting. Barely big enough to get my stuff in and set up, I found it really focused the mind, maybe because there wasn't room to do anything else in there but paint/draw.
My day job was on the afternoon/evening shift so I'd get up early and walk out in the back yard to my "studio" before going in to the job.
This piece is one of my best on location, or en plein air paintings to date. I just turned around from my usual orientation and did the view out the door--the only door--across our and the neighbors' back yards. By "best" I don't necessarily mean composition 'cause being too literal I included the slanted door facing, but on execution of observation I'm really pleased with it.

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