Today!

Breakfast: a shake made of spinach, a banana, an apple, half a mango, grapes, blueberries, hemp seeds, and ice of course. Delicious.
Weapons of choice today:

Rubylith, cameras, drafting pencils, Germany, and an old bass guitar

Hello! I spent a small chunk of this afternoon out in the cold taking reference photos for a poster I am working on. I enjoy setting out on small photo adventures, and I often end up collecting images that aren't necessarily related to the primary composition for which I'm taking pictures. I rarely ever get rid of reference photos like the one the sketch at the left is based on (I took a bunch of liberties with drawing that building, though). Something I used to always emphasize to students when I student taught high school art was to draw what you see, not what you think you see. I would sometime catch myself breaking my own rules, but I've found that having several visual reference sources are immeasurably helpful. When drawing, I often combine various elements from the different visual sources and/or add invented elements.
Okay! Other than some new illustration/poster/art print things, I will be participating in some group print shows (more info soon). There is some other really rad stuff in the works, too. Quite a bit to do!

Lastly, some remaining work from the Comb The Field show at Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art is available for sale through their website. And! In Print opens this Saturday, February 19th at People's Art of Portland.

Playtime For Democracy

I've been watching/listening to streaming coverage in Cairo today. A three-decade-long dictatorship has come to an end under the pressure of eighteen days of peaceful protest. Such a powerful mass display of authentic democracy is a truly awesome thing to behold, even if just modestly doing so through live streaming coverage on my small laptop screen. The battle is far from over for democracy in Egypt, but it's most certainly an exciting time.
A couple of quick sketches come to you via the print screen function and Al-Jazeera news this afternoon.