SILVER BULLET

11" x 8 1/2"

Uniball pen, Pentel brush pen and Faber Castell brush in hand:book sketchbook

"The myth that werewolves will die from a silver bullet to the heart is no myth at all. It's entirely true. If you're a good shot and have bullets made of pure silver on hand, then you should have the easiest time of anyone killing a werewolf.

The introduction of silver to the heart will stop it from beating immediately. The bullet doesn't even have to do actual damage. Actually, it doesn't even really have to be a bullet. The reason the "silver bullet" became legendary is because it is by far the easiest method of getting pure silver to reach a werewolf's heart.

Other methods of getting silver to a werewolf's heart work just as well, they are just harder to pull off. Unless a werewolf voluntarily allows you to perform open heart surgery on it with a silver scalpel, you're probably going to have a hard time getting this method to work.

A variation on the bullet-to-the-heart method would be finding a way to to introduce small pieces of silver shrapnel into the blood stream. This only works if they are able to move through the blood stream and reach the heart. Once at the heart, the smallest bit of silver will cause the heart to immediately stop beating. If the silver lodges itself in the heart, you're job is done." - source: Gods and Monsters.com

KIRBYVILLE GENERAL STORE

11 1/2" x 8"

Uniball pen, Pentel brush pen and watercolor in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

I sat in the car in the parking lot outside the store and watched two tweakers on the front porch. The tall one was scratching, jerking, chain smoking by lighting one cigarette after another with the cigarette that was almost finished, while the other one just looked like all good sense had flown out of his eyes a long time ago. Phhht, gone!

The tall one would open the front door of the store for anyone coming into the store. The old politeness trick for spare change. His eyes never stopped darting around while scanning everything.

All of a sudden a pickup truck with Montana plates rolled up and a well dressed middle aged women got out with with bags of hot food. She stepped onto the porch and spread the food out on a table. All three of them sat down and started eating. Was she a friend or relative? A social worker? Had I witnessed a random act of kindness?

27 RUE DE FLEURUS

11" x 8"

Uniball pen, Pentel brush pen and Faber Castell brush in Hand:Book sketchbook

COMMUNICATE

COMMUNICATE

11 1/2" x 8"

Uniball pen, Pentel brush pen and Faber Castel brushes in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

While traveling in northern California I saw many different interesting looking people. Some were just hanging out, some were road warriors and some were just plain low down. I had two fortune cookie sheets in my wallet which I taped into my sketchbook. One says "Your sparkling eyes shed a healing spirit on those you meet", and the other read "A smile is the universal communication between two people". I noticed that when I looked and smiled at others no matter where they were in this life the day went well.

UNDER THE OVERPASS

11 1/2" x 8"

Pentel brush pen and Faber Castell brushes in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

ERICA RUSSELL

9" x 12" 23cm x 31cm

Schmincke watercolor, Pentel brush pen, Kuretake Fude brush and florescent acrylic on Arches paper

The paper is hot pressed 300g/m2 - 140lb . Very nice paper to draw on. People frequently ask me about the backgrounds in my portraits, mostly "Do you see aura's." Well, humans do transmit energy, right?

AVE OF THE GIANTS CALIFORNIA

11 1/2" x 16"

Pentel brush pen, Kuretaki brush pen, Schmincke watercolor and florescent acrylic in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

MONSTER HAPPY BIRTHDAY

MONSTER HAPPY BIRTHDAY

11" x 8 1/2"

#2 Pencil and Pentel brush pen in hand:book sketchbook

For Elizabeth Flanagan who requested a birthday monster! Happy Birthday.

THE TEACHING

11" x 8 1/2"
Uniball pen, Pentel Brush pen, Fude brush and acrylic in hand:book sketchbook

Life is suffering. Suffering is a direct result of our desires. To eliminate suffering, eliminate desires.

