Category: Exhibits
Collections of things I make and/or like
How to draw a How cover
How:Design Ideas at Work is a great magazine, primarily for graphic designers and art directors. It has a lot of practical advice as well as coverage of the leading edges of design, advertising, and art. Recently, I was asked to write an long (8-page) article about how drawing and journal keeping can feed one’s creativity. It was a topic I’d long wanted to address to the professional image-making community because so many of those folks have lost their touch with drawing, though it was probably the very thing that got them into their chosen field at the get-go.
I am pretty happy with the article and was delighted when the senior art director for the magazine also asked me to draw the cover for the issue, a special one dedicated to Illustration. How has a fairly strict format for the cover, one that revolves around their enormous logo, so I did a design that integrated the three letters into my idea. Because illustration is a personal medium, I liked the idea of putting a thumbprint on the cover, maybe the thumb of an artist sighting his subject. I did a quick sketch of myself in that pose, colored it on my computer, and fired it off to her.
Unfortunately, the magazine’s staff felt that the image was confusing. Some didn’t like the fact that the fist might interfere with the coverlines (the titles of the articles inside). Then some others thought it was a person giving a thumbs up, rather than sighting.
Back to the drawing board. The art director suggested I just draw a hand drawing the logo filled with clouds with some art supplies scattered around. I resisted this idea and instead thought I could make a little design out of pens and stuff. I cobbled together a collage from drawings I’d already done to convey the idea.
My client didn’t like this design much because it doesn’t play up the logo enough and was a two 2-dimensional. Instead she brought up the idea they’d proposed earlier: filling the logo with sky and having a hand drawing it. I gave that a try but thought the hand looked so lonely. Instead I sketched in the artist’s head and torso too. I did another self portrait but shaved off my beard in case that was a turn-off.
The email arrived the next morning:
There are still a few hang-ups. Something about the person coming from the back of the logo is off-putting. The focus needs to be on drawing not on the person doing the drawing. The viewer needs to be in the place of the artist.
I’d like you to draw the cover as if it were a page in your sketchbook where you drew the act of drawing the cover. Forget the hands. Just draw the set up since you’re so good with everyday objects. Leave the middle just a wash background or blank so the focus is totally on the logo. I’ll attach my thumbnail. That may help.
Yesterday I started again, following the art director’s sketch. Just to put a little bit of myself into it, I added her sketch as part of the assignment, lying on the table where I drew from it.
I sent the final image to her last night but don’t expect to her about it till Monday. We’ll see. It was an interesting experience; I may have been stupid to have resisted the idea she clearly wanted me to execute and insisting on other interpretations. It’s a hard lesson to learn for a stubborn know-it-all, but I am trying.
Dibujo en Mexico*
We are back after an all too brief trip to Mexico. It’s a country that I have always liked so much but never spent time in before. I would love to do a long cross country sketchcrawl sometime. 
We stayed in Puerto Vallarta which is a touristy place with a huge Walmart and we spent a fair amount of our vacation sunbathing and reading trashy novels and eating from buffets and avoiding the horrors of New York in December and the transit strike.
I spent a grim evening at the bullfights watching four innocent creatures being tortured to death in front of several hundred tourists fresh off the big cruise ships., I went in the spirit of seeking out new adventures when possible but left feeling nauseated and vegetarian.
From a drawing perspective, this trip certainly didn’t have the immersive qualities of trips I’ve taken to Rome or Jerusalem or Paris. However I think that even a daytrip to Dayton is made richer by drawing and writing about one’s travels and so I thought I’d set down some things I’ve discovered about travel journaling:
I like to travel fairly light. I carry a smallish shoulder bag with my journal, pens, watercolors. I like NiJi waterbrushes because you can load them with water in the morning and they will carry you through the whole day without needing to carry water jars that could spill. I recommend some sort of folding stool. You can buy them light and inexpensively at camping stores and they let you set up where you want to without having to worry about being in the way or finding an empty bench.
Be prepared but not overly so. Make sure you have enough of your favorite pens but if you pass a local art supply store, always check it out. You may make some wonderful new discoveries. Don’t shlep more than would be comfortable. Improvise. I sometimes rub local soil and leaves onto my drawings for color. I’ve used pasta sauce as paint in Tuscany.
