Lovey-Dovey Vibes

I did this little comic last month for a couple that wanted to celebrate their relationship, which I thought was very sweet. Story and storyboard by Martina Lawingova

Starbucks Sketch

Not sure whether this classifies as a sketch or a drawing, because it took quite a while. Nor am I quite happy with it, but I suspect it might grow on me. Something about having no organic form to draw in a three-hour drawing (except for the people of course) made it a little bit less lively an experience than what was actually going on - people working, ordering, chattering, drinking their coffee. It's an interesting idea - that building an accurate environment can take over the drawing so much that the "vibe" is not translated all that accurately... I would like to know what vibe you get, looking at this...

Presenting: Sweet Vice.

Now if anyone could show me how to do this in color...

Home. Some thoughts on technique.

I drew this in the summer, and it actually took two days. I must say I'm in love with gradual building of form with hard pencils. It lets you have a steady control of texture and to look very closely at your subject. And unlike working with a pen that quite quickly constricts your use of gesture, every time you step up to a softer/darker pencil you have another chance to work gesturally. It would seem two days on a small sketch like this would suck the life out of it, but to me this looks quite alive.

Maybe it's simply that I had such a soft spot for pen and line work all throughout college that I finally exhausted my use of it of course, but I think there really is something to line drawing process that is stifling. And it's the overbearing contour. No matter how much you try to build sculpturally, you get this containment effect. I still use contour of course. After all I think like a draftsman, not really as a painter: contour line is here to stay. But I am much more welcoming of it, when it's in 2H or 4H graphite. It lets the things you draw breathe.

My beautiful sister

Casa Peruana (Detail)

If you want to be prolific, my advice is do not start a large drawing/painting in full value scale rendered by 5H, 4H, 3H, HB, B, 2B and 4B pencils. Just get a charcoal stick or something.

Delicate progression in the shadow

Casa Peruana

Here's a piece I am currently working on, in its unfinished form. This is new for me, since I've mostly worked on small scale until now, and this is quite large, and still covered in my teeny-tiny pencil marks. The piece is loosely based on a building I saw in Arequipa not too far from the futbal stadium, but it's more of an impression of South American sprawly architecture, a way of life in which structure of time, of certain alignment, of certain anything exists mid tectonic shift and whose logic escapes me. Also this is my impression of life at such great heights that met me with unshakable breath-stealing altitude sickness.

Ancient Torsos in the Met

Chinatown, Washington DC

This weekend for some reason I got to see the Chinatown in DC, Manhattan and Brooklyn... This is the view from a Starbucks where I was waiting for the bus to Big Apple, overhearing people at business lunch confessing to each other their fear of computers and an idle Bible-repeater mumble on with feign care in his disdain that all the people passing by need to discover just one name.

An old stove.

I happened to see this iron stove in a West Virginian cabin my friends' family rented out for a weekend in August. The place was filled with antique furniture and age. If you happen to know anything about antiques, please share your opinion on how old this may be. The letters on the design read W and R.

AMOSHIMASHA Blog Launched

My best friend, otherwise known as Amosh, will be documenting his journey from China to Israel on a unicycle. Reality poetry will be accompanied with illustrations by yours truly. Follow our blog atamoshimasha.blogspot.com

Drawing the Passions

Watching Hot Dads at Virginia Beach

Mild Erotica

Colca Canyon

Working on a piece for Spit'n'Ink Benefit.

Months looking for a job aren't getting me anywhere but deeper into the blues, but just a day at the drawing board, and I get this sketch, a sense that I'm moving somewhere, that my education gave me an incredibly complicated skill, and all I want is to draw more, endlessly.

The Urus living on the Lake Titicaca (Final)

The Urus continue the same lifestyle they had for many centuries, with the exception of recent additions of solar panels for electricity, televisions, radio and bright nylon thread they incorporate into traditional textiles over Nirvana T-shirts. They have always maintained trade with the nearby city of Puno. The islands are constructed from layered earth and cane, and are anchored down. Otherwise, they say, they will float away to Bolivia, and they don't have Peruvian documents to be accepted back.
When a family does not contribute to the community and work, they're not asked to leave their homes. Instead they can take their home with them, cutting off a piece of the island.

Lullaby

Graphic Essay assignment. Turned out to be a self-portrait, but it really is just a part of a sequential piece I might make. The writing that goes with it is entirely magical. I wrote the fairy tale many years ago. Well, I just pulled an all-nighter, so I should probably stop trying to talk.

Crossroads Cafe

Cafe which I like a lot.

Floating Dolphins

Stuff from my head...