I used to pretend I could find my way home by the moss on the trees, or the leaves of the compass plant in the prairie. That was my Illinois. A grassland spotted with rivers and forests. An existence on the verge of a great adventure.
But that was Illinois and this is California.
I don’t recognize many of the plants here, and I don’t know any wives tales about them. I can’t find any discernable moss on any part of a tree around here.
There are a lot of long nights of highway driving between where I write these words, and where I was born to do so. highway homesick blues.
Hearts and ideas going by like the tops of the telephone poles through the window while you lay on your back across the whole backseat while your friend drives.
Driving across the country I grew up in helped me fall in love with a whole planet.
To be embraced and cared for. Fragile like eggs in a backpack full of hatchets.
I’d heard it sung:
“Picture a bright blue ball,
Just spinnin’, spinnin, free.
Dizzy with the possibilities.”
Too look over my shoulder tonight at Illinois and all it taught me, It leaves me feeling blessed for this opportunity to try my hand at an age old craft, and with my time, give something to the world to help it see it’s own beauty tied into the thread of our life in Earth’s natural kingdom. And California seems a fine place, with great biodiversity…..and The Grateful Dead are from here so yeah.
Messing around with a new-to-me technology. Over the coming weeks I’ll be assembling a series of time lapse recordings of several different drawing projects.
I spend a large amount of my free time behind this sheet of plywood drawing out what dreams or visions I can catch in my head.
The time I spend here brings me peace when I’m at unrest.
Here my roots come up through the asphalt of California.
I’m always interested in a way to further share my perspective on the important beauty of our natural world.
This shows promise.
Rain finally bouncing off the leaves on the tree outside my window. We’ve had a dry winterless winter in much of California. I can hear the grasses on the hills around growing and smiling. Hopefully its enough to keep the whole joint from burning up in wildfire come summer. Rain falls outside, I draw pictures inside. With a gallon of orange juice and a new pen in hand.
Owls are a favorite subject of mine to observe, sketch, and marvel at. The Snowy Owl is one I have not seen personally. Seems we just don’t share the same territory. I didn’t spend much time in the U.P. in the winter time, which is probably the only place we’d have met.
Snowy owl small watercolor illustration study.
If one spends lot of time studying something you can pick up on its habits I reckon. Seeing as another Saturday night finds me again writing about, sketching, and coloring drawings of owls. While many of my peers are out at bars, clubs, and the like, I’m on my own perch hunting for the right color and series of lines to track down my wintery bird.
And that’s all right by me.
Barn Owl (Tyto Alba).
It’s been since December that I’ve shared any of my acrylic work. I started this a few months ago and put the finishing touches on it last night. It will be up at a gallery in town here next month.
Working with acrylic versus my usual pen and watercolor brings out a different side of my illustration approach. Paint can allow for a texture otherwise impossible to achieve in pen. I use this concept as my guide for composition and colors. I can exaggerate the colors and light with this medium which I think helps it stand up on its own as a composition.
One of my earliest memories is of my father waking me up one summer in Michigan to see the Northern Lights. That sky has stuck in my brain all these years. As such I wanted to the sky in this piece to hold as much power and emphasis as the bird.
The bird here is a Barn Owl. One of my top 5 favorite birds to illustrate and watch. Every few nights I go out on my bike outside town with lights and ride along fence lines. I usually see at least one Barn Owl per ride. It’s exciting to spot one, often their in flight, or atop a power line pole. Silently scanning the fields for dinner.
Their wings cut with silence through the air. A ghost like face, and beautiful glow. Like no other bird I’ve seen.
Crow sits on a pen drawn branch.
I made this with a couple pens the other evening. I had the radio on and it played a song I liked a long time ago.
I enjoying the crows I see around town. This morning on my way to work I watched one dropping a walnut from the power lines above into the street below. His crow friends were watching and chattering loudly. All eyeing up his bounty, waiting for a car to unlock the goods. As soon as it did all alliances were voided in the chase for survival. Such as the deeds are all ways done day to day, whether we see it or not.
I see a lot of human traits in the crows around here and everywhere I’ve traveled. They chase each other like children on a playground. Holler loudly at passer byers like a drunk down town. Stand stoic like a poet lost in thought.
They embody well the poems with wings I strive to pin down on a page. Black as the night, but full of color.
Assassin Bug finals.
I made this last week sometime and forgot to post it.
Red-shoulder Hawk.
Zone-tailed Hawk.
farnco illustrations 