Robot Crime

I was going through my sketchbooks the other day, scanning them because I’m a bit of a digital packrat, and found a bunch of robot sketches that seemed to hang together.

So I threaded a little notion of a story through them. 

I kinda like it. 

Enjoy!

Sketchbook Update and Blog Thoughts

Hello again friends!

Welcome to spring.

I’ve been drawing a lot fewer robots lately, which is strange for me. Robots have been my go-to for years but they’re starting to feel a little stale, a little repetitive. What I’ve been drawing lately that I’ve really been enjoying is just the stuff I see around me. 

All of these coffee cups and coffee pots - and how often I draw the same ones in slightly different configurations - remind me of a wonderful Italian painter who I’ve likely mentioned before, Giorgio Morandi.

Click through for more. There are around 1,350. Mostly still lives.

I love the lived-in repetition of his paintings. In terms of what’s there, they’re all sort of the same painting. But looking at a group of them I think they’re ultimately not about the glasses & vases & bottles, but about time. Each painting is about the day it was painted. And the week, the time of day and the season. And all of them together are a story of Morandi’s days and how his view of the world around him changed, or didn’t change, over time. 

A lifetime of paintings like this feels wonderfully meditative. I’ve been meditating daily for a little over two years & it’s become something I’ve come to value and that I think about quite a bit. By any measure, two years of daily meditation still makes me a novice but it’s given me some perspective to think about how meditation and mindfulness fit into my life. Both are important, but they’re also quite different. Drawing, for me, is not meditation but it’s absolutely meditative, mindful. What’s the difference? Meditation (for me, and assume that ‘for me’ is in most every sentence of this paragraph) is a kind of unfocused focus. It’s a resting attention on, often, the breath and it’s not intellectual or analytical. Drawing, by contrast, is extremely analytical. It’s a constant comparison of what I’m seeing in the world with what I’m seeing on the page. It’s hundreds of judgements and alterations and marks made. It’s very focused focus. So how is it meditative? It’s a regular practice that puts me in a quiet, constrained mindset - one that I protect from the distractions of my phone, emails, appointments, etc. Drawing time is drawing time - like meditation time is meditation time - and forcing myself to practice focused drawing feels a lot like forcing myself to practice unfocused sitting. There’s a stillness in each and in both cases I come out of the activity a little quieter and, I hope, a little more observant. Meditation brings me closer to myself, whereas drawing, as a meditative activity, brings me closer to the world. 

Here’s a video of Milton Glaser talking about drawing. He’s not saying the same thing as I am, but everything he’s saying sounds about right. 

“It is only through drawing that I look at things carefully.”

Let’s talk about Berlin

First off, click the picture to find out more about the map. It’s by illustrator Theresa Grieben and it’s pretty great. 

Secondly, we’re heading there in late May. It’ll be our second trip there together and among the many things we’re planning to do is to scout it out for a move. Yep. After both of us having steadily moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, we’re heading way, way back east. The plan is to make it happen…well, I’ll continue to share thoughts when & how as our plans shake out.

On that note, if anyone out there has any connections, leads, people we should meet in Berlin, please holler! We’re both applying for freelance artist visas and both hope to be able to work with & for German clients as well as keeping our US-based work. This is just the beginning of what will hopefully be a pretty fun ride. Stay tuned!

Sketchbooking
 

I just picked up this PDF that’s a collection of Pixar story artist Matt Jones’ sketchbooking around San Francisco. 

I know I’ve talked about loving sketchbooks before so I won’t go on about how great this one is but if you like them too, pick it up. He also has a really enjoyable YouTube channel where he posts a lot of short videos of him drawing & painting on location. 

The sketchbook that’s been on my “why didn’t I buy this?” list after seeing it in a Portland comic shop a couple years ago is Lisbonne Carnets by Philippe Dupuy & Charles Berberian. 

I’ve never gotten in to the comics they’re best known for, but I adore this kind of travel carnet. If anyone comes across it, or their Tanger or Istanbul Carnets, buy two copies of each. Keep one for yourself and I’ll pay for the others, plus shipping, and I’ll throw in a sketch if you send them my way!

I’m Afraid of Worms, Roxanne!

I just finished this book, which I feel like I’ve been reading forever. It was totally worth it - though I had to keep my Kindle on airplane mode for a couple weeks after my library loan expired. I picked it up based on a podcast recommendation by John Dickerson.

It was fascinating and depressing how relevant this book felt today. The Civil War wasn’t really so long ago and, frankly, the things we were fighting against then are still incredibly present today. Also, as debased and intellectually vapid as our political discourse seems now, it was just as coarse back then. Fearmongering, slander and hyperbole are, apparently, just how the sausage gets made. I wish I’d liked the book less and that it felt more like ancient history, so it’s probably really good that I spent so much time with it. 

