Black Pen & Colored Pencils, Los Angeles, 2013

Only with spring

Watercolor & coloredpencil

Monrovia 1996

Oh sweet spontaneous earth...

How often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and buffeting thee

that thou mightest conceive

gods.

But true

to the incomparable couch of death

thy rythmic lover

thou answerest them

only with

Spring

e. e. cummings

E. E. Cummings

T.I.B.W.F.

The BUDOS BAND

colored pencil, calbayog city, 2025

I was doing this one all in reds and yellows, and it was on fire!

So, I decided to give the fire a bit of definition with dark blue lines, and, I might have gotten a bit carried away with the blue, but then, and I'm not sure why I didn't expect this but, I got these lovely browns.

We call that serendipity.

As a side note, Sean, my nine year old son says this is the worst drawing I've ever made..

He's a harsh critic.

before the blue

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Mountain woman

pencil drawing on paper

Calbayog City 2024

I've settled into a routine of drawing every morning. When I start a new drawing, I'm always fearful of failure, but usually something comes out of it. My wife says this drawing looks like one of the tribal women who live up in the mountains here in the Philippines. I wasn't trying to draw that, but I'll take it. Actually, I'm just trying to learn how to draw faces. And play with composition. This drawing looks a bit cartoonish, but I like where we're going.

I don't know anything

MAD SEASON

pencil drawing, calbayog city, 2025

Lèt me ask you something. What are you going to do in the future when every transaction we make is done on line and someone who you can't even talk to decides you can't do something?

Wondering outloud for a friend.

.

Femme Fatale - Nico and the Velvet Underground

pencildrawing

Calbayog City 2024

I never liked The Velvet Underground until I listened to them.

Sometime around 2010 I downloaded their first album and,

I loved it.

Highly recomended.

I think back when they first came out I was just put off by the whole seedy Andy Warhol scene so I really never listened to them.

Lesson learned:

"Don't dislike a band until you have at least listened to them."

.

.

Just between you and me

colored pencil watercolor and pen

Monrovia, CA, 1995

In 1995 I was living in Monrovia, CA, and, on the advice of a judge, I stopped drinking alcohol.

Not being drunk all the time came as a shock to me. I suddenly had all this time to kill. I decided to work on large, time cosuming projects. The drawing above was my first. It took a couple of weeks to complete. And then I did another.

I drew. I drew in the middle of a life completely shattered. I drew, and I dreamed of a future. A future far away where I could be new.

Years later, in 2011, when I first landed in the Philippines, the first thing I noticed was the smell. Manila smells like an overwhelming mixture of cooked pork, motorcycle exhaust and BO.

As I walked down the tarmac I was still in Monrovia and I was still dreaming.

Calbayog City, Philippines, 2025

Akae Beka - Rebellion Running

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Zero 7 - Home

I did the pen drawing last night before dinner and the pencil drawing this morning in bed.

Next comes pancakes.

Saturday night

ballpoint pen

Calbayog City 2024

Sunday morning

pencil drawing

Calbayog City 2024

.

.

So very lonely

Black sharpie on paper

Los Angeles 2016

De Kooning once said, "In order for art to work the finished piece needs to at least look better than the original blank canvas."

I think de Kooning said that.

Maybe I imagined it.

In that case I said it.

I don't know.

The Rolling Stones- 2000 Lightyears from home

Besame Mucho

colored pencil & pen, calbayog city, 2025

Not gonna lie, I really like this one. It has a deeply blue, blue, and the red.. the red was an accident. I love accidents.

Lisa Ono - Besame Mucho

.

black sharpie on bond paper

San Francisco 2003

I spent Christmas 2003 with some friends in San Francisco. They lived in this big two-hundred-year-old house that sat on the prison grounds of San Quentin penitentiary. It's a long story actually but what I remember most was the bed. The guest room of the house had this large old four posted wooden bed frame with the softest thickest most wonderful mattress I have ever slept on in my entire life. I will never forget the moment when I laid down and sank into the loving folds of that luxurious mattress. I felt embraced by softness, and I fell asleep as if floating on a cloud.

When I awoke the next morning I was amazed at the time. I had slept through the entire night without waking up once. I felt wonderfully refreshed.

After breakfast I sat down with my sharpie and drew both of these drawings in a single sitting.

black sharpie on bond paper

San Francisco 2003