There’re few things as depressing as a bare fridge. It’s the cliché of the single person you always see in movies: a few moldy Chinese takeout containers, a half-empty jar of mayonnaise, a box of baking soda, a six-pack.
But shopping for one is tricky. These days, I do tend to eat at home and to cook more than I did when I had a teenaged roommate. But I have to be careful not to be too ambitious and to fill my kitchen with stuff I’ll never have time to eat. I hate throwing out stuff that survived past its due date: a head of cauliflower, a half-gallon of milk, some cheddar that’s turning into bleu cheese. Still, I’d rather waste food than face an empty larder.
Whenever I do a drawing in indian and sumi ink, I think of Ben Katchor. For years he did comics in the Daily Forward that had a bleakness and everyday decrepitude that made a big impression in me. His weltschmerz came out in a sigh of grey washes, a shrug of indifferent lines and cramped composition. These days as he branches out to publications with bigger budgets, he uses bright colors but his work still has a lovely unsavoriness to it that smells vaguely of sour milk and unwashed socks.
I just did the lettering for the cover (you’ll notice on Amazon that they uploaded the art for the cover before including my handlettering — that’ll be fixed soon) and the design for the interior continues. It’ll be a lavish book with work from forty of my favorite artists and will be out at the end of February, next year.
I’ll talk about it more in the months ahead but meanwhile you can see some of the art work from the book on my Pinterest page.
Okay, time to start drawing again. I made this from a photo I took at an outdoor party in the Hamptons. The bird was very impressive and the intensity of his gaze stayed with me long after he was put back in his cage. Horned owls are amazing predators and have been known to pluck out unwitting birdwatchers’ eyes, even here in New York City.
For some reason, this drawing made me think of Brad Holland, an illustrator I’ve loved since I was a teen ager but haven’t referred to in years. I just went and looked at some of his work and, while I don’t think it actually does look like anything he’d do, I sort of see why it brought him to mind.
If you don’t know Holland’s work, check out this nice and too brief video about him:
I did this drawing with my Lamy Safari in one of the new Stillman & Birn hardcover books. I love the paper though there are some issues with the binding and they suggest we wait for the next shipment before using the hardbound ones.
Three weeks ago, I dropped my boy off at art school in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s a trip we’ve been planning for years, maybe even decades. From the days when Jack was first able to pick up a crayon and started making marks on paper, his mom and I celebrated his creativity and put those pieces of paper into a special binder, a collection which grew to two books, then three, then a shelf-full. We didn’t have any particular plan to create an artist or designer or an illustrator; we just celebrated what seemed special about him, and let him know that if this (or drumming or soccer or World of Warcraft…) is what he really loved most, it was fine with us.
When it came time to apply to college, I told Jack that committing to an art school had risks but so did any career path. As far as I was concerned, a bigger risk would be to seek a profession that didn’t ignite his passion, to simply try to make money at something in which he had no real interest. I know too many people who have gone down this path and found little at its end. That shelf full of drawings proved that Jack had a calling, a rare thing indeed.
I borrowed a truck from a friend, loaded it with Jack’s belongings and we drove up 1-95 to RISD. After lunch in the cafeteria, I sensed that Jack was ready to take off, that he wanted to set up his room, meet his new friends and start his life. My job was done.
I had been dreading what was to follow. I have only ever lived alone for about six months — after graduating from Princeton and moving into a studio apartment on the Lower East Side. Then I got some roommates, then a girlfriend who became a wife, then a son …. and the last three decades were filled. Overnight, I was on my own again.
For a year, I had been worried about being alone in my empty apartment — empty evenings, lonely mornings, no one to talk to but my dogs and the wind. My girlfriend Jenny has been in Dallas all summer and I have been missing her sorely too.
But here’s the funny thing: I love it.
Despite all my worries and fears of dying alone in my sleep and being eaten by my dachshunds, I love being able to decide when I get up, when I got to bed and what I do in between. What I eat, what I do, whether I watch TV or read or draw or stare out the window. It’s fantastic. Time expands. I have a huge sense of accomplishment and also of being relaxed and at my own pace. And I love having a neat apartment, not having soccer equipment on the living room floor or boxer shorts in the kitchen. I don’t have to share the bathroom or the remote control or the sofa. It’s just me and two miniature hounds.
I do miss Jack. I email him, he texts me, we chat on the phone a couple of times a week. He sends me phone photos of the art he is making and tells me about his new friends, about his teachers (for the first time ever he loves them all), about how great the food is.
And he is flourishing. He works his ass off, staying up till the wee hours doing enormous assignments. His first week, he posted the following on Facebook:
a haiku about getting out of bed;
no no no no no
no no no no no no no
no no no fuck that
Then one of his new classmates uploaded this picture:
Jack’s new best friend.
He’s going to be okay, it would seem, and so am I.
P.S. I try to avoid getting emotional about commercials but this one has been getting to me:
Clarification from Chronicle Books my wonderful publishers: my new book, A Kiss Before You Go officially shipped to the UK and Europe September 1st. The book will release in the US November 14th.
My pal Jane LaFazio just sent me a surprising picture. It seems she has managed to purchase the first copy of my new book somewhere! She is traveling so I don’t know the details but here’s the evidence:
BTW if you get a copy of the book, do let me know what you think. And if you can be bothered, please leave a review on Amazon. Thanks so much!
Update:
Another email from Jane: ” Well it is in Paris! I’ve any just flipped through and it looks amazing, beautiful, powerful and tear inducing. As soon as I read it, I’ll let you know. After all, dear heart, I am in Paris. Xo Jane”
I am taking a brief break from my string of daily attempts at the EDM challenges. I am rather busy at work these days and in the home stretch of being a dad before Jack starts at RISD in a week or so. I shall be back to draw again very soon and hope my example doesn’t deter you from drawing as often as possible.
My approach to glass and ceramics is to pay close attention to highlights and refections. I also wanted to capture the difference in texture between the velvet lining and the glass of the eye. I painted the box with watercolors, using ochre and grey with a little bit of white gouache, then let it dry, and did the eyeball all in gouache. Oh, and I didn’t do any actual drawing, just used two sable brushes, #7 & 4.
I have just returned from a busy 48 hours in San Francisco and took along a very small sketchbook, about two inches square, in which I documented my various free moments. Above are some of the pages torn out of the book. Most were drawn in a minute or two with my Lamy fountain pen (yes, I can take it when I fly as long as I don’t write with it when we are in the air. The pressure might make it explode or drip). The seventh one was interrupted by something or other.
Click on the grid of drawings to open it in a separate window, then click it again to make it bigger.
I am thankful for my girl, Jenny. And thankful that she’s finally coming home this week.
I am less thankful for:
how hard this watercolor was to do, for overworking it to try to get the likeness right. and for the fact that I made her look dour when she is anything but. Ah well. Maybe I’ll do better when I can draw her from real life again.
Danny Gregory 