Changing things up dramatically, I just started reading Horrorstor and recently listened to the audiobook of My Best Friend’s Exorcism, both by Grady Hendrix.

I went into My Best Friend’s Exorcism with pretty low expectations and was pleasantly surprised that it was much better than it needed to be. There’s a lot more to the story than camp & nostalgia - though it was all the camp & nostalgia on the cover that pulled me in.

Horrorstor, similarly campy based on its cover & interior design, is following a similar trajectory. 

Whew!

It’s been a while since the last newsletter & I’m beat. I’m shooting for another in around two weeks. I’ve probably said that before. Feel free to nag me if I’m late. 

Also feel free to keep in touch. Newsletters & blogs are back. That’s what all the trend pieces say. Let’s be part of a trend together!

Thanks gang. 

Wrylon Robotical Original 2S-4L_Quad

‘Bot 2S-4L_Quad, aka “Crick”, was a variant of the Perry 'bot, developed for deliveries in wet, swampy & lowland areas.

Wrylon’s first venture into telescoping leg & neck bots, “Perry”, proved successful enough to justify the development of several variants. Crick, named for the s-bend in his neck, was built with a larger soil & fertilizer compartment, allowing him to make longer deliveries. Cricks have been known to function, nearly fully submerged, for weeks at a time as they picked their way through previously un-charted bogs or paddies on their way to make their delivery.

Waterproofing became an issue on deliveries over three months in length but no Crick ever lost a bloom to excess moisture contamination. Cricks were rare but always in service from 1915 until the end of Wrylon Robotical.  

Never before featured in any known guides.

Order includes a full set of guides (note that this 'bot is not in any of these guides) and the original sketch.

Sketch measures 5"x7", paper measures 7.5"x9".

Wrylon Robotical Original 4L-1FL_Quad

‘Bot 4L-1FL_Quad, aka “TinkTink” was a limited-run 'bot, built only during the 1911 production year. Named after the sound of her four feet as she set out on a delivery, “Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…”, she was built for long-necked blooms and for flora with extra soil and fertilizer needs.

Her extended floral support column, extra-capacity internal tanks and directional CO2/O2 venting system made her an engineering marvel but a problematic traveler. Her internal complexity turned out to be too great for the demands of cross-country travel. As cute as she was, TingTing proved too delicate for extended use and recorded her very last delivery in early 1913 before being mothballed. 

First seen in the 1911 Wrylon Robotical Field Guide & Spotters Handbook.

Order includes a full set of guides and the original sketch.

Sketch measures 5"x7", paper measures 6"x9".

Bikes of Berlin

Beater bikes are the best. 

Look, a 14lb. all-carbon race bike is a thing of joy and handbuilt steel frames can be works of art. But an around-town, to the coffeeshop, the grocery, the movies, the pub, the post office & everywhere else bike is an essential bike. It’s the bike you ride everyday. You can lock it up and not spend your entire coffeeshop time worrying about it. It gets dinged. It gets repaired. It gets your hand-me-down tires, or you just put on the most bulletproof city rubber you can find & never think about it again. It’ll take a pizza-sized Wald rack, or a second-hand no-name rack you found on eBay. Add a couple lights and fenders and it’s a year-round commuter. 

So what’s up with Berlin?

Well, we spent ten days there on honeymoon late last year and didn’t touch a car once. We rented a couple of beaters for four Euro/day (that’s under $5 USD) and pedaled around the city. It was the best - dedicated bike lanes, left turn signal lights for bikes, separated pedestrian lanes and bikes locked up everywhere. We saw more bikes in Berlin than in famously bike-friendly Amsterdam & Copenhagen. After seeing our 1,000th bike, I decided I needed to start drawing them. Thus we have the Bikes of Berlin prints.

More pics!

Ride the Observatory, 2nd Printing

I’m really excited to offer a second (and final) printing of this poster. Thanks to all who liked the first, very limited run, and asked if I could make more. 

As I said about the first run: Everyone knows that #LASucksForCyling. 

Really, it’s terrible. Don’t move here to ride bikes. 

But if you do, you’ll find out that it’s actually pretty great. I live on the east side, which means that Griffith Park is one of my regular stomping grounds. There are dozens of loops to ride through the park, not too much car traffic and lots of weird LA history (Table 29?). 

Looming large over the park is the Observatory. It’s a perfect little after work climb, mid-commute high-point or sightseeing stop. So how do you get there?

Wonder no more. 

For this second run I partnered with the fine folk at Mama’s Sauce to produce a print that looks so good, well, it just looks darn good. 

18x24, one-color screen print on some nice, heavyweight French Co. paper. Each one signed & numbered. 

$35, shipping included. I wish I could offer Amazon’s shipping rates, but I don’t do their kind of volume. 

If you’re local - like really, really local - and maybe I see you riding bikes on the regular, they’re $25. Email me for details. Sorry I can’t offer this to everyone. 

Thanks again, gang.