Had a great day in the studio last tuesday. Took a couple pics. Digital photography is great but I really want wireless transfer. I know I can take a shot or two with my iPhone but I like using my camera and that means transferring from my memory card to my laptop and then uploading to my Flickr account. No. I don't upload images to FB because I find their TOS (Terms of Service) offensive. At flickr I control the rights of each and every one of my images individually. (I'm looking forward to seeing what Google + has to offer. I hate Facebook in O so many ways.)

Three drawings that I had started that were staring at me have moved ahead quite a bit. More experimentation with some oil pastels and drawing with strange objects that push away the pastels. Some of the objects help me score the surfaces creating grooves that doing catch any new pigment.

I have a fourth and it is just beginning to take shape — I'm not showing it here. It will come soon.

It's great to get some squares on the wall again and get some energetic drawings going. We'll see what they look like next week.

I've been working on some very active drawings this summer. These four red squares are crying out for names. I haven't discovered them yet. I thought if I put them at my blog I could look at them more and think about names. I also told folks that I would post the drawings when they were finished. So here we go.

A quick capture of my road kit.

I carry several sketchbooks. Three Molekines, one for ink drawings, a watercolor book, and a journal. Last but not least a Fabriano with multiple color sheets.

I like having the aqueous pencils on the road gives me lots of options. I can use one of my nifty Japanese nylon water color brushes to blend color or I can leave them alone.

This time along I brought a new India Ink brush marker. Love it. It helped me keep my little sketches very loose.

My plants were weeping when I arrived at my studio today. Four 90+ degree days called for more watering. I unloaded some supplies and drawings I had scanned last week. Then I began to get my road kit together.

I have a pretty serious kit for drawing in small sketchbooks along the beach or in the public places. I carry small Moleskines or spiral sketchbooks; they are best for unexpected bouts with nature. I can control them in the wind or cover them up from the rain. I have aqueous colored pencils, a squirt bottle, and  plastic Japanese brushes that have water wells built in.

I'm investigating some new things here at my blog.

Working on not being so image centric. I want to get in a place again where I write more about my process. It helps the visual side of my brain.

Please hang in there with me while I make some incremental changes. Let's see where this goes.

Got to the studio after running errands early this morning.

Took awhile to get started but by the time I left progress had been made. I finally feel like work is starting is to spill out. These drawings use an under layer of soft pastel and an upper layer of oil pastel. Some metallic. color. Some scraping and scratching. You can't see the metallic in this quick photo.

Looking forward to getting back in and working more.

I don't believe it's real. I have four days in my studio when I don't have to think about anything but making art. Today I went into the studio for the first day of my of my art retreat.

I have been working on these drawings for ages. They are 6 x 6  how much trouble could they be? Well, first they started out as pencil drawings. I laid down a grid and began working with a grid of directional lines, In some places you can see the intricate herringbone marks peeking through. The work hung on the wall for weeks. I couldn't see where it was going. I took it down and put it away.

All of that reassessment, organization, and letting things go — also known as the month of June — is over. Now I'm on an art holiday and will have four glorious days to spend in my studio making work.

New month new energy. Summer temperatures are baking my brain and it seems that I am finally ready to make some new work. The temperatures also make drawing with oil pastels glorious. It's like drawing with butter.

Took out the giant pastels they are inspiring in every way.