Don’t just draw postcards. It’s fine to sketch monuments and tourist spots but also try to capture local color and everyday life. Draw your meals, travel on public transportation, use art to immerse yourself in a different way of life.
Be bold. I’ve great characters in Roman catacombs, Death Valley bordellos, San Franciscan homeless shelters, and Yorkshire flea markets, all through drawing. Talk to people and don;t be embarrassed to show your work. Most people are impressed that you are even doing it and won’t judge your art as harshly as you do.
Let your art be your tour guide. Every minute you’re lying in your hotel bed could be spent drawing. The more pages you fill, the richer your memories will be. I still remember the sights and sounds of street corners from years ago just because I spent twenty minutes drawing somewhere. The memories are so much more intense than if I’d just been seeing the sights through a tour bus window.
Jot down notes as you draw, not just recording the where and when but conversations you overhear, thoughts and associations you make, smells and sounds specific to the place. Show how travel broadens your mind.
—–
*Translated by Google. Apologies if it’s garbled.
Romin'
Yesterday I managed to throw down a quick drawing at the Trevi fountain before becoming overwhelmed by sun and jetlag. This morning, chipper and well-rested, I packed up my gear to head over to the Vatican. A block from my hotel, I stepped off the too-high curb and crumpled to the ground as tendons thwanged unnaturally in my ankle. Fortunately I had the self-control to get up, hobble back up the hill to the hotel and tell the desk clerk to send me up some ice.
My outer ankle had quickly developed a lump the size of a Mallomar but after three hours in bed, pack on, hoof on pillow pile (RICE- rest, ice, compression, elevation) the patient is still pink and healthy looking and my toes waggle freely so amputation can probably be postponed. I am going to be here for a couple of more weeks so I think I’ll curb my lust for the Sistine Chapel and take it easy.
Was it the Pope, cursing me? Michelangelo pegging me for an interloper? A frustrated cobble-stone-layer who, wishing he too could be watercoloring of a Monday, decided to thwart brush wielding tourists of the future?
The irony: I was crossing the road (or trying to) to check out a place that rents Vespas. Maybe it was just as well I took my spill in my sandals, rather than scraping off several layers of skin and a handful of teeth while zooming around the Coliseum on a two stroke bike. 
I have constrained my drawing to my hotel’s neighborhood which in Rome
is not much of a liability. One could spend the rest of one’s life
drawing this city — the architecture is so rich and organic, the light
is wonderful, the juxtapositions are endlessly diverse. I did this
first piece during an exorbitant pasta lunch (more than $50 for a handful of
pasta and a cappuccino) at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. Slumped low,
my hoof propped up on another chair, I strained to see the view over
the parapet.
A few blocks away on the Via Veneto, I discovered this marvelous
church. Beneath is a wonderfully macabre series of crypts, room after
room of Benedictine monks’ dismembered skeletons arranged into
sculptures and decorations — piles of skulls, chandeliers made of
tailbones, shoulder blade rosettes and baldacchinos made of pelvises.
Long lines of teenaged American girls file in and out, squealing “Ew,
gross!” and “Creeeeepy!”. I found it quite beautiful and touching, so
many 17th century bones committed to remind one of the temporary nature
of life on this planet, “As you were so once was I ; as I am so shall
you be.”
It was impossible to draw down there among the crowds so I retired to
the Church of the Immaculate above and drew its back room as the light
slowly faded and my watercolor box disappeared into the gloom. At one
point, a nut brown monk came over and wished me “Pace” but I was
already suffused with peace.
On the Piazza Barberini, I started to draw an old cinema surrounded by
lovely crumbling facades when a big white panel van pulled right up in
front of me and blocked my view. Instead I worked on another building,
listening with one ear to two slurring Englishwomen at the next table
who were drinking huge vasefuls of lager and snapping pix of each other
and emailing them to pals back home. Eventually my friends, the Pratts,
came and joined me and I laid down my pen.
Annie Pratt is a believer in homeopathic medicine and prescribed some
Arnica to me. The next morning my ankle was a lot less swollen and,
after various meetings on casting and production, we headed off to
visit the Colosseum and the rest of ruined Rome. It was blazing hot and
crowded and I couldn’t bring myself to tackle drawings of the broken
columns. En route, my pocket was picked on the subway; the bastards
made off with about $100. Sprained ankle, thieving gypsies, John
Roberts … I wonder what sort of bad luck I’ll face today.
