Descending Ashtray

Friend of Descending Ashtray Drew Anderson has a new show up at Portland’s Beulahland as of two days ago. With 27 framed and highly-intricate drawings on display, this show is certain to be a feast for the eyes (just don’t forget your glasses!). An artist’s reception will be held Monday, February 12th at 7:31 PM, which also happens to be the third birthday of his lovely daughter Lillian. See you there!

Beulahland
118 NE 28th Ave
Portland, OR

I had an idea for a sculpture the other day, and started drawing something out today to get an idea what it might look like. Not sure how/if I’m going to finish this drawing, or just move right to the sculpture. Probably the answer depends on the weather.

I have not switched to drawing on parchment paper; I had to do some photoshopping to get the faint .5 mm pencil lines to show at this low resolution.

The idea is that I will make lots of square/circle pieces with different woods, and assemble them together in a somewhat haphazard way to resemble a pieced-together building. Something that has fallen into disrepair, then had repairs made with lots of strange materials. I am thinking walnut, cherry, doug fir, alder, copper and whatever else I find lying around the shop. Should be interesting.

I’ve spent all weekend applying finishing touches to the Labyrinth. I will post more photos tonight or tomorrow, but it’s been too much work to post! Here’s about 45 minutes worth of this weekend’s work compressed to 2.5 minutes. Enjoy.

This technique is a good way to capture the feeling and light of a space in a short period of time. Even though it does not look like much up close. The application of paint is something I like looking at with actual paintings beacause you can see how it was done. It is impossible to see this from a photo or a print of a famous painting.

We just returned from our trip out east and even though we had a great time it is good to be home.

I went to a show in Boston at the MFA called “Americans in Paris”, it was compiled of impressionist painters from the US who went to Paris to study art. Among them was one of my favorites John Singer Sargent. It was a good exhibit.

After looking closely at the paintings in person, I was inspired to focus more on light and how I apply color to my drawings and paintings. On the way home we stopped at a park in Pennsylvania and went for a hike on a trail that had more than 24 waterfalls. I stopped and did a drawing of one of them.

You can see that the application of charcoal is rough and almost scribbly but if you squint your eyes it looks a little more realistic.

Here is a picture I took at the sight were I did the drawing. Looking at it in the picture, it seems I could have used a more darks in the drawing.

I spent the last 10 days or so working on this new drawing, which was inspired by the yellow cedar carving I’d been working on, with its alternating tool marks. Above is a much-magnified look at a drawing that is about 15 inches square.

Above is a pretty terrible photo of the whole drawing. I think I can get a better photo once it’s framed under glass.

One funny thing that happened when I was working on the vertical areas: I used the horizontal sliding bar on the drafting table (bottom of second image) as a reference on the horizontal lines, and a the vertical side of a 45-degree aluminum square rested on it for the vertical lines. After hundreds, maybe thousands of vertical lines, the aluminum square literally cut the pen tip on the left, causing the tip to eventually bend over. Thankfully, it fell apart gracefully and I replaced the pen before it caused a drawing accident. Entropy at work, I guess.