Sketchy Squares

Sometimes in the middle of a deadline, along with the joy of making art for a book that you are completely over-the-top excited about*, there's an urge to break out and try something new.

A few months ago I cracked open a sketchbook, new ink, a tiny set of travel paints, and a bunch of watercolor pencils I'd been meaning to play with for a long time. The goal was only to make small, quick drawings of whatever was floating around in my head at the time, and to keep it loose. (Must squash that perfectionist beast that makes you tighten up and question every mark on the page!) Each is only about 3" square.

This exercise has turned into relaxing little breaks that fit in the crevices of my day between other projects. Also, it's FUN! You might want to try it sometime.

Here are some of the drawings. I also post them over on Instagram...

*The book is CHARLES DARWIN'S AROUND-THE-WORLD ADVENTURE (Abrams, 2016), coming out in October! Woohoo! (More about this, soon!)

Fun With Pens

It's been a writing week and so I haven't had art to post. But this morning I played around with a brush pen. I haven't used one much before (kind of obvious, huh?) but really like the feel of it. Plus it gets me away from my natural inclination to cross-hatch everything. Good to try something new every now and then.

The leaves are starting to turn around here. Beautiful, really. It's overcast and damp today, however, and I can't help thinking the air smells kind of like... dog poop. Must be the humidity.

Mystery Vine

This strange looking vine with huge leaves popped up in our little side garden at the beginning of summer. I decided to leave it, figuring it was some sort of seed that sprouted from the undercooked compost I'd put down. And besides, by mid to end summer the roses usually looked fairly ratty, so at least it would add some green. But what was this mystery vine? We soon had a clue....



















Could it be a Butternut Squash?















It was! It was a Butternut Squash! So we cooked it up. Yum! We should have let it ripen a bit more on the vine, but it was delicious, anyway.















We've also been growing cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes and peppers. This was our first year experimenting with container vegetables. Not everything has been a bountiful success, but we did okay, considering the strange weather. (At least we kept the deer away!) We'll experiment some more next year.















It feels good to play with a garden, or a story, or a piece of art...