I’m not the tourist type. My neighborhood in New York is always
overrun by people wearing comfortable clothes and cameras clutching
guide books and asking “Scusi, where Greenwich Village?” I am always gracious but wish they would walk a little faster and get a clue.
But in Rome, do as the Romanians do. Get a guide book, a map, and start
blundering around town. Nonetheless, despite my backpack, my folding
stool, my sandals, and my sweaty, parched ways, I try to pretend not to
be desperately foreign. Of course, I fail. Waiters address me in
English, vendors hawk after me with postcards and foot high replicas of
David
My self-loathing came to an end in Vatican City. When I lined up with
the rest of the unwashed and finally reached the portal of St.Peter’s,
I was so overcome by the beauty and splendor of the place that I just
let go and gawked. Wow. The plundered marble and bronze of the Coliseum
is mind-bpoggling lavish.. And then, waiting until the end of the day
to avoid the lines, I swept through the Vatican Museum to the Sistine
Chapel, discovering amazing things I’d never known along the way. The
map room, hundreds of yards long and encrusted with thousands of
perfect paintings worked into the walls and ceilings, the Raphael
frescoes (how could the Pope manage the hubris to command such geniuses
to paint his apartment floor to ceiling, wall after wall? Here he is a
single guy with the most ornate, Baroque pad in the universe.. How did
he sleep in there at night? It’s awesome), and then finally the
Sistine. I have read books about it, seen endless reproductions and
thought I grasped Michelangelo’s accomplishment. But to be confronted
by so much epic scenery, so many perfect, enormous bodies…; whether he painted it alone or with a crew, it’s an incredible, deeply moving feat.
I gush. I can’t help it. Despite my cynicism and my discomfort with the
Papacy’s greed, I may have to go again. My name is Danny and I’m a
tourist (don’t tell my boss — I am here working after all).
Two Roman drawings that took a while. The first about an hour, the
second, close to it,
I was moved by police three times during the first which screwed up my
sight lines a bit. The second I’m less happy with, too many stylized
people, less observed, more illustrative, too much blue underpainting,
but, whatever, it was fun to do.
Rome is just insanely great to draw because of all the details and textures and juxtapositions. Work is
done for the week — I can’t wait to spend my weekend out on my stool.
This wonderful building is on the corner of my block. It sits on top of its own little hill, surrounded by gardens. I pass it most days and finally took the time, on two separate occasions, to study it in detail. 
This city is so full of surprises. Turn a corner and a wonderful composition or juxtaposition will just jump out. This one suddenly appeared between the trees as I was hiking out to eat dinner; branches parted like a curtain to reveal this vista backed by the setting sun.
Another view that popped out; this one seen from above from a hill. These little temples must have been restored in the Roman fashion; the little tubby demons are so sweet.
The Borghese Gardens have a giant air ballon in the style of the Gondolfier Brothers. It rises silently in the air for fifteen minute trips from which one can see the whole city. Nothing in Rome is more than six stories so the big landmarks pop out across the landscape. I have now been here long enough to identify the Vatican, the Victor Emanuel Monument, the various piazzas, the Coliseum, etc.
A little bit of color, exaggerated, as it was painted in the failing light of an ending day.
I’m finally getting the hang of tires. Wheels have always confounded me when I draw cars and stuff but as I say, in Europe, I’m finally getting the hang of tyres. 
Notice the small brown mini dots on this drawing? That’s because when I start doing and drawing of something so complicated or big or whatever that I get nervous, I take a few measurements with an outstretched arm and a pen and then make little marks to indicate where things fall.
Despite all that, this drawing, made as people were rushing to work at 9 am and I had to get my ass moving for a 10 o’clock meeting, is lopsided and misisng all sorts of bits that didn’t end up fitting on the page.
Another drawing done in decline, lopsided, colored like a coloring book and full of cheats to fit stuff in. When I slow my ass way way down, I can draw things like that Vespa up above. When I rush and people hang over my shoulder and I’m roasting in the sun, Things get bleak. I know that about myself and yet I keep doing it. Sometime I can save a drawing afterwards with loads of crosshatching but it’s a lost cause, a charade, not in the moment. But, then, later in the afternoon, during the wardrobe fitting, waiting for our actors to change, I drew the Vespa which I’m pretty happy with, particularly the tyres. So even when the knack hides, it resurfaces. So shut up and do another drawing.
Chicago on four hours' sleep
I am posting this from my room in Rome, still fairly jetlagged but eager to get out there tomorrow and start drawing. Meanwhile, here are some journal pages from the last few days while I was shooting in Chicago, specifically at an 80-year old institution called the Aragon ballroom.
Most of our days lasted more than 16 hours and we wrapped at 3 am; the effects are visible in my drawings which are actually quite nice and loose though manically, Tom Kanesian in their crosshatched detail.
My colors are a little bolder than usual — I should probably continue to paint in the gloom.
I drew entirely in Sepia ink and watercolors, and many of these entries were doing in semi darkness and while severely sleep deprived. My marginal comments seem even more crabby and distracted than usual.
The Drawminator
What goes on when three grizzled illustrated superjournalistas go on an innocent drawing trip? A Clash of the Titans that transforms the art world (kinda). Enjoy the dramatic first installment of “The Drawminator”. Click on thumbnails for successive page.
Assignment of the day
It’s hot as a bastard and we are all recovering from four performances of Annie Get Your Gun in three days. I have spent the past two mornings in the air-conditioned apartment working on an assignment for The Morning News which is about to launch its year long redesign. Rosecrans, my editor, asked me to draw three illustrations to work as launch-pads for the serialized books that appear on the site every couple of weeks.
I had already done a couple of different icons for Peanut:
This one is meant to look like a sonogram of a peanut. It’s okay though a little gimmicky.
Then I came up with this one based on a photo of an embryo, sort of 2001-ish but not really uniquely mine.
I decided to start from scratch with more conventional ink and watercolor drawings, each about 4-5 inches square. I painted this fairly scary drawing; still it’s somehow cute in a plucked chick kind of way and I like it.
For The letters of Gary Benchley, Rock Star, I bypassed my initial thought of painting some instruments ( I have recently done three different illustration jobs requiring sketches of guitars) and decided to try to capture some rock’n’roll energy. I did this drawing fairly quickly and I like it too.
I struggled most with The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman. It seemed that every story had Elisabeth in tears at some point so I decided to tackle it this way. I was a little worried that I had been overly influenced by fantasies of Molly Ringwold and was listening to too much of the new 9 Inch Nails album and Elisabeth isn’t quite in that nexus.
I fired off an email to Sarah Hepola, Elisabeth’s creator, who wrote: “She’s a cute 18 year old girl — brown shoulder-length hair that’s a bit curly/frizzy (she likes to straighten it out), a little girlish pudge in her cheeks. Blue eyes. She’s from a small town, so she doesn’t have that natural college girl look yet — she wears a lot of makeup, probably earrings. she probably wears a lot of tank tops and shorts.”
I’m no expert on the nuances of 18-year-old girls anymore and I was a little tense as I went back to the drawing board.
This was my second and final effort. It has personality and particularity more than the first but tells less of a story and has a little too much Walter Keane in it
I’ll let Rosecrans pick.
Like father, like son
A few days ago, this drawing arrived from my stepmother, Sue. It was drawn by my father when I was about three, around the time my parents were divorced.
Many of these objects are things of my mum’s. I think she still has the copper ashtray on the lower left. Sue pointed out how similar this piece is to much of the work I have been doing and I must agree. I never really thought of him doing illustrated journaling but clearly he did.
Keir lives in Leicestershire, near Nottingham (that’s in England, folks). His three daughters (my half sisters) are all grown and he seems to spend most his time drawing daily self portraits or writing software for his own amusement. I’ve only seen my father a half dozen times since the divorce and we correspond very intermittently. I have a few of his sketchbooks from the early 1960s and I have always loved them.
Between Jack’s painting and this newly arrived drawing from Keir, I must say I am thinking quite a lot about heredity these days.
Here is some more of Keir’s work circa 1964 (he never shows his work so I hope, on the off-chance that he stumbles across this web page, that he doesn’t take offense to this little tribute exhibition). Some of it is pretty angry and hard core so please don’t yap about the language or the macabre-ness:
A Writer's Paris
Dr. Eric Maisel is a psychotherapist who works exclusively with artists and has written many terrific books like The Creativity Book, Staying Sane in the Arts, Fearless Creating, Deep Writing, A Life in the Arts and other inspiring guides on the creative mind and process. Recently, Eric invited me to illustrate his new book, A Writer’s Paris, which will be published in a year or so.
On Wednesday afternoon, Patti and I will be skipping turkey and heading across the Atlantic; over the next four days, I’ll make as much progress as possible on the 30 full-page illustrations I’ve promised Eric for his book. I’ll be working in black, using a pen and ink wash.
The sketch crawl will be good preparation. I’m going from the 10K of the Met to the marathon of the sketchcrawl to the Iron Man triathlon of Paris. I’ll be dealing with possible snow flurries, temperatures in the 40s and jet lag but it will be a great adventure.
We had a terrific visit to Paris over Thanksgiving. We arrived (via Frankfurt) on Thursday morning and spent the day in a bit of a jet-lagged fog (I can’t sleep on planes) but did quite a lot of drawing. We had Thanksgiving dinner of escargots, foie gras, biftek, and lashings of bordeaux at a bistro in the Latin Quarter.
We started Friday at the Musée D’Orsay. I’ve only been there briefly before but this time we made a bee-line for the Van Goghs and Gaugins and then I spent an hour drawing the beautiful old clock in the main room. A wonderful museum.
I had a check list of more than thirty things to draw and, by Sunday morning, Patti had checked off about 80% of them. I had taken reference photos of the remaining subjects and will finish the project at home.
We were very lucky with the weather. One day of blue skies, two overcast, and the first raindrops fell on our cab’s windscreen as we got in to travel to the airport. The mercury hovered in the mid 40s most of the time so it was quite comfortable sitting outside most of the time. We would duck into cafés or shops for periodic refreshment.
This sort of three-day drawing trip has a lot to recommend it. We were on the go all day, saw every corner of the City, really studied the sights, and came home with a wonderful souvenir without spending much money. Though the dollar is weak, you can do a trip like this for just over a thousand bucks per person and you will remember it forever.
I drew on heavy bond either with a Rapidoliner (.25 and .50) or an Art (fountain) Pen . I then pulled out a Niji waterbrush loaded with black Dr. Martin’s transparent water colors . I colored in the darkest bits and then, while the color was still wet, I used a Niji filled with clean water to slosh things around, mixing various shades of grey right on the page or on the knee of my jeans or on the nearest surface (park bench, Rodin sculpture, whatever) using the clean brush to dilute it and then my Welsh pub towel to clean things up.
When I got home, I made photocopies of the drawings and FedExed the originals. The images I’ve posted are scans of the copies.
My aim, and I think I fell far short of it, was to emulate Ronald Searle’s 1950 Paris Sketchbook.
This book is now available on Amazon
Sketchcrawl survivor
Tom Kane and I met up just after 8 am at the L train station and traveled into WiIliamsburg, Brooklyn. The day was cold and intermittently rainy but we were fairly well provisioned though Tom was much impressed by my folding stool (too bad I didn’t bring it to the Met last weekend) and vowed to get his own.
We spend most of the day in industrialized parts of the neighborhood and occasionally ducked into coffee shops or bars to shelter from the elements and fortify ourselves. I decided to work just in black and white and to intensify my cross-hatching. Tom is a master of detailed shading and I followed his lead.
All in all, it was a very satisfying experience, though utterly depleting. We were both completely wiped out after nine hours of drawing outdoors and felt old and stiff from the wet ground and the grey skies. Can’t wait to try it again, hopefully in warmer weather.
***
Tom Kane just sent me his lovely drawings from our odyssey. As you can see, he fills every inch of the page and is a committed cross hatcher (R.Crumb said, ” drawing is just an excuse to crosshatch”). He draws with a fairly ordinary roller ball pen and his work has a lot of energy and life and humor. I like the way he vignettes his drawings like old photos. A very talented fellow, old Tom.
Like ’em? Tell Tom.
Danny Gregory 