I've been working on a number of sigle sheet books. They are very easy to work on no matter where I am. I can draw in cafes, on the beach, on the kitchen table, to name a few. I find making each one exciting and intriguing.

Each small book has a narative and a rhytmn of it's own.

I've included a couple photos of two different books. I'm continuing to make additional books and will have several available for view and sale at Philadelphia Open Studio Tours.

I will be participating in Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, a program of The Center for Emerging Visual Artists. It is the largest tour of artist studios and creative workspaces in the region and one of the premier open studio tour events in the country.

East of Broad Street
October 22 - 23
12 - 6 pm

Getting out for a walk and stopping at a sidewalk cafe before temperatures made it into the eighties is my daily goal this late summer. Late summer leads to autumn and a very busy and serious season. It's open studio time in Philadelphia during October. I begin thinking about what new work I will have to offer and what projects I will be working on leading up to open studio

In my Moleskine I was making sure I had captured several ideas for drawings that came to me in a dream state. It always important to note what I can as thouroughly as possible for my next visit in the studio.

I'm working on a commission that is based on my soundings drawings. The new form factor of mounted paper on cradle boards required a different set up. For many drawings I may draw on the wall. For ink drawings I usually draw on a flat surface. I have to reach across a distance and an incline can usually help. Using dip pens or droppers means the positioning of the pen holds the ink in place. 

I have been working on several small sketchbooks recently. I have been making single pen dip drawings on each new recto.

I'm using different inks and different pens to draw in each book. These are two of the books I am working on. The orange book is made with a less flexible nib and acrylic ink. The yellow book has walnut ink drawings made with a flexible fine point nib.

The drawings create a linear tale made line by line and page by page.

Friday was my first studio day in weeks.

These are two of the drawings I made in the measurements series the first of 2016. I'm planning a large series that can be hung together to create a larger piece.

I'm deciding on the hues now and plan to draw quite a number of small pieces.

This is the start.

It's been weeks since I spent time in my studio.

But today I got some time to be there. Be there. I began by lighting a candle and incense. Then I walked around my worktable and slowly began to select tools that would be used and those that would be put away. I hung unfinished pieces on the walls to revisit at another time. I circled my worktable until the area was ready for me to make drawings.

I had selected my pens, my ink, my substrate.