On the way to work, walking up the West Side drive, one of the loveliest additions to my lovely city. The view of Jersey is is a little dull with all its new glass box construction but it’s nice to watch the boats whizz by and pretend I live in some coastal resort like Miami or Brighton or Dhaka.
I am fiddling with an ultra cheapoid set of gouache paints Patti gave me. It came in a set of stacking disks that look lovely in the box but are chalky and a little garish on the page. Perfect for painting JC and a garbage truck.
This, the final page of my moleskine, is painted not on watercolor paper but the oak-tag end-paper of the book. I have squeezed every morsel of pleasure out of this book and it’s time to crack open the next volume.
2006 in retrospect
The palest ink is better than the best memory”
– Chinese proverb
One of the many pleasures and benefits of journaling is the ability to get a clearer picture of one’s own changes over time. I just sat down and flipped through the last year of drawings I’ve done and it’s quite amazing how much experimentation I’ve done in 2006. I have always been a dabbler and though most aspects of my life don’t change an awful lot (same home, same career, same wife, same inexorable slide toward baldness), I like to try on various guises, learning enough to be dangerous but rarely sticking with anything long enough to be particular expert.
This year, however, I have been searching mightily. If you’ll bear with me, I’ll take you through the convulsions of my year and try to draw some conclusions about what the heck’s been going on with me.
In January, I had prepared the pages of a Canson watercolor book by staining the pages with Doc Martins liquid colors, mainly yellows, oranges and brown. Then I drew on them with brown PITT pens. When we were in Mexico, this was a particularly interesting technique but after a month or so of doing it, I moved on.
I published my thoughts on the difference between my experience of drawing from photos and reality and attracted a vocal minority who strongly disagreed with my conclusions. As an addendum, I would point out that a) I do believe that photography is an art form, b) that I often draw from photos myself and will continue to do so and c) that I still maintain it is an inferior experience and far less challenging than drawing from life.
I then began Vol. 44 which was a vertical drawing book with oaktag pages. I continued drawing mainly with brown PITT pens and a white pencil. In retrospect, I really quite like this book and the casualness and anarchy of its pages. I’m glad to have an idea of how to do this sort of drawing as I’ve always admired when other people draw on color paper.
I had an idea to harness the energy of our Sketchcrawls to some larger goal and so we had a get together at the Rubin Museum and raised a bunch of money for victims of the Pakistan earthquake. As usual my drawings at these events sucked but it was nice to see so many people who share my interest in drawing, many of whom did lovely work there.
We also held a contest to give away a book on illustrated letters and I received so many phenomenal responses. It is great to revisit the gallery of that work.
In February, I conducted a series of interviews with other people who had either fled or rethought their careers in advertising. I know so many creative people who are ambiguous about our industry and it was nice to share POVs.
I had long had fantasy that I should take some really good paper to a bookbinder and have the ultimate journal constructed for myself. I finally did so with Volume 45, a mixture of heavy watercolor paper and colored drawing papers. I took the book with me to LA.
At first I loved it. The pages were big, the paper was great. Most of all, I liked having perfect bound pages. I’d been dealing with spiral bound journals for a while and forgotten how different it is to design across spreads and how different the whole psychology of working in a real book can be.
Eventually though, I got tired of it. The book was too damned big and heavy so I neglected to carry it with me and eventually I stopped working in it all together, about 1/3 of the way through. In the meantime my drawings got worse and worse, more constipated, hesitant, crabbed … yuk.
I did do a few things I thought quite lovely. I also had a great sketchcrawl with a bunch of Southern Californians. It proved to be the last sketchcrawl I did in 2006.
…In my quest for new media I grew a beard.
When I got back from my shoot in LA, I grew enamored of the idea of podcasting and after a lot of technical wrangling, I did a half dozen or so episodes of my podcast. I never really found my POV – somtimes I was too casual, at other time too grim – so I eventually gave that up too. I think my main motivation was to solve the technical issues and see if I could do it. Well, I could and now I’m done. For now.
In April, HOW Magazine asked me to design their cover as well as to write an article about drawing. It was new sort of creative challenge and I loved it. (Incidentally, I’ll be speaking at the HOW conference this Spring in Atlanta. Details to follow).
I continued to flounder about. I started to get interested in cartooning and made a few attempts to chronicle my life in photo-comics, like they have in Mexico. I also drew a few, including one on the history of my hair.
Maybe it’s because I walk past all the Chelsea galleries on my way to work, but I went through a brief neurotic period when I decided I had to make some fine art. My subject matter: work. I found a picture of a horrible business meeting and then laboriously reconstructed it in watercolors. It was one of the most unpleasant art experiences I’ve had, sort of like being in the meeting itself. The best thing to come of the experience was it led me to shave off my beard.
