love

Bound to cover just a little more ground

February 11, 2015 — Leave a comment

The chair and desk I’ve drawn you all these birds at is getting packed into the back of my truck. In just a few days I’m heading north on 101 to a city by the bay. The idea of which fills my head and heart with a thousand emotions.

I can’t see the future. Not even with all the fortune cookies I’ve had over the years, but I predict if you will: This move will send ripples through my artwork. “Positive Vibrations” to quote a Rastafarian I heard singing on a record player once.

I guess though, like everything else in life, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The uncertainty is the fuel for my hearts fire and I throw my hat over the wall and climb to go fetch it.

Thank you for your continued support (letting me waste your time with crudely drawn birds and Grateful Dead quotes).

 

One of the last few sketches put down here in these four walls. Between packing boxes and filling out paperwork I made good time for another Owl friend.

One of the last few sketches put down here in these four walls. Between packing boxes and filling out paperwork I made good time for another Owl friend.

If I could, I’d give you the world in its own wings.

October 9, 2014 — Leave a comment
In July I had completed my first large (2’x4′) hawk drawing on plywood when it occurred to me, I could put words into the wings. The question I had was, what words?
It seemed Two words would be the best place to start. A word for each wing. Ok that was easy enough, but which two words?
So I thought it over for a few months. It got pushed to the back burner for a while.
Other interesting projects came and went across my drawing desk.
A recent voyage across the United States, took me from California, to Denver, to the prairies of northern Illinois.
I met my newborn Nephew, and forged many great new connections. I also connected with the roots from which I grew.
I was standing on the East bank of the Fox River, when the proper two words found me.
I didn’t bother to write them down, Instead with my mind I put them in my back pocket. Because I knew since they had arisen, they would never leave, or fall out of my pocket.
So I took the two words home with me back to California, where I put them into a hawks wings and let it go back into the world.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this with you. It absolutely means the world to me.

Another night, wood grained black and white.

June 25, 2014 — Leave a comment

I owe you something with color in it. I know, it’s been some time. Well, another night will pass without watercolor. I finished my fourth flying hawk on plywood. This is a Broad-winged Hawk. Found east of the Rockies.

There is a story that ties me to every bird I draw, sometimes it requires 6 degrees of separation, sometimes it’s tied into the very tail feathers. With my time pen in hand I’ve been working on writing all these connections down. So that I might better illustrate everything better.

Call it a self portrait in words and birds.

Broadwingedhawk.jpg

 

One step done, another begun.

May 26, 2014 — Leave a comment

I wonder how many miles…

Sitting on my chair again, to get to the point of writing you here I pass through some places on the internet. On my way here I read some further accounts of some events that gave my heart the weight of lead. That’s one of the good reasons to draw lots of birds, because you can call em all up to pick you up. or at the very least come to realize you have an Ornithological sketch hoarding issue…

woodenpieces.jpg

 

“Spent a little time on the mountain
Spent a little time on the hill
I saw things getting out of hand
I guess they always will

I don’t know but I been told
if the horse don’t pull you got to carry the load
I don’t know whose back’s that strong
Maybe find out before too long

One way or another
One way or another
One way or another
this darkness got to give”

-Robert Hunter, The Grateful Dead.

To fall down the drawing table’s rabbit hole again.

April 15, 2014 — Leave a comment
Eight hours of drawing tiny lines with a Micron pen bought me these branches, bird, and flower
If such a thing could be bought, this would be how.
My time.
My eye sees it finished before the pen touches cold-press.
While I draw the thought of a lost love rolls through my mind like an old covered wagon,
scrub-brush tangled in the wheels, and the image flickers.
I often travel all the way through the image and into some other place right while sitting still pen in hand.
I can see the songs I love to hear in them, and I can hear the places I like to visit.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a drawing of a Red-tail or a Wren, a mountain range or cellular structure.
If I can catch a glimpse of it, I’ll give my all to put it to page.
Sometimes it’s on wing, and sometimes the branches are empty.
birdonbranchesfinished.jpg

Don’t think twice,

February 18, 2014 — Leave a comment

It’s all right.

perchedhawkpencil.jpg

I like the mornings where the fog makes its way into town. The path of the day is gray.

My favorite sound is of a snowplow driving down my old street at 3am in January.

That’s why I love the trains at the station here at the dead of night.

I came to California for mountains and fair-weather romance.

I was sure about the mountains, the other snuck up on me.

I like to draw birds because I believe doing so preserves my family history.

I don’t mind washing dishes, unless bbq sauce is burned onto something like a cookie sheet.

While I prefer dry socks, I love rain storms.

Books are fun to read then stack, when the stack falls. read ’em again.

I like songs with instruments played by people in them.

Breaking glass is sort of a jerk thing to do.

There are things I’ve learned following old musicians around on tour that nothing else could have taught me.

beautiful, important, childish, historic things.

I like the smell of coffee, but the taste not as much.

The only thing I like to get over my head in, is an Illinois prairie.

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