Definition Of Poop...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
Personally, this one’s kinda ugly and lifeless. But I’m sketchin’ for the sake of sketchin’ today because I hear Brother Drawing Funk pecking at my door. I figure if I put something on the page, perhaps he’ll pass me by.

And since this IS a journal, I feel compelled to put the poop down as well. BTW, “poop” is a sort of unsatisfying attempt at creativity. (my definition.)

Further Comments:
“Poop” may seem like a strong word in this context.
Think “shucks”, “darn”, “dang-it” or “dad-burn”. An expression of self-dissatisfaction or the enduring of a mild but unpleasant experience.
And since sketching is supposed to be a good and fulfilling experience for us…when it isn’t, I usually think “poop”.

I hope that clarifies it a bit.

Sheep Creek Geological Loop, Utah

Sketch Text:
I took a little road trip to see a part of Utah I’d never visited. It turned out to be a 700 mile loop by the time I got back home.

Hint: If you don’t like to drive, don’t go to Utah.
Hint 2: If you like rocks & Dinosaurs, go to Utah. There’s plenty of both.

The scenery was both beautiful and monotonous. I thought the rocks in this little loop [Sheep Creek Geological Loop] were amazing. A billion years exposed.

Additional Comments:
Mother Earth is truly amazing and unfathomably old. Utah provides many areas where Earth’s geology is exposed, showing literally billions of years of rock layers visible in one scene. I find it fascinating, but also hard to grasp…out of reach. I’ll say this: spending a few days around these truly ancient rocks made me feel very, very fortunate to be here for my own little speck of time.

Roadside Tubs...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
I was driving home from the grocery store and these plastic tubs were sitting by the road near a driveway. I thought the colors were unusual for plastic tubs and they just looked kinda cool…like somebody arranged them to look kinda cool.

But that would be silly wouldn’t it?…

I'm Being Watched...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
Outside my front door there lies a field of sagebrush and grass. Here and there one can see small mounds of dirt piled around holes in the ground. In the early morning these little sentries will stand at their post atop the mounds.

When I open the door to leave for work, all the little black eyes turn their attention to me…and stare. They watch me walk to the Jeep.

These are the neighbors. The ones I’ve never met. The quiet ones…that are always up before me…always watching me. Sometimes I wonder if they know something I don’t…like the location of the coyote poop I’m walking directly toward as I stride to the car.

I am entertainment for Prairie Dogs.

Country Roads

I was looking through some image archives on the laptop and came across this little imaginary scene I painted in 2008. I thought about its peaceful beckoning to take a walk, drive…or even a life’s journey.

For me I think, it’s about a journey.
How fortunate I am to still be taking one.
How much of a gift the journey is. It is after all a miracle of odds that we are each here being us.

As a frame of reference for me, the caves at Lascaux in southwestern France have paint covered hand prints and animal drawings on the walls that are dated to 14,500 years B.C.
Humans go back even further of course. But I can relate to hand prints and animal drawings in a cave.

So beginning at just 14,500 years ago provides an enormous amount of time for one little thing to go wrong in one’s lineage. But for you and me, nothing did. For you and me to be here…taking this journey…male and female had to meet and mate, create a healthy child, that child had to meet a mate, create a healthy child…on and on and on. The beginning of it all we really don’t know. Certainly well prior to 14,500 years ago.

Considering all that can happen to take a person’s life…thus breaking the chain…earthquakes, accidents, violence, disease…it’s pretty dang special that unique and very long path that has lead to you and me coming to be. One little instance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for any person in that long chain of mating…and neither you nor I would have ever popped out of a womb and become who we are.

It conjures up images of all those lives if you think about it. The journeys they took.

Makes me appreciate my journey. Good or bad, each day is a gift

Power Pole Art...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
I know what you’re thinkin’…

“He’s lost it Harold! Come look! Poor Don is out drawing power poles on his day off…bless his heart! He needs help Harold! What can we do?

