I discovered Asbury Park this Summer. I went to see the tattoo fest at the excellent convention hall. It had all the stone marine horses one could ask for. And the drawing! I will forever be impressed by tattoo artists. I wonder if tattooing has the same soft feel of drawing on a cocktail napkin with a ballpoint pen. I lunched on a lobster roll at a little cafe on the boardwalk. 

This Summer I'm back on my quest for the perfect swimming spot. This was one of the finalists, even though it was a little shallow. I'm always tempted to just dive directly into the Delaware, but it seems a little treacherous. Maybe it's time to invest in an innertube.  

I have tons of ideas lately. Like, five metric tons. Ideas don't weigh anything of course, until you put them on paper or canvas or whatever. I feel like I can't draw my ideas fast enough, which is wonderful and also frustrating. The hours in my little studio fly by! I think it's what some people call "flow." I had to move out of my Princeton studio for efficiency purposes ($) and I've made a space for myself in our upstairs sunroom. It's small, but it's turned out to be fantastic. I just have to make sure I don't get distracted by household stuff. Doing laundry is a lot easier than creating a picturebook, and so is mopping the floor. 

I love Disney animation. Especially from the 1950s. I wanted to be a Disney animator when I was a kid: painting cels, pencilling the in-betweens, watching my characters come to life, etc. In college though, I found the process of animation to be more tedious than I thought it would be. Tedious may be putting it lightly. Infuriating? The end result was beautiful, but I gotta enjoy my process. 

Lots of stories are coming up, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And my Happy Thoughts in the front of my mind. And pixiedust. 

I like the action in this one. There is a "double vision" effect because of the red and green parallel scribbles.

The morning sun is making the snow sparkle like white glitter. I'm always transfixed in the glitter section of the craft store: all those colors! But what to do with it? I haven't really made good use of this medium since elementary school, when we would drip loopy designs with elmer's, then shake coarse rainbow glitter on it. I think it looks best á la Pollack, with drippy controlled chaos. Now I try to make paintings that sparkle without actual glitter - I want them to draw interest with facets of pure color and perceived shine. 

I've been drawing in my sketchbook quite a bit lately, like I did in the old days. I'm getting inspiration from tattoo artwork. In the past few weeks I've visited tattoo studios around the neighborhood for insight, and I might have a springtime exhibition of paintings at Artisanal Tattoo in Somerville. 

This one I'm calling World Power Ranking and Rocket Design. I like the use of ballpoint here, and even though there is some water/chocolate damage, the detail is still visible. I love that the Number One World Power goes to "Old Gramps."

At my restaurant job, there is a lot of artwork going on. I think I've mentioned the etch-a-sketch phenomenon, and of course there are crayons and paper tablecloths. This yields excellent images that merit publishing! So here is the first volume of a collection of Paper Tablecloth Drawings by various guests . This beauty I have entitled Imma Make You Unconcious  (sic) as per the speech bubble in green. Medium: crayola

Does anyone use wallpaper anymore? I took this picture at a little shop in Flemington, New Jersey. It's one of those towns that looks like it once had an industry that became obsolete. So cute though, with a "main street" kind of feel. There are a lot of empty storefronts that would make great studio spaces. Which leads me to the next topic... I have a new studio space!! It's right in Princeton, which means I have access to all kinds of great stuff on foot. It's a bit smaller than my Hillsborough studio, but the "storage unit" feel wasn't the most inspiring, I must admit. I feel invigorated and ready to get some quality work done. I'm moving forward with a secret interactive project that involves digital illustrations - it will be all over my website when we are finished!