DREAM JOURNAL PARIS

8 1/2" X 5 "

Pentel brush pen and Fude brush pen in Strathmore sketchbook

I'm in line at a department store in Paris and the person ahead of me is the classic slow customer. He writes a check, makes a mistake, tears it up, starts another one. His pen runs out of ink. This is excruciating. Finally he finishes and it's my turn when the store clerk puts up a closed sign on the counter and goes outside for a cigarette!

Well, I'm not having it and I go outside and start yelling at the guy but he is ignoring me. Then he hands me a cigarette and says "Here, have a Gauloises."

I fire it up and, hey it's not bad. The clerk notices that I still have the store merchandise in my hand and says "keep them, they're on the house."

Then I woke up

DEBORAH HARRY

11 x 8 1/2"
Fude brush and acrylic in Canson sketchbook

DREAM JOURNAL POLITICS

8 1/2" x 5 1'2"

Uniball pen, Pentel brush pen and watercolor in Strathmore sketchbook

A dinner function. Julie an I are seated at a table with about ten professors with their husbands and wives. One professor is strongly expressing his political opinion. Everyone at the table is becoming uncomfortable with his level of obnoxiousness yet they all are remaining silent with their eyes cast downward. So I cut in and refute his assertions. He got pissed off because narcissist that he is, he doesn't like looking foolish in front of the others. So he gets up and stomps off...

Then we are all surrounding him laying in a hospital emergency room. I hear someone say that I gave him a heart attack, then another voice says "Yeah, you caused this." As I look down at this face I think well, he brought this on himself but no more arguing, especially political arguments.

Then I woke up from this dream

OLD BIBLE BILL

OLD BIBLE BILL
11" x 17"
Uniball pen, Faber-Castell brush pens and Pentel brush pen in Canson sketchbook
Illustration of a story in Demon Box by Ken Kesey

"This story is ...mainly about these three visitations I had...like three ghosts from A Christmas Carol.

The first came the day before the killing, Sunday evening , while were were waiting for my Mom and Grandma Whittier to come out for supper. This specter was the easiest to comprehend and deal with. In fact, he was almost classic in his immediate comprehensibility; versions of this spook have probably been around since the first campfire. He poked his bearded kisser in out of the night, all shaggily a-grin. He had a bottle of screw top Tokay in his right hand, a battered black book in his left, and glint in his gummy eyes that could have been bottled and displayed in the Bureau of Standards: the Definitive Panhandler Come-On Glint.

"Greetings the house!" he called through a curtain of phlegm. "This is Bible Bill, ol' Bible Bill, come in the name of the Main Redeemer, praise Him. Anybody home?"

I didn't have to give it a second thought. "No," I said.

"Dev? Brother Deboree? Greetings, brother, greetings!" He held forth the Good Book and the bad wine. "Compliments of Bible Bill, these--"

"No, " I repeated, pushing right on past the offerings. I put one hand on his chest and held the door open with the other, pushing. Behind him, I could make out an entourage of shivering teenagers, unhappy in the December wind. Bill wasn't pleased with the prospect of getting shoved back out in it, either.
"Dev, don't be like this, dammit all! I promised these kids--"
"No." I pushed.
"Give it up, dude," one of the teenagers said to him. "Can't you see you're bugging the man?"
"But kinfolks--"
"But my butt," another kid joined in. "let's go."
With me pushing and them pulling we moved him back to the Toyota they'd come in, him hollering, "But cousins! Brothers! Comrades! and me hollering back, "But no! No! No!"

SKUNK TRAIN

11 1/2" x 16"
Uniball pen, Fude brush, Faber Castell brushes, Dr Ph Martin Bombay black India ink and Winsor Newton Series 7 #3 brush in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

"Smells like a skunk.  Well, not really. The nickname originated in 1925 when motorcars were introduced.  These single unit, self propelled motorcars had gasoline powered engines for power and pot bellied stoves burning crude oil to keep passengers warm.  The combination of the fumes created a very pungent odor, and the old timers living along the rail line said these trains were like skunks:  "You could smell 'em before you could see 'em".
(From ride the skunk train)