Fear not dear reader. I’m o.k.
I simply find power poles are a form of utilitarian sculpture…created by regular Joes just like you and me except for the chewin’ tobacco.

If you pay attention to them as you drive, you’ll find them to possess a great deal of character…even beauty in their complexity.

Some are very simple. Some are loaded with so much stuff one wonders if it’s not a storage pole or somethin’. They are really fun to draw and wonder over. Somebody assembles them and raises them to the sky for a living!

Further Comments:
If you think about it…an enormous amount of raw labor has gone into planting power poles in our country over the years. Without them, you and I would not be using computers, toasters, microwaves, those vibrating toothbrushes, televisions, radios, electric razors, manscaping trimmers, calculators, light bulbs, dishwashers, washer/dryers, refrigerators, coffee makers, copiers and zillions of other devices. In fact, there is precious little we could do if we didn’t have power poles and the power they distribute.

So…the human grit, sweat, thought and strength that has gone into placing each one certainly warrants looking at them in another light…as sculpture…as art…as something worth sketching

Yellow Day Lily...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text
Back in October I trimmed back a bunch of Daylily plants for my girlfriend. (Do 53 year old men have girlfriends or ladyfriends?) (And…do 50 year old women have boyfriends or manfriends?)

Daylilies have always been pretty to me…though the blooms only last about a…you guessed it…a DAY. They are prolific though and bloom all summer.

They are bulb (or tuber) plants which means they will spread out on their own to a certain degree. Plant a few and keep ‘em fertilized and before a few summers pass you’ll have blooms out the wazoo.

And that my friends will get you many admirers…and curious looks.

Click the image for a larger view...

One of my artist and sketch-blogging friends, Cary Cochran, suggested I type the text that is scribbled on each of the sketches…he has a stiff neck and enlightened me on the fact that others may suffer the same affliction I think that’s a dandy idea! So with this sketch and all future ones…

Sketch Text…
I was a bit tired of doing “info-sketches” about the tools I use to sketch…so I did a travel sketch today. I went to Zion years ago so I dug up a photo I liked and worked from that. I’m gonna do some exploring this Spring and Summer and do nothing but travel sketches.

It was fun to get back to doing a landscape with just watercolor and a bit of white gouache.

Challenge Number 12 from the Rookie Painter Blog

I found a blog the other day which is really wonderful. It’s called Rookie Painter. Jen runs it and she posts a photo challenge every three weeks for us artists to paint, draw or sketch. Then she posts them on the blog for all to see. As the caption states, this is Challenge Number 12 and the first in which I’ve participated.

You should click one of the links above and go see all the other interpretations already on the blog. It’s amazing how many different interpretations and styles can come from a photo of four little leaves.

Mine was sketched in a little 3.5″ x 5.5″ Moleskine Watercolor Notebook which I just purchased today. I’m bound contractually to myself to fill this book before starting another one or doing any sort of other painting. If I breech my contract I have to…well let’s not go there. Let’s just say I won’t breech my contract shall we?

Enjoy the Rookie Painter Blog!

Click image for a larger view...

I was poking around in my many unfinished sketchbooks and came across this little sketch. Thursday I intend to go out a sketching. In the mean time I thought I’d post this because I like the spontaneity of it. It says what it needs to say without a lot of fuss.

Everyone likes a certain style no doubt. I’m drawn to loose paintings, drawings, and sketches that express a scene in an almost abstract way, yet evoke a recognizable emotion in the viewer. For me, this one is a simple “getting away from it all” emotion.

I also find that paintings which seem very loose when viewed up close, yet gel into a quite realistic scene from a little further back, also appeal to me. There is as much skill involved in creating a scene that way as there is in carefully rendering a scene with photographic detail. The time involved is far less…but to make up for the lack of time by executing a successful painting…well, that is the skill.

I’d be interested to know from you dear reader…what sort of paintings evoke emotions in you and what sort of paintings do you find yourself drawn to most often?