"Winter from Promontory Point" watercolor

"Practice is the best of all instructors" Publilius Syrus

This past year of making drawings, paintings, and photographs each day for this blog has been about practice. I have learned that practice does not make perfect, rather it is about discipline. Just like any athlete, any artist must try, each day just try.And believe me that it has not been easy to come up with something each and everyday, but it had to be done. I have learned that the art process is about doing as much it is about thinking. One may have many thoughts and ideas, but it is all for not if one does not act upon it.

2011, what will it bring for Sketchbook J? Well my goal is to still try to do something each day. But I will be more prudent in what I post. Too much of what I have posted has been garbage, something done just to get it done. That means that I may not post each day, maybe only a few times a week. Just what I feel is worthy to put up on the web. I hope that this will improve the quality of my work, just not quantity.

I do hope most of all that people will still stop by Sketchbook J and see what is up, comment on what works as well as what doesn't.

I suppose that my wish for now is that we may all have something to practice, to learn from, to create, and to look forward to in this new year.

God Bless.

"King" pen

One more day left in 2010. I am almost there to a years worth of sketches in my book. I felt that a lion was appropriate for today.

"29" watercolor and pen

"Secretary Feenix" pen



















This is an attempt to play around with a mythical bird.

"Sheep" pen

I did some animal doodles, this one made the post.

"Perrin" pen

"Noel" watercolor and pen

"But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Luke 2:19

"3 gifts" pen & color pencil

"Pere Noel" pen

I found an old French post card with Papa Noel on it. He looked like a monk who missed much more meals than our Santa Claus.

"Angel of the star" pen

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth

"Winter-Scipio" watercolor

This is another landscape in rest.

"The old elf" pen

Who's been naughty and who's been nice.

"On the Road" pen

"Heber- Ragnar in Winter" watercolor

This is a landscape from the Heber valley in Utah. The colors are muted in the gray cloud covered day. The mountain in the painting has a road on it that climbs to the top and over to the other side. This road is one of the legs in the Wasatch Back relay race.

The scene it's self is much more calm. The land is sleeping, resting from the work of summer.

"Southwest Sketch" watercolor

Just a quick watercolor for tonight.

"St. Santa" marker

"Second Base" water color

"Little League baseball is a good thing 'cause it keeps the parents off the streets and it keeps the kids out of the house."

-- Yogi Berra

This is a small watercolor as a gift for a friend. He is a former baseball coach, who is off to the "Big Leagues" with the at the beginning of the new year.

"Dasher" pen

Getting closer to every kids favorite day.

"Tea bowls" stoneware

These are some bowls that I made as demonstrations. Technically I did not make them today, but I fired them over the weekend and pulled them out of the kiln this morning.

"Aspen" watercolor

"Stare" pen

"H W Longfellow" watercolor

When the hours of Day are numbered,

And the voices of the Night

Wake the better soul, that slumbered,

To a holy, calm delight;

Footsteps of Angels

"Crusty" scratch board

"Dickens" pencil

As with most of my my drawings, this has more work that is needed. But I am tired. I just hope that ghost do not visit me in my sleep.

"St. Nicholas of Myra" pen

Another Saint, this might be a trend.

"St. Nicholas" pencil

From a Greek Saint who was a Catholic bishop in now modern day Turkey, to the over weight Santa Claus from the north pole.

"Yohanan-(John the baptist)" pencil

"Caribou" pen

It was a loooong day today. But I had time to draw me a deer.

"moving" photograph



















I had an old photography teacher say that some of the best images happen by accident. This is one of those pictures. I can never take a photograph that is as abstract an as flowing on my own. This is a picture from my phone. As you can tell I was in to much of a hurry to stop.

"Vieux L'homme" white charcoal

"The Barn in Back" pen

This is another "Barn" drawing. Most of it is a made-up scene using a building on some neighbors property. I think that the Christmas season takes us back to a rural setting. It is nostalgic, probably to the point of being sickening, but yet to many of us the rural landscape resonates with memories of family.

"Randy's Barn" pen

I did a few sketches from some pictures I took over the Thanksgiving break. This is a little drawing of my uncles barn. The starkness of the drawing is also due to freshly fallen snow.

"Winter" pencil

Tree's in winter are fascinating. When there leaves have shed, the trees soul is laid bare. You can see their true caricature, be it old and gnarled or young and fragile. They seem to me to have their own personalities, their own voice.

"Old Man Winter" pen

"oiseau" pen

Another bird for today.

"Lincoln" charcoal

The quote from Lincoln that I used yesterday, was a Thanksgiving proclamation that was given in the mists of the Civil War. When there was much torn apart by the war, Lincoln still recognized the importance of gratitude.

"Thanksgiving" watercolor

"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God."

Abraham Lincoln

"Turkey #3" pen and color pencil

One more day to go.

"Cobble"pen and color pencil

A turkey a day, until Thanksgiving.

"Tom Turkey" pen

The noble Turkey. If Benjamin Franklin had his way, this would have been the symbol of the republic.

"The Old Man of the Forest" pen

With the onset of winter, many things start to feel old.

"The Green Man" pen

I am sure that I drew this because I spent a good portion of the day outside raking leaves. I have done several Green Men before, this particular one looks like a big salad bowl.

"Face study" pencil

"Howler" pen

These monkeys always look surprised.

"Cathedral" pencil

I am still playing with architecture. Moving from the geometric design of perspective, to something purely organic. The Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi said that it is not art unless it comes from nature. His masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, the marriage of the sacred and organic design.

"Ville de La Tour" pencil

I have been working with perspective with my students. This is a little study that I started, using two point perspective.

"Chateau du Gaucheries" pencil

A castle for the clumsy.

" The Watch Tower" pen

This is a small sketch of a city of old.

"bulldog" indelible pencil

A wrinkly dog for today.