three letter word for art

Linda got me a Lamy Safari fountain pen for Christmas. This is my first drawing, looking all artificially earnest and introspective.

Some recent moleskine sketches. The first sketch is from conceptual artist Jonathon Keats ' lecture at Montana State University last night. He's a very entertaining and creative fellow, and has some very good ideas. The rest are all from around the house.

bozeman main street #18 , originally uploaded by paul is just dandy . Another spread finished. I've been going back and forth as to whether this drawing is any good. I'm having the same issue I had when I drew spread #2 -- I've changed the scale of the buildings to accommodate a tall building. Here that tall building is the U.S. Bank building, one of the less attractive buildings on Main. If you look closely (at the actual building, not my drawing) you can tell it's a historic building that has been re-clad in '60s-ish Brutalist stucco and glass. Presumably this cladding could be removed to reveal the brick beneath. It's been done with other buildings on Main before, so only time will tell if the same fate is in store for this lovely structure. My poor planning re: the scale change meant I started a bit high on the page and had to slowly move everything lower as I proceeded from left to right. I think it makes Bozeman look like San Francisco. But, hey, ...

For anyone who's curious as to how a page in the Bozeman project starts out, these are some spreads in progress. Nothing surprising really-- I'm a righty, so I always work left to right.  I also work front to back, drawing foreground objects like cars and trees first and the building behind them last. I don't draw anything out beforehand. I just go for it and hope it comes together. I do have to think about how many buildings I might be able to fit on a page before I start, and how much room I've got left to work with sometimes. I don't like to break up buildings between pages most of the time. I try to do cars particularly fast, because I have no idea how long they're going to be there. A lot of people ask me why there are no people in the drawings. I feel like most of the people I see on Main Street in the winter are on the move-- not many folks on benches-- and I'm not setting out to do any gestural drawing. I kind of like the lack of people, tho...

I drew these fingerless gloves (okay, mittens) while watching (or listening to I guess) the documentary Shut Up and Sing about the controversy surrounding the Dixie Chicks' remarks about the last prez, what's-his-name. They are very warm (the mittens, not the Dixie Chicks--although they could be, too). Meanwhile, I thought I'd let everyone who reads this (and there are two of you that I know of) that I've updated my website and it's now better and more badass than ever (and has 2009 copyrights), so go check it out, por favor.