Home Paramount

There's a small industrial area near my residence, and I have sketched there many times. There is a sheet metal shop, a car body shop, a garage for Falls Church utility vehicles, and this modernist blocky building, Falls Church Bauhaus you could call it. It houses an exterminator's offices and probably equipment, too. The exterminator's name is "Home Paramount," a high pompous name for bug-slayers. I don't have any undesirable bugs in my house, so my home is not paramount. I did see an earwig some days ago, but I didn't slay it, I just let it go.

Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 5", May 6, 2003.

Grapey Border Under Vine

I'm working on the texts and borders for "Under Vine," and you can see it here. The introductory text ("Why I Created This") kind of thing goes here. The next job to be done is the logo, the last winery page and its variant which will be on the cover. I'm gettin' there people, I really am. This typeface is from the previous Book 1 and I don't think anyone will mind if I repeat.

Photoshop, 8 1/2" x 11", April 29, 2019.

Kitchen Cylinder and Cone

Here's more exciting still life from the kitchen. They are the timeless basic shapes that the world is made of. The cylinder to left is a nearly empty roll of toilet paper, which I use for blotting spills, not its usual use. The cone, with handle and saucer, is a coffee dripper. You put the cone down on your cup, and pour hot water into a filter full of powdered coffee in the cone, which then tinkles into your cup...well maybe I did have that toilet paper in there for its original purpose.

Black tech pen on sketchbook page, 3" x 2 1/2", April 27, 2019.

Bronze Urn of Summerland 1975

Mount Auburn Cemetery is one of the most beautiful places in the United States, situated in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the springtime just about now the  place is filled with flowering trees, specimen plants, famous landscape design, and a world of white marble monuments and bronze edifices. When I lived in the Boston area as a student I would reserve a day to visit every year. Once I was in the enclosure, I wandered about pretending I was in the heavenly spiritual world of "Summerland." The cemetery houses the tomb of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of "Christian Science," once a major religious force in upper-class Boston. It is also designed with "Spiritualism" in mind, a movement that concentrated on communicating with the blessed spirits of the dead, complete with detailed descriptions of what Heaven looks like. I took my art stuff into Summerland and did drawings of the landscape and monuments, and then returned to my profane dwelling at Brandeis University. 

Colored pencil with a lot of Photoshop editing, 4 1/2" x 7 1/2", May 1975.

"Under Vine" Title Page Background

This is what the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia look like, to the idealizing imagination. I originally created this landscape image from memory in acrylic paint, and for the Wine Book I have incorporated the image of my original painting into a digitally painted title page background. Some more work is necessary and then I'll layer the words and logo onto the page. This is where I sign and number the books when they're ready. The empty blue sky area is where the logo will appear. There are no vines in this picture but this could be the view from any Virginia vineyard in that area.

Photoshop composite, 8 1/2" x 11", April 2019.

Life Drawing Male 1972

When a male guy models for a (co-ed) life drawing group, he has the option of wearing a "Speedo" or short briefs for modesty. The lady model doesn't have that choice, she has to be nude. That is, back in 1972. I don't think it mattered that we didn't see, uh, all of the guys, and there weren't many male models anyway. The lightly drawn figure under the model's knee is a sketch of my mother, drawing as part of the art group.

Pencil on sketchbook page, 5" x 8", 1972.

Goodbye for the Winter Vineyard

This is the last of my pages for "Virginia Under Vine," that is, in the sequence I have planned. In my humble opinion it's the best iPad art I've ever done so far, even though my iPad is obsolete. I want to get a new iPad so I can do more "paintings" but that will have to wait until this project is over and published. It's the same vineyard I've been following for five years. Unlike the November of the image, this April brings out the fresh new buds and sprouts for the quick-growing vines, a time called "bud break."