Category: Sketching
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Nose to the grindstone
Lately I’ve spent nearly every waking minute of each day with my face an inch away from the drafting table. Let’s step back, and stretch out a bit. My studio is often a sea of papers—an occupational hazard—but these days the swells have consisted of pencil snapshots for my Mt. Rainier book. Dozens, and dozens,…
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Cancelled trips
Since I posted this drawing and some others this summer, people have been asking me what’s with the stamps in my sketchbook. I guess the short answer is that each one is a little piece of personal tradition. But you know I don’t really do short answers. The long one, then. I grew up in…
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Volcano vacation
The second part of my little stolen holiday was a little more ambitious: a four-night camping trip with the Tailor in southern Oregon. It was just what the doctor ordered—the perfect prescription for recharging the soul. We camped in the Rogue River National Forest, in a grove of hemlocks and blooming dogwoods, just downstream from…
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Vampire vacation
Since I’ll be a hermit for most of the rest of the year while I finish my Rainier book, I tried to sneak a little stolen summer vacation time into June. If I was going to lock myself indoors during our sunniest season, I wanted as many mountains, oceans, flowers and skies as I could…
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Ashes to ashes
I’ve had volcanoes on the brain for nearly two years. Littering my studio are volumes of sketches, nearly 6,000 photographs, reference books, stacks of maps, and a brand new, functional prototype of the artist book about Mt. Rainier I’m working on—all evidence of my attempts at capturing a series of fleeting moments and freezing them…
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Visual compulsion
The other night I went to a talk by comics artist Art Spiegelman, and as usual, brought one of my trusty sketchbooks with me. Since comics and I go way back, and I’m a big Spiegelman fan, I think I got a little carried away with the doodles accompanying my lecture notes. I was a…
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Little breather
The past couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind, and when I look in the mirror I see a walking, talking to-do list. The notes-to-self strewn all over the studio (among half-finished boxes, reference materials, pencil layouts, proof prints, watercolor pans, etc.) aren’t enough, so now I’ve taken to muttering little reminders under my…
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Right-hand gal
I find I’m spending more time at the drafting table these days, and far fewer hours chained to the computer. This month I am blessed with an assistant—a brilliant young woman who is helping me with my administrative and production work, in exchange for school credit, a little professional experience and the chance to beef…
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Year in review
End-of-the-year summaries have never been my strong suit, not least because I tend to measure time on completely different terms than the standard calendar (like counting up from the anniversary of an important event, for instance). And since nobody seems to be able to agree on whether the decade ends this year or next (anyway,…
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Third time’s a charm
After nearly a year, image-gathering for my Mt. Rainier artist book is finally coming to an end, and I’m starting to make the final illustrations. I have a huge stack of sketches, scribbles and recorded data, and thousands upon thousands of photos to sift through. This month and next are scheduled for the all-important (and…