When I draw at The Met, there are heads lying about everywhere. Nothing attached, just lots of heads. Then there is this nicely dressed body without, you guessed it, a head. Maybe each week they could put a different head on the headless guy’s torso. I know they can do it digitally, just like Colorforms. Young people won’t know what the hell Colorforms are. Showing my age.
I See Squirrels
Back to the Botanical Gardens to draw a cherry tree with my friend Stephen Petronis. Just like the young character, Cole, in the movie Sixth Sense, who sees dead people everywhere, I see squirrels everywhere. My friend claimed there weren’t any around but you can plainly see I must have seen something looking back at me.
Twigs
When I was recently in the Adirondacks to look up in the sky at the solar eclipse, I spent the rest of the time looking down at the ground to find stuff for this drawing. There were no flowers yet, it was the tail end of winter objects everywhere. I made do.
Cherry Bomb
I drew this cherry tree in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens before the blossoms come out. For once I didn’t make any observations that I could make witty comments about.
Met
I was drawing in The Met with my friend, Steve Petronis. A group of 7-year-old girls surrounded us. They told their parents they wanted to draw too. The parents came prepared with paper and colored pencils. Seemed they’d done this before. The five girls sat at our feet and drew. One insisted on sketching 4 inches away from me. At one point, she turned to me and asked, “how are you drawing in 3-D?” Made me laugh. She was drawing the outlines of flowers. I asked if I could draw on her sketch. She approved. So, I shaded one of her drawings and made it come to life. Her face lit up with recognition. Then she went right back to her drawing, ignoring everything I told her.
Naked Granny
Recently in life drawing class, the model was an elderly grandmother. She kept smiling at everyone like we were her grandkids. It seemed odd that such an old woman wanted to pose nude but who am I to judge. She gave me a warm feeling because she was so calm and happy every moment of the session. It sort of felt like I had gone over to a friend’s house and their grandmother just happened to be sitting nude in the living room. No one seemed to notice or care so I just went with the flow.
Hairless Dog
For those who follow my artwork, you must be as confused as I am when a drawing like this suddenly pops up. I’m never quite sure where these come from. Maybe it's those many years creating images for advertising and hanging out with major photographers who made the ideas come to life. The thing about being a creative director is that 99% of all the creative images I came up with never saw the light of day. They were mostly all dead on arrival. Rejected even before being presented to the client. Most concepts I did were to impress other art directors in meetings, who were about to present their own work. All of which were to be killed, except for the very rare survivor. After seeing what was in my brain, other art directors always gave me the side glances. In the words of the Mandalorian, “this is the way.”
Life On Our Planet
I watched a fascinating eight-part series on Netflix called, Life On Our Planet. It is the history of earth told using incredible CGI voiced by Morgan Freeman and produced by Spielberg. It perfectly explains our world’s five mass extinctions. I was so engrossed that I ended up watching it twice. I highly recommend viewing. I was inspired to do this drawing of all the crazy mixed up creatures that have evolved, died and re-evolved over hundreds of millions of years.
The Genius of Birds
I’m reading “The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman. It’s about how intelligent birds are, especially certain species. Gabi Mann, an eight-year old Seattle girl began feeding crows when she was four. She’d leave them peanuts on a tray in her backyard. After the peanuts were consumed, trinkets began to show up on the tray: an earring, screws, hinges, buttons, crab claw, and her favorite thing, an opalescent white heart. Leaving gifts suggests that crows understand the benefit of reciprocating past acts that have benefitted them and also that they anticipate future rewards. How amazing is that?
Acrylic Ink Painting
The next painting in my acrylic ink series is a broccoli lighter and a pot of brussels sprouts tea. I’m sure everyone anticipated this one coming down the pike. A natural progression. Most of you can now probably predict what I’m going to paint next. It’s fairly easy to guess.
Blue Lobster
I was going to suggest to the Museum of Natural History that they do a few real dioramas based on my, “Future of the Ocean Floor” series. It may freshen things up around the old joint. I have a feeling they might revoke my membership for blasphemy. Grammer school kids would appreciate what I’m going for though.
The Met
I’ve been reading a biography of the Italian painter, Caravaggio by Andrew Graham-Dixon. My obsession with his work has grown since seeing several of his paintings in Roman churches recently. I happened to be up to the part in his life where he was working on his final two paintings before his untimely death. I was engrossed in this chapter as I was on the subway heading to Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to draw. The Museum actually owns the second to last painting he did in its permanent collection. So, there I was standing in front of it. Funny how that happens in life sometimes. After spending time with the piece titled, “The Denial of Saint Peter,” I went off to draw statues in the Met. On a side note, Caravaggio never did any drawings in his life.
Natural History
Kids always approach me when I’m sketching at the Museum of Natural History and ask me the exact same question. “Are you drawing?” It’s very disarming even though it's very obvious that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not sure how they all seem to have come up with that very question. It breaks the ice and we do get to chatting until I have to answer the same question 10 minutes later from some other kid. Keeps me on my toes while I scribble though.
