REFLECTING SPARROW

I suppose you could say this sparrow is"reflecting" in the mossy water. You could. But if you look close, this little dude has a distant look in his eye. Permit me a little anthropomorphization (one of my favorite words. Look it up): he's reflecting on his life thus far, wondering where the time went. Life is short, especially for a little bird. And harsh if you're not rare. Why couldn't I have been an ivory-billed woodpecker, or better yet, a resplendent quetzal? If you cut me, do I not bleed? asks the sparrow. Alas, he's experiencing life as what some would call a Junk Bird. Harsh indeed.

Or perhaps I'm projecting. The sparrow is probably looking at a bug, saying "mmm. Food."

And just to show I do sometimes paint before ink, here's a Work In Progress pic:

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JOE THE LUNCH LADY

I think there are more New Yorkers in the South than Southerners, and they're all living in my apartment community. One neighbor (who moved from Jersey, but is from the Bronx) is Joe. Couldn't possibly be a nicer guy; as we chatted while I was jumping in the trash compactor (not for fun - it's part of my job. But, it is fun...) I learn he's a retired super and was hoping to get a little extra income working at a school cafeteria.

"You're gonna be a lunch lady?" I asked.

"Yeah," he laughed, "but I'm not gonna wear a dress."

"I don't know..." I reply, "there might be a dress code. Things are formal down here."

Don't worry, Joe. I didn't put you in a dress. But you are wearing a hairnet.

Here's how I did it:

The preliminary sketches


Then I lightly draw the image on the card


Add more ink detail


And then the final picture, as you see above.

Sometimes I go the other way - I paint first, then ink it. I'm unpredictable - just ask my parole officer.

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BOXER #4

I don't have much luck selling ACEOs of boxers. And yet I persist. Like this guy. He's been beaten up pretty badly, but won't stay down. Will he beat the odds?

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LEFTY IN A BOX

I have a friend, let's call him ErroneousSquash, who took ballet classes growing up. ES would always regale me with ballet horror stories as I was doing manly things, like crushing cans on my head. Apparently, ballet instructors have no patience for bad dancers and would devise sadistic means of punishing offending students. One time ES failed to execute a passable Pas de Bourrée (italics look French to me) and was put in the Box Of Torment.

It was really unfair, I must say. ES has two left feet. No, really. Look:



Is this a sad tale of youthful hardship, or a bizarre justification for a drawing error that went unnoticed until the paint started to dry?

You be the judge.

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RUN, PERCY, RUN!

Please note my support for Percy Walker's run for Congress on my sidebar. Normally I don't do the voting thing, as I find the majority to be wrong about everything. But, he said he'll get the Weatherspoon Art Museum to have a show featuring ME if I add his banner to my site.

So click on his picture to learn his political blah blah blah. I want trendy people sipping boxed wine as they mill about my tiny art, commenting approvingly.

Well, Percy Hater, what do you have to say about that? The ball is in your court. You know that a PW HJ alliance will pave a smooth road to Congress. No amount of ACEO defacing can stop us now.

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BAD CHAIRS

Here are the chair doodles I was talking about. Not sure why they turned out so, I dunno, so blech. But I show them to you anyway, dear reader, to keep my humble. When you're as good looking, talented, charming, intelligent, physically fit, and good looking as I am, humility is the perfect icing on the cake.

Here they are:









I know, that last one doesn't have any chairs. They're just doodles that were doodled when I was supposed to be doodling chairs.

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ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: TOTAL (FREAK)

I was in art class. The assignment: draw a curvy rocking chair on display. I was failing miserably. So when the teacher wasn't looking, I doodled whatever came to mind. This is what came out.

I will accept psychological evaluations in the comments section.

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ROCKING TOWHEE

Because Rockin Robin would have been too easy.

And, the picture that inspired the image is of a towhee, not a robin.

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LEAN GREEN SEWING MACHINE

Hello, Vintage Sewing Enthusiasts. Let me introduce to you the LEAN GREEN SEWING MACHINE, or at least an artistic representation of it. Here's the story:

Back in the early 1900's, a crazy mad scientist named Wolfgang Von Thimble was ahead of his time in the field of biotechnology. He thought regular industrial machines were brutish and dead. He was positive that machines cross-bred with animals was surely the way of the future.

The LEAN GREEN SEWING MACHINE is the natural offspring of a sewing machine and an alligator.

Oddly, his inventions never took. I blame the Feds.

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PERCY DEFACED!!!

Percy Walker, my BILLIONAIRE patron (can I still call him my patron if he lets himself get outbid on my art by his nemesis?), alerted me to this tragedy. I am humiliated. Percy Hater must be behind this somehow.