PORTRAIT OF CHRISTINA GUSEK

16" x 11"
Uniball pen, Fude brush, Faber-Castell Brush pens and Kuretake white ink in Hand:Book sketchbook

This was drawn from a scene in the movie "Pigheaded" which is the biography of the great cartoonist Skip Williamson. All proceeds of this movie go to the S. Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust.  https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pigheaded

PALACE SALOON FERNDALE CALIFORNIA

11 1/2" x 8 "
Uniball pen, watercolor, Dr. Ph Martin Bombay India ink and Winsor Newton Series 7 #3 brush in Stillman& Birn sketchbook

INTERNET

11 1/2" x 8 "
Uniball pen, watercolor and China marker in Moleskine sketchbook

SIETE CABALLOS

11 1/2" x 8"
Uniball pen, watercolor and China marker in Moleskine sketchbook

O'BRIEN, OREGON

11 1/2" x 8"
Uniball pen, watercolor and white China marker in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook
We stopped in O'Brien, Oregon on our way to the California border. It's an unincorporated town of 570 people. Budget cuts left them with no Police force but this old Plymouth bubble top sits on the road.

DRURY CHANEY GROVE HUMBOLT REDWOODS

11" X 8 1/2"
Uniball pen and watercolor in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

Doing lots of preliminary sketches for future paintings. So glad these redwoods have been preserved.

SACRED REDWOODS CRESCENT CITY CALIFORNIA

11 1/2" x 8 "
Uniball pen, watercolor and China marker in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

When you are in the grove it feels holy, spiritual and clean.  I wish I would have brought balloons to fill with the air there.

POSTER FOR LEGION OF MARY

11" x 14"
Faber-Castell Pitt Big Brush pens in ProArt sketchbook

The Band members:
M.Fierro, R.Tutt, J.Kahn, J.Garcia. M.Saunders

LOST MARBLES

LOST MARBLES

18" x 24"

Mixed media on paper

FIGURE STUDY 6

30" x 22"
Ink, watercolor and acrylic on Arches paper

REMINDER

8" x 10"

Ink and watercolor on Arches paper

Sometimes my drawing table is a blur of post it notes. When it is imperative that I remember something important like recycle day I refer to a poster I made instead.

Always be drawing!

WOO WOO MOMENT

18" x 24"

Mixed media illustration on Canson watercolor paper

" I'm in Portland, Oregon. I've made an appointment with a woman that I've been told is a gifted healer. I show up at her door and I am not prepared for the five foot five two hundred pound woman in a pixie haircut with a hot dog in one hand and a quart of Pepsi in the other.

Without speaking she says to me "Okay honey, just lay there on the table."

So I lay on the table. She's poking on me and she said "You think I'm fat, don't you honey?" And I say " No, Karen, you're big boned, you're not fat."

She said "I don't normally do this, but I'm actually going to show you what I look like. I'm also going to show you what to paint."

I sat up. I put my hands on her shoulders. I looked into her face that goes out of focus and blurs and reforms itself into June Upton, the first woman that I ever loved in the 5th grade. Her face then reformed into every single woman I've ever loved. At the end of it she winked at me and said "You know, honey, paint that!"

Story by Marshall Arisman - A Postcard From Lilydale

THE FEAST OF VENUS AFTER RUBENS

THE FEAST OF VENUS AFTER RUBENS

14" x 22"

Ink, Faber-Castell Pitt brush pens and florescent acrylic in ProArt sketchbook

COUCH PRELIMINARY STUDY

11" x 14"
Pentel brush pen and Kuretake Fude brush in ProArt sketchbook

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

11" x 14"
Ink in ProArt sketchbook

"You can't laugh at a gun. I had a gun put to my head in a bar, over the Pueblo incident.  A cop.  I got a load on and argued with these guys about shit in Vietnam.  I said, "Saigon's got a million-dollar police station and my brother's got a station a hundred years old.  Where's the money come from?  The cops and firemen are paying taxes and they're not fixin' up their stations."  This guy, Jim, who's a city cop for twenty-four years, is everything you want a cop to be.  When I was eighteen he was thirty eight, he was a supercop.  But the hate just fucked him up, and the war.

