Draw!

Time out from writing. I spent last night sketching instead, with friends – and their incredible burgers – at The Tallest Poppy (my stars, so many good things right there in one sentence). A fluctuating crew over the course of perhaps a half-dozen outings in the last couple of years, it's been decreed we amp up our number of events. Hopefully, the next one happens sooner than three months away – we'll make it so. We've now been labeled "The Draw Mob", so the pressure is now on to live up to the moniker.

I drew a pair of quick jobbies during the beers and banter. One sketch, entirely inspired by current weather patterns. Another, purely for the sake of drawing a dude chowing on a chocolate bar (and decidedly non-seasonal). These were completed with a black brush pen and some grey markers in my minuscule 4X6 Tintin sketchbook.

281: Aboo

Scout broke our brains today. It's not been the best spring outside this year, and I think she senses it – especially after we'd made all manner of wild promises and vivid descriptions of this thing called summer. Tonight she finally called bullshit and let us have it – and with cold, wind and rain hemming us in from outside, we had no choice but to cower in the attic on our Pilates ball as she howled.

It's my duty to get Scout to sleep for the night; it's the closest thing I have to a magic touch. First Kerry induces her into a 'milk coma', then I wrap Scout in her pod (a nice way to describe what is essentially a straight-jacket). Tonight the coma did not happen, and I set to the laborious procedure from scratch, of getting her from crankypants to conked. She wailed, flailed, and then – as if declaring truce – she halted her fit, gazed at me and mewed aboo. She relaxed, and was out cold a few minutes later.

Scout's aboo is among her cutest accomplishments in life. It happens every now and then, often while being held. I immortalized it in ink, in this doodle I created for Kerry's Mothers Day card – the only bout of drawing I've managed in the 105 days since she's arrived on the scene.

264: The Leaf Charmer

This was fun. This fellow and his leafy prey is about an hour's work all-told; output from last night's meetup with good friends Allan and Chris at Pop Soda's Coffeehouse (and brief after-party at my pad). The three of us had hooked up on a couple of other man-date occasions to talk shop – and decided for "ManDate III: The Reckoning" that there would be instruments of sketch destruction involved. It was some mid-week loosey-goosey catharsis.

As to where the idea came from for the drawing, I have absolutely no frickin' idea.

Check here to see a more detailed look.

260: Brushing Up

Up late-late at night, dickering with a recently-doodled office-meeting doodle and trying out some freshly downloaded freebie Photoshop brushes from Chris Wahl (I think it's set seven, if you're scrolling through his wares). Please click here for a crisper, better view.

And now I am zonked. Good night, all.

252: Hybridized

In an attempt to even draw a little bit these days, I signed up to make an appearance with my friend Mary's Doodle Swap Project, which previously I'd only done once before... wait, no – twice.

So yes, I joined in, tasked with producing seven small cards to be sent out across the universe, in exchange for seven in return, from various locations within the same universe (one keener had already arrived before mine even hit the post office).

I realize I'm cheating a bit by resorting to found art for half the concept, but during our trip in Chicago we popped into a paper/craft store and I stumbled on a whole bucket of 90-cent old-timey bird identification flashcards. And I knew then what I had to do.

I had to draw fish heads on them.

Shown here are six of the seven. I'd show the seventh one, but really, the gist is here. You'll have to trust me in that the seventh was of a bird, with a fish head.

I believe it was a rainbow trout.

250: Don't Do What Donny Don't Does

I squeezed in a recent fun bit of freelance illustration for a poster concept, and while I hesitate showing the whole thing, these two excerpts were the best part – and an opportunity for me to get in some much-needed drawing time. The task was to illustrate four basic rules supplied by Parks Canada for tourists to abide by while riding the giant Tundra Buggies out of Churchill. I had nowhere to go but up; current "posters" plastered about the buggies are laminated letter-sized sheets simply listing the four rules aided by a bear silhouette.

Pretty straightforward: don't litter. Don't harass the bears, or lure the bears. The fourth rule, though – no using devices that enable cameras to be placed under or beside vehicles – seems oddly particular. I was told this happens; enough obviously, for a rule. The buggies are high, I know that. High enough to keep juicy tourists out of reach from Earth's largest land carnivores. Remembering that ultimately this required sign-off from government, I shelved concepts involving a fishing pole or elaborate steampunk contraption, and rolled with my big-schnozzed fella simply dangling a camera tied to his scarf.

The Greatest Works Of Art Mankind Has Ever Known

Experts of paleontology rarely debate the existence of prehistoric superwaterfowl, whom I believe waddled the earth during the late Jurassic epoch and the early stages of avian lifeforms. These illustrations – on grid paper no less, thus chockablock with scientific merit – depict a savage territorial battle between Aythya valisineria amplus and an unidentified carnivorous theropod.


The small, silhouetted airplane-like shapes are indeed 1920s bi-planes; they have been included in these illustrations only for effect, in that they make the scenes more epic.

Modern Man

Exhibit A: the Monday morning meeting doodle.

I read books, and magazines. I unfold, scan, and re-fold highway maps. I look in the phone book. I call Tele-Bus. I record 30 Rock with a VCR. I take photos with a camera. I go outside to play. I sketch first with a pencil, then use a pen. I spend most of my days in InDesign. I've never owned a cell phone. Or smart phone. Or whatever they're called. But so far as I know, I think I nailed the essence of them here, in all of 30 seconds it took me to ink this sucker out...

Without using a pencil first. Oops.