I don't understand why my patron is targeted by so many people. Why am I being dragged into this? Forget me - why is my ART being dragged into this?

The worst thing about this whole episode is that - and I fight back tears as I write this - I can't help but feel the defacer has IMPROVED my masterpiece.

I am conflicted.

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ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: WIRE

Because you guys aren't paying THOUSANDS of dollars for my aceos (yet... bwa ha ha ha), I have to have a day job. Thanks, guys. That day job is Groundskeeper/Maintenance trainee. I am learning a lot of good skills, I gotta say. Fixing faucets, changing water heater elements, what happens to the bodies of dead birds. You know, life skills.

The answer to that last one, by the way, is the Groundskeeper finds them, calls his birdwatching wife, tells her what he thinks it is, she sighs irritably at his lack of bird identification skills, and says, "I'll have to see it. Bag it."

Here's how that transaction went the last time:

Me: I found a weird looking dead bird. I think it was killed by a paintball. It has a crest, a cardinal-like mask, bigger than a titmouse, a little smaller than a robin.

Her: A crest, mask, wait a minute - what? A Paintball?

Me: Yeah. There's this fleck of neon orange paint on it's wing.

Her: Are you and your maintenance buddies running around with paintball guns all day, shooting at birds?

Me: No! I swear! I promise I'm not paintballing on the job. Anymore.

Her: Sigh (irritably). Bring it to me.

Turns out it wasn't paint. It was a Cedar Waxwing. They have a little neon pink waxy tip to their wings. No one knows why for sure.

Here are a couple of work in progress pics:

First layer of watercolor over the sketch



More detail, ready for HJoshy inkiness

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ANOTHER SLEEPING DOG SKETCH

This is what Happy looks like around 10pm.

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SLEEPING DOG WITH BALL

Here's my dog, Happy.



Here's a quick sketch in my notebook of her sleeping.



Here's the beginning stages of the watercolored aceo.



Then I inked it all up, to make it all HJoshy and stuff.



So, that's my dreaming dog, and the journey from a doodle to an aceo for sale on ebay.

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PINK FROG

A day just like the day before
The fly flies by
Oblivious to what's in store

Today is not the same at all
The frog feels ill
He drank his fill of Pepto-Bismol

His upset tummy has him beaten
The frog is pink,
The fly is safe from being eaten.

Here's a pic from the work in progress:

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ARMED FROG

I cleaned up this one a bit.

Yes, it's an ARMED FROG ... wearing an old-timey swimsuit. Why? To summarize Aesop:

Boys throw stones at frogs for enjoyment. Frogs say, yo, dude, this activity may be fun for you, but it's killing us.

That's it. The whole fable.

Moral:
What's fun for you might have bad consequences for others.

My take:
If the frogs were well armed, this wouldn't be an issue. I'm thinking payback. Give the frogs appropriate weapons, like guns and machetes, and the boys will will have to find other means of amusement.

And the swimsuit? Fashion, baby. Fashion.

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DEBUFFET-ISH PINK CAT

You knew it would happen eventually.

In my art education travels, I find masters who inspire me. Debuffet, who's all "three dimensions are for suckers," (I might be paraphrasing a bit) makes for a great Kitty experiment. No depth. Two dimensional. Haphazardly, even chaotically, put together. Not entirely unlike me. And yet... and yet you love kitty, don't you?

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ART CLASS SCRIBBLES

More pencil sketches! Are you thrilled?

Voila. Now I gotta go to the gym to hit things.

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SIR PERCY AND THE DRAGON

The dragon, of course, is a symbol for Hedge Fund Regulation.

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THANKS, QUEEN!

It turns out that Percy Walker, local BILLIONAIRE, is a knight. Apparently his nemesis, known only as Percy Hater, has a problem with American knights being called "Sir." It's against the Geneva Convention or something. Personally, I don't care. I'm calling him Sir. Sir Percy, Knight of the Bipedal Mode Of Transportation, Regulation Slayer, Really Really Rich Dude.

The title? According to legend, upon being knighted Percy succinctly yet poetically exclaimed, "Thanks, Queen!"

Here's a close up:



Doesn't really look like him, but hey. I'm an artist. I've captured his AURA.

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HIDING GEISHA

Emperor Nobunaga has been a real pain lately. "Read me more poetry! Serve me tea! Make intelligent conversation!" Dude. Chill.

What's a geisha to do? Make like a panda and hide in the bamboo.

Yes, smarty, I know geishas are from Japan and pandas are from China. Give a guy a little poetic liberty, why don't you? It's not like I tried to rhyme "station" with "direction" or something equally ghastly.

What's that, you say? You want a Haiku? What do I look like, a geisha? Sigh. Fine.

Attention craving
Mama's boy with great power
Sun rises, moon sets.

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