I was in the bar and Jim had his load on, too.  He's got personal problems, he's married twice,, divorced.  He said, "We should invade Korea, bomb it."  I said, "You're ready to drop a bomb on a country with civilians."  He said, "Ah, you fuckin' commie." So I turn my back. I feel this thing on my temple, he had a gun to my head.  Two guys next to me dived for the ground.  With my left hand I come toward his wrist.  The gun went to the ground and I grabbed him in a headlock.  Three other cops in civilian clothes broke it up.  You gotta watch that gun."  - Tom Gates quote in WORKING by Studs Terkel

TORSO STUDY

11" x 14"
Mixed Media in ProArt sketchbook

VEGAS ANGEL

11" x 14"
MIXED MEDIA in ProArt sketchbook

EMPEROR NORTON

11" x 14"
MIXED MEDIA IN ProArt sketchbook
Joshua Abraham Norton (b.1815) made a $$$ fortune during the California gold rush in 1849. If that happened to you would you be happy with a fortune? Yeah, well Norton wasn't, so "in 1853 he gamboled a quarter of a million dollars on an effort to corner the rice market in San Francisco, buying and stockpiling all the available supply, and thereby artificially inflating the price. However, just as he was about to cash in, several ships laden with rice sailed into the Bay, glutting the market. Prices plummeted, and Norton went bust."
He lost everything then realized that he had an empire to rule!
Completely realized, he began telling everyone that he was Norton the First, Emperor of California. For the next 21 years he patrolled the streets of San Francisco on bicycle and foot making sure that things ran well and the vibe was happy.
Norton wore a military uniform with officer's golden epaulettes, a "tall plumed beaver hat, a sword, and a rosette."
He issued edicts, printed his own money in five and fifty cent denominations which were "accepted freely in most shops and restaurants in San Francisco." He dissolved both the Democratic and Republican parties because their existence caused "dissensions". Emperor Norton was well loved by everyone. He died in 1880 and thirty thousand loyal subjects attended his graveside service.
Some people claim he was crazy. But he freely chose to live the way he wanted to. He certainly wasn't neurotic because "simply put, neurotics are miserable because they think they are not as good as everyone else, while eccentrics know they are different and glory in it." (Source Eccentrics Dr David Weeks and Jamie James)

TO BE YOURSELF

5" x 16"
Uniball pen and watercolor
I'm not a phone person mostly because I don't have much to say and I'm not interested in complaints or robocall sales pitches. Fortunately I have friends who will do all the talking when they call. I keep a sketchbook just for drawing while I'm listening. It's fun to always be drawing. Here's a recent 45 minute doodle.
The quote is by Emerson: "To be yourself in a world that's constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment".

PORTRAIT OF MARSHALL ARISMAN

11" x 14"
Mixed media in ProArt sketchbook
A while back Jonathan Twingley turned me on to Marshall's work and I have been studying it and learning a lot from it. Both Heaven Departed and Postcard from Lilydale are fantastic books of his. I'm just now getting into using mixed media and different tools other than just a brush thanks to his very instructive DVD. It really is a fun and freeing approach to making art. Anyone who is takes his class at SVA is very lucky indeed!

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE

8 1/2" x 23"
Mixed media in Moleskine sketchbook

When I was a kid there was a woman who lived in my apartment building that everybody said was a witch.  Her name was Gloria. The laundry room of this building was in the basement and Gloria  had all of the dryers full of her clothing.  I wanted to get our laundry done and noticed that one dryer was finished,  so I emptied her clothes into a basket and carried them up to her apartment .  Her door was open and she was in the living room folding laundry, casting spells while singing along with Tito Puente music turned up full blast on the radio.

 When I looked in I saw things flying around and bizarre beings were making strange sounds.  The place was a vortex!  I heard her say "You see this too, right"?

 Before I could muster up a response everything  stopped swirling and the room returned to normal. "It's ok, cabron" she laughed.  "I know what I'm doing".

