she won't go back

Mummy Takes a Nap Whilst London Rains

When she wakes we'll go down to the Narrow Boat and watch the canal with pints of English ale in our hands.

Petrognano

It was a cold day in early April that I came cycling down the road from Florence and beheld this view. It was the end of my day, give or take. I had decided to camp in the Val d'Elsa, and this was one of the first views I painted.

Petrognano is little more than an old manor, decayed and gorgeous, adorned with pines and several century's accretion of farm buildings. Perhaps somebody lives there. Perhaps the last descendent of an extenuated clan whose forefathers fought Florence and lost. Or perhaps not.

These days there are olives. I expect there are rental properties for those who like to vacation in the Tuscan hills. There's no store of any sort, although it doesn't matter because several larger communities are within easy driving distance. Biking distance too, if you don't mind hills.

Courtney again

the detective

I wanted to make a picture about a detective. But everyone is a detective, at some point or another.

Therefore, I drew my father.

a terrible old man

30 second man

it was a very fast drawing:

In the classroom

Quick ballpoint studies of students at an advanced Latin class.

Waverley Abbey in the Setting Evening

Waverley Abbey at Night

Drawing these few pictures reinforced to me that you can always tell the original from the folly.

There's some background information and a related drawing by Romney here.

Anella & Antonella

the smallest thing

hannah lies

Karen's hands

Warm-up exercises. Each hand, foot, or face took 30 seconds to draw.

Fall down boy

Drawn from life with various markers and china markers. My pen malfunctioned towards the end, hence the blot where his thumb should be.

This was drawn in around fifteen minutes. The pose was supposed to last longer, but some positions are harder than they look.

New Year Picture (slightly delayed)

I made this for my friends Paul and Scott on new year's day, 2014.

The cat sleeps

A 30 second sketch of Maya the cat.

Communist Block Vodka cups

Something new for the New Year: Tarragon gives us a set of vodka cups, handmade to evoke the crumbling ruins of the late Soviet era.

It is to be hoped that he will later make something based on the modernist highlights of the same architecture.

I haven't tested them with real vodka yet. Will they work better than the House of the Soviets? We can hope.