Disgusted with my journal book, I started drawing on loose pieces of paper, Acquarello hot press paper that is lovely and smooth. I also launched a new experiment. I reset my alarm and every day I would wake up and hour early. From 6 to 7 a.m., I would do something I’d never really done before, then draw and write about the experience. I listened to multiple takes of a Miles Davis performance, followed my dog around the park, communed with my turtle, reperformed a play I’d done in high school, and a bunch of other silly stuff, It was a great month which I never really blogged about.
In June, I fell in love with Kate Williamson’s book on Japan and we had a great contest to give away copies. Great travel postcards showed up from all over.
Jack and I also got into stop motion animation and he made a few great little films, like Sunday Road Rage.
In July, I saw several photoblogs that made me think I’d like to take simple pictures of my daily life. I bought a teeny camera that also allowed me to film stuff so I started making short video journals.
I also had this massive fantasy of creating some sort of comprehensive creative resource onlone. That ended up becoming the EDM group wiki and Michael Nobbs’ EDM Superblog, both nice things.
Not journaling properly was taking a toll on me. I started to freak out at the end of July and, in August, I bailed out and announced a sabbatical from this blog. It all seemed a bit random to readers I’m sure but I was having a bit of a creative crisis. I was getting increasingly wrapped up in others’ expectations of me and feeling like I was far from meeting them. While my new book, The Creative License, has done phenomenally well for a book of its type, outselling my others by a factor of four or five, my huge publisher, Hyperion (part of Disney) wanted it to sell millions of copies and when it didn’t, they said they couldn’t do another color illustrated book with me. My original editor had quit to move to Colorado and I felt very unloved. I also realized, after dropping out of teaching an art workshop and declining requests for more Sketchcrawls that I am not an art teacher really and that what I am really looking for is a deeper more honest way to express myself and my experience of the world. Not having another book proposal on the stove was also making me antsy and shitty about myself but my imagination felt bone dry and I wasn’t coming up with anything new I wanted to write about.
In late August, we went to Amsterdam and I started journaling again. I went back to my favorite old format — a little pocket-sized moleskine, this time horizontal and filled with watercolor paper. Within a few days, I felt like I had picked up the thread again.
I continued experimenting: after reading several books by David Hockney, I bought a camera lucida and experimented with drawing portraits and landscapes with it. Cumbersome but illuminating. I also started drawing and redrawing the view out of my kitchen window, usually at breakfast, quick sketches with a fountain pen and a little watercolor set.
Then in mid September, I bought a lush new set of Winsor Newton watercolors that added new zest to my paintings. I also begain drawing portraits in a larger Moleskine, page after page of men’s head and shoulders, responding to various sorts of photgraphs, many quite old. I didn’t care who they were but I was looking for an intuitive response to their faces. Like the drawings of the kitchen view, I was interested in repeating the same subject over again, going deeper and deeper.
When I was stressing out at the end of the summer, my pal, Tom Kane, who had begun blogging this year, made a liberating suggestion. Rather than feeling I have to post my work as I do it, I should pace myself and share drawings and journal pages when I am ready to do so. This has been very freeing and, though I don’t make a big deal about it, the pages I have been posting have become increasingly out of synch with real time, giving me and more perspective on what I am doing.
For instance, in late October, I began drawing exclusively in shades of grey, painting with sumi ink. I also began doing a lot of cartooning, describing my experiences and thoughts in semi-surreal comic book from. I will post those in time.
I also found new fuel for my writing career. There are several significant new irons in the fire and I will share news about them soon (fingers crossed). I am more excited about this than anything I’ve done so far. Also, the release of Everyday Matters in paperback is going to initate a new PR effort from Hyperion that will bring in some new readers to the fold. I look forward to meeting them.
Well, that about wraps up a year of flailing around, a year that was far from pleasant in many ways but ultimately helped me grow. Much pain, some gain. I realize that these pregrinations and unpredictablity has lost me more than a few readers. I apologize to those who remain and hope to do better in the future. Past performance is of course no guarantee of future moodiness.
Slumberpups
Sometimes I use my journal to do more involved, careful drawings. At other times, I use it to just fill in a few minutes, or to record a little factoid about my day. This spread is a good example.
Tim is such a nervous little creature that if I draw him while he’s awake, he gets very nervous that I appear to be staring him down. He can be really tough at times, joining Joe in barking at random dogs in the street, or fighting over a rawhide on the living room rug, but most of the time he lives up to his name: Timid Tim. If you met for the first time, you’d assume he’d been horribly abused as a pup, but he inherited his nerves from his mother, who is a total basket case.
I quite like this painting of Jack for the colors and the layering of paint but my unfortunate use of shading dots makes him look like he needs a good shave. Live and learn.
Backstage with the Peeps
Jack’s band, the Peeps, continues to flourish. They are currently big fans of Tenacious D and discussing playing some of their songs at their next concert.
The lineup coninues to vary a little bit and some members are switching instruments. However, despite changing schools, Jack’s pal Max continues to be a Peep, a loyalty that bodes well.
I made up this composition as I went, beginning with Jack’s drumkit and then adding the rest of the band in a reflection in a mirror in the corner. The whole practice room is jammes with gear, wires, light and mirrrors — a challenge and a treat to draw.
Bill's conundrum
From a recent email exchange with Bill, a reader:
Hey Danny:
I have a real conundrum.
After a few years pursuing other dreams (but still keeping my artistic feet wet). I ramped back up my freelance illustration pursuits. With my website up and loaded with samples I began sending out my promotional material. It has been a year now and I have received only a few nibbles. That being said my portrait business has really picked up.
Here is my dilemma. To me. portraits have always felt like an artistic parlor trick. Sure I can render a portrait to look like your photo but why the heck do you want me to you already own the picture. I just feel like if I let the portrait business take over I will lose my illustration goals.
My problem is I owe it to my wife and son to make more money. I know it sounds odd but my illustrations make me feel like an artist and my portraits make me feel like a whore. What should I do?
Bill
Dear Bill:
I think your issue is less about practicality and more about how you define yourself. The reality is that there are illustrators who feel like whores because they are working for big corporations and making art that will be trashed at the end of the month and wish they could do work for people who would cherish and frame their art.
Not to be harsh, but I urge you to get over your self and focus instead on being as productive as you can. It doesn’t mater if you’re an artist or an illustrator or a hack or a genius. Just take it day-by-day, make art for those who want it and keep moving. While your drawing someone’s portrait, see if you can leverage the connection and make more business for yourself. Then think of who else you can send promotional stuff to.
And think about the promotion stuff you send out. Is it really special? Is it something an art director will just toss in a drawer? Are you giving them something that’s of value and memorable? And are you …
getting back to them to remind them who you are? Is your illustration outstanding in some way? Are you targeting the right people? You seem to work mainly in pen and ink. Have you targeted newspapers? Can you get a regular gig in a local paper? Does your website showcase your work as well as possible? Did you just put it up and figure it would have to do? Do your refresh it? It seems to me that it’s a little passive and asks the visitor to do the work with tiny thumbnails. It also keeps reminding me that your work is for sale. Woo me a little first before waving the’ for sale’ sign.
You are a creative guy. Apply that creativity to leveraging every possible aspect of what you do. Forget about your own label (artists, illustrator, diaper changer, whatever) and do all you can to make other people yearn to work with you. Maybe you should do cartoons, Christmas cards, a children’s book, and give them out free to prospects.
You have a lot going for you. Don’t limit it in any way. Embrace opportunities and keep making stuff.
Hope I haven’t kicked your ass too hard but I know you can do it. I look forward to hearing how it works out.
Your pal,
Danny
Danny:
Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate the kick in the ass…. As for my portraits, I guess I treat myself harshly in this area. My first paid illustration was a portrait and they come kinda easy to me. They just never seemed valid from a personal artistic standpoint. My portraits are oil painted or pencil and my illustrations are pen and ink. For some reason I have always felt more valid doing the pen and ink work. It’s a strange battle that I have been dealing with since high school (I am 38 now). I guess I get hung up on the fact that most people have preconceived notions of what a portrait should be. If people were willing to accept a more creative portrait like the ones you have been doing I would feel more fulfilled. I have been watching how after you went through your creative rough patch this summer you came back with both guns blazing. If I could somehow marry my two styles to a point where both of my needs were met I would feel better. …
Bill
Dear Bill:
Portraits are endlessly fascinating. These days I am looking at lots of them and drawing inspiration from : David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon. Vincent van Gogh…
I think they refute your idea that portraits are not artistically valid or that there’s any preconceived idea of what a portrait should be. If you shake your own preconception, you will grow as an artist and as a success.
And forget trying to marry styles. Try something a lot less conscious and experiment with new media and approaches. It will put fresh excitement into your work that potential customers will respond to. Or else fuck ’em.
DOG
Here and now
One of the pleasures of carrying round a little journal is being less precious about my drawing. Insteads of sitting down in a studio with all of the materials at hand, I can just whip out my book and fill the moment with whatever’s happening right then.
There’s no such thing as wasted time when you can draw. Instead of waiting for the waiter to take our order, I can draw the salt and pepper shakers while I chat with Patti and Jack. I was trying to explain the complexity of my extended family to my boy and so, rather than just draw it on the place-mat and leave it behind, I have a permanent record of our little chat.
This pen is quite obscene, of course. I saw it in a catalog. I will hold off buying it until I can find an appropriate sketchbook; something with vellum pages hand bound in some sort of horribly endangered species’ skin.
I drew the bank on a drawing jaunt with my pal, Tom Kane. We walked too far to find something interesting to draw and I felt a little cramped and off-kilter when I drew it. More and more I am liking spontaneous, solitary drawing, rather than anything formal or planned.
Outside the Gallery
My office is smack in the middle of the Chelsea art district and I often pop in for an art break at lunch or on the way home from work. There is such an endless variety of interesting things to see; more and more work is figurative these days, which I find is pretty helpful in sparking thoughts for the sort of drawing I’m doing. I am always interested in what gets into galleries, what’s condsidered ‘legitimate’, though I remind myself that this is not necessarily synonymous with the’ the best’. Nonetheless, much of it seems to have earned its place there and I am less mystified by what this world and this industry is really about, the more often I visit. I think my earlier resentment and incomprehension of the Art establishment has been replaced with a sense of wonder at all the ways creativity manifests and is recognized.
Drawn while sitting on my little stool, tucked in a corner, on a day when the galleries were busy with tourists and weekenders. This giant portrait ogled me from across the road. I returned the compliment.
This was drawn on the way to work, early, the sun still at an acute angle from the East. I added the colors later, trying to recapture that feeling of high contrast and harsh morning light. I continue to be intrigued by the power of compliementary colors. (“Nice orange. ” Why, thank you.”)
Sucking and idling
I like to draw complicated machinery in the streets. If buildings are my landscapes, trucks are my wildlife.
I drew this critter hurriedly and from my uptown balcony. Just as I finished, it pulled in its trunk, stowed its cones, and ambled off. But I got the drawing, which didn’t suck.
One of the more perilous portions of my trek to the office each morning is crossing the cobbled stone stretch of 14th Street in the heart of the Meat Packing district. There’s loads of construction, sidewalks are missing, detours abound and there are missing stop signs and traffic lights. I just had time to get the basic bits of this rig before its driver clambored back aboard and sailed away on the dense river of morning traffic.
Fear is not very useful.
Hey Danny,
I have loved your stuff since finding your site. I need some counsel from a fellow habitual doodler. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to do stuff with art. I even got my bachelors in fine art education, thinking I would teach. But, fearing financial failure with a new family, I went into another field, and find myself making a good living, but longing to eliminate the “what if” from my lists of regrets. Some days I wish I could just be forced to go deep into the creative side again, but I fear failure.
Any counsel and suggestions?
Thanks,
Witness
Dear Witness:
Fear is not very useful. Instead, I urge you to just start doing whatever it is you are interested in being involved with. Don’t concentrate on the $$$ aspect of things. Start making, then start sharing.
Get involved with the arts community in your area if you want to show in galleries. Contact magazines and papers if you want to illustrate. Just take the leap and avoid wrapping the whole thing up with your identity and sense of self worth.
Be as positive and outgoing and productive as possible. And consider the expansion of your creativity to be a creative effort in and of itself. Be creative in how you make art, in who you show it to, in how you support yourself emotionally as you head in this new direction.
If you approach it this way, it is impossible to fail, for even if you don’t accomplish what you initially thought you’d achieve, you will have a fine adventure, learn new things and, worse case scenario, get that creative urge out of your system once and for all.
Have fun, be brave, get going,
Your pal,
Danny
Happy Birthday, Jerry Lee!
My colors are a little murky here. I love the vermilllion in my paintbox but it is so soft and rich, like lipstick, that it can easily overwhelm my page.
I notice the rooftop on this row of buildings on 9th Avenue when I walk to work. I like the jumble or chimneys and windows and, because the street is very wide here and the buildings are set against a large flat wall, the corner looks like a set. It reminds me of the many times we have gone to see La Bohéme at the Met.
I was invited to a taping of a concert Jerry Lee Lewis played on his birthday. I got to meet The Killer backstage beforehand. He is quite well preserved and charming and, once he got out to his flame-covered piano, seriously rocked out with Willie Nelson. As always, it was very hard for me to draw while great music was being played, particularly standing surrounded by a coterie of models in the semi-darkness. Nonetheless, I wanted to keep the memory and beavered on.
Danny Gregory 