One of many woo-woo moments in my life.  

GALERIE MOKUM AMSTERDAM

8 1'2" x 23"
Watercolor and ink in Moleskine sketchbook

CITY BRIDGE

18" x 24"
Mixed media on paper

SMILE

11" x 14"
Uniball pen, Pentel brush pen and acrylic in Pro Art sketchbook

Soft footbed sandals are super comfortable and I wear socks with them.  My sandals are not a political statement, I just know that if I take care of my feet the rest of me feels great too.  Wearing the socks prevents dirty feet. Socks are a barrier between the feet and the icky stuff on the streets. For some reason wearing socks and sandals causes people to smile when they see them.  Even grouchy people who schlep along with eyes cast down have smiled or at lest rolled their eyes when they see my socked sandals.

I'm happy to provide smiles to the world but will someone please tell me what the deal is?  

COMPASSION

30" x 22"
Ink and Acrylic on Arches paper

Terry murdered Patty over money or drugs, it doesn't matter which.  Stabbed her twenty seven times.  Cause of death was exsanguination.  She once appeared to me in a dream sitting on the edge of the bed staring directly at me.  At the time I thought it was real, that she was there in the room with me.  But it must have been a dream, right?

Terry died in prison doing a life bit with a ten year tab.  Heroin overdose.  This week I dreamed that when they met in the spirit world she understood and forgave him.  He was suspicious and wondered why? She explained that compassion was they only way to end their endless cycle of suffering.  There was an angel comforting them as I woke.

UMATILLA REZ, OREGON

8 1/2" x 5 1/2"
Uniball pen and watercolor in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

JORDAAN

8 1/2" x 11"
Uniball pen, watercolor and Faber-Castell brushes in Canson sketchbook

DEAD BATTERY

11" x 17"
Uniball pen, Faber-Castell brushes and Kuretake Zig ink in Canson sketchbook

KEY BEND

8 1/2" x 23"
Uniball pen, watercolor and ink in Moleskine sketchbook

Eugene, Oregon has had a very active vaudeville community for many years. Lots of jugglers, fire eaters, magicians and sword swallowers. And then there is the Reverend Chumleigh. He's a bearded long haired original hippie day glo dude that performs the key bend trick. Or is it a trick?

At the show I attended he asked for a volunteer who had any keys in their pocket to step up onto the stage. I knew I wasn't a shill so up I went. He told me to take any key out of my pocket and hold it between my palms. I wisely chose the mailbox key instead of the car key and held it as instructed. He never touched the key and I was not hypnotized. He had the audience chant "Bend, Bend Bend" in unison for about 30 seconds. Lo and behold I had a bent key in my hands!

I'm told energy and physics can explain this.

OK, tell me how he did it

HAPPY HOUR

11 1/2" x 8 1/2"
Uniball pen and watercolor in Moleskine sketchbook
Several years ago Julie and I were sitting at a table in a restaurant across from the bar awaiting our food order. Several people were seated at the bar watching a sporting event on a television screen at the far end.
I was banging on about something or other when I noticed that Julie wasn't hearing me and had a strange look on her face. It was a look somewhere between humor and horror.
"What, I asked'?
"Over at the bar," she said.
I scanned the bar but didn't see what she was talking about
"The shirt".
When I turned and looked again I saw a man sitting there smoking a cigarette wearing a tee shirt two sizes too small. Hairy beer gut protruded from underneath the too small shirt. On the front of his shirt was posed the question: You Want Some Of This?
I wonder if it worked for him?

SUNFLOWER SELFIE

11" x 17"
Uniball pen, Faber-Castell brush pens and watercolor in Canson sketchbook

SUN DANCE VISION

11" x 17"
Mixed Media in Canson sketchbook

SACRED PIPE

11" x 17"
Pentel brush pen, watercolor and florescent acrylic in Canson sketchbook

BALDWIN SALOON, THE DALLES, OREGON

10" x 8 "
Uniball pen and watercolor in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook