I like Old San Juan. It’s old. This is in the town square where the taxi drivers sit waiting for their next fare.
The fort has been around since the 1600’s and everything else around it was ancient too. I did some paintings on the bus that are some of my favorites.
On a painting… I take notes on the back of the art, note colors, details etc, and then paint it in the hotel room or when I get home. I use a dip pen, and sepia india ink. Sometimes with a pencil sketch underneath or if I feel confident, then right to ink.

Here’s a drawing with overpainting of writer Lewis Beale from a photo in the NY Times.
It looks like a thousand cat scratch brush strokes forming the face. I thought I stumbled onto something and that if I did thousands of cat scatch portraits they would all look as nice as this one. It was going to be wonderful, and every drawing I did would look incredible, and it was a formula that was going to work… every time. All my drawings would be incredible. Life was SOLVED!
Oh, well. you know the ending. A happy accident. Life has returned to normal. Each good drawing is a struggle. A fluke in the sketchbook of life.
Anyway, if you see this drawing and like it Lewis, let me know. It’s a favorite of mine.

Every now and then you get a good drawing. I like this one. Keep drawing, everyday. It makes your brain work better. Smear your drawings with coffee, orange juice, sparkling water, or soda. You’ll like them better.
If you’re hungry in the desert someday, you can eat them too. They’ll taste good. Who says art isn’t functional?

I take my moleskin with me everywhere. Here’s a page with drawings from a lecture by Tracy Kidder. A few members of the audience are in the circles around the page.

I did this drawing of Kanzi the Bonobo Ape who was part of an article on intelligence in National Geographic. Kanzi can speak several languages, type 60 words a minute, uses Photoshop CS3, and works on a Mac. Hey………………… just kidding and wanted to see if you are paying attention. He really writes code on a PC………. now STOP it, Roger.
I devised a clever method of doing drawings to illustrate what I was talking about while in Portugal at the top of this sketchbook page. Pictionary was my way of talking in Pictures. Unfortunately, the only person I met that spoke English, was a Chinese Man working in a Chinese restaurant in Evora. I’m not sure whether the words he told me were in Chinese, or Portuguese.
Kanzi wherefore art thou?

I like Moleskin Sketchbooks because they have a small pocket in the back, where you can put your train tickets. I put all of my notes on the last two pages of my moleskin books because I can find things instantly. Not that I can read the small type though.
On the right page is a great quote from Matt Caserta, a former student- ” How come you attract all the crazy ones?” Oh, animal magnetism Matt.
There’s a drawing of Ray Beale on the right page at the Chocolate Shop in Cazenovia.

We drove down highway 1 from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo this past year. It was nervewracking travelling south on Highway 1 because we were on the ocean side of the road. I compensated for the scary view by driving on the mountain side of the road until traffic came along.
San Simeon is William Randolf Hearst’s house that he bought in Europe and then reassembled on top of a California Mountain. At one time he owned a piece of property 300 miles square. The house was up on top of a mountain, cold, and lifeless. The bus ride to the top was equally scary.
This drawing was done of the woodwork in the large front Cathedral room. I felt trapped on the tour and couldn’t wait to leave. One second of listening to a prepared speech leaves me gasping for air. No more tours for me.

This is a drawing of Thomas Edison I finished recently. I went to his creative workshop when I was a kid a million years ago. He’s an inspiration to all of us. A workaholic that produced hundreds of patents, inventions, and clever things.
His workshop was in East Orange, New Jersey. I’d like to go back and see what I missed.

This is a drawing I did from the obits page of the New York Times. They always have the best picture of a person on the Obituary Page. Nice stories too. Elizabeth Tashjian owned a giant gothic house in Connecticut, and ran the “Nut” museum from it. Admission was one “nut”.
Eventually, power of attorney was used to evict her from the home. Anyway, here’s to Elizabeth Tashjian. She emigrated from Eastern Europe, and didn’t understand that a “Nut” could also be a person too. Oh, well, nobody’s perfect.

This is a drawing I did of Victor Yushenko after he was poisoned by the KGB by putting Dioxin in his Vichysoisse.
I think I ate in that restaurant once, and I’m not going back.