TONI MORRISON

18" x 24"

Mixed Media on Arches paper

I agree with both of these quotes from her: "If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it."

"You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."

HIROSHIMA

11" x 8 1/2"

Pentel brush pen, Kuretake Fude brush and China white marker in hand:book sketchbook

SHADOW ON THE ROCK

by Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

At Hiroshima there’s a museum

and outside that museum there’s a rock,

and on that rock there’s a shadow.

That shadow is all that remains

of the human being who stood there on August 6, 1945

when the nuclear age began.

In the most real sense of the word,

that is the choice before us.

We shall either end war and the nuclear arms race now in this generation,

or we will become Shadows On the Rock.

CUCINA VERONA

11 1/2" x 8"

#2 pencil, Pentel brush pen and Kuretake Fude brush in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

While we were in Fort Bragg, California, we stopped and celebrated our anniversary in a little restaurant named Cucina Verona.

Our waiter was very nice. When he found out it was our 40th anniversary he said "That's quite an achievement, may I buy your desert?"

Alas, we were both too full from the delicious dinner. Maybe next time?

DREAM JOURNAL HEAVENLY BINGO

8 1/2" x 5 1/2"

Uniball pen and watercolor in Strathmore mixed media sketchbook

In this dream I find myself back in a Brooklyn neighborhood that I used to live in. Walking around I notice it looks the same as always despite the fact that I've been reading about how much gentrification has altered the place. Now it's all rich people and trust fund hipsters. As I wonder what is going on I recognize an old friend walking toward me. How can it be that he hasn't changed a bit, hasn't even aged a day since I last saw him...what, 42 years ago? We hug and laugh, and I search his face and brace myself to see if he notices how much I have aged. But he says nothing and just keeps smiling.

"Man, you haven't aged a bit. You still look the same" I tell him. "Yeah," he says. "I died in 2005."

He can see that I'm too stunned to say anything and then he says "It's cool though, they have bingo there."

We started walking along looking at the old brownstones.

Then I woke up.

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