I am not Clark

Ink and watercolor in moleskine

I am Dan KENT - The Dan Kent. Do not confuse me with Clark.  Sometimes I step into my closet and I re-emerge - as, you guessed it .. Dan Kent! I live in South Florida, and the humidity gives my hair the ability to fly! Or to puff, er, up. I have T-Ray vision, thanks to my trusty trifocals. I, little people, am a superhuman being. Or a super, human being. Or at least I like to think so.

So imagine my joy when, eager for folks to draw, I discovered a crowd of fellow super heroes and nerds weaving in and out of the Florida Super Comics store in Davie.

Discretely I parked my Kentmobile.  Wielding my trusty Moleskine, with my faithful sidekick Pigma Micron-cron-cron-cron (that is an echo in case you haven't figured it out) at hand, I captured those characters on paper and instantly transformed them into the comics they craved! Wham! Bop! Zowie! I colored them later - take that! And that!

Excuse me.  No.  Pigma Micron-cron-cron was home that day, I think, and it was my SKB SB-1000! Zap!! Kerplooie!

Okay, so my memory's not so good.

But I have never felt so powerful.

Ink and watercolor in moleskine can turn a boring speech into an event!

You, mere mortal, imagine if you can the power to turn boring speeches into events, and still hear not a single word being said! Kapowie!

It is, my friend, the POWER OF THE PEN. With the pen, I can explore and never leave the room, I can learn and never crack a book, and I can create and never be bored again! And if I do it right, and if I do it enough, it will be like when Gandolf the Grey became Gandolf the White! Yeah!!!  Well, no, not yeah, excuse me.  Shazaam!!!








And being as super as I can't help being, I have Super Friends as well -  Friends from All Over The World.  And one of the Superist of the Super Friends is Mari of Colour Blob Design in Ontario, Canada.  I won a prize at her blog, thanks to her trusted sidekick Charlie:  two beautifully hand-made travel tags that you can see here.

But what really blew my mind was the hand-painted envelope that it came in!  It was a blast of color and shape that only a super person could create, for sure.But that wasn't enough for Mari.  She gave me tea fashioned by the Inuit people (formerly known as "the Eskimos") - how cool is that?! - and a beautiful handwritten postcard with a picture by a member of the Group of Seven, a cadre' of artists that I hadn't even heard of, that you can read about here.  Thank you, Mari!  I was blown away!  Shazowie!!  (Note:  Lest you think that Supers needn't thank other Supers, manners are necessary even when the world is saved, thank you very much.)

Acrylic, by Mari Brown, on an 8-1/4" x 10-3/4" brown envelope

Now I must go.  I have images to catch and stray lines to save.  UP, UP, AND AWAY!!!

[What was that?!  Was it surreal?  Was it abstract?  Representational even?!

Who was that masked artist?
I dunno but I'm sure glad he's around!]

Playfully Incomplete

Ink and watercolor in moleskine

A lunch at Scotty's Landing, a cafe' by the water in Coconut Grove, Florida. My son, Ian, visiting from college. So there we were, my wife, my son and I. It was the first time any of us were ever there. There was an awning above us with fans and water mist spray to keep the patrons cool. A bar behind us, and in front of us the view - the ever-changing water, the boaters sailing by, and a soft breeze blowing our way. And of course I was exciting company - this was a view I could not ignore - so I took out my pen and drew what I saw. I snapped a shot with my cell phone, but that didn't come out too well. I would figure out how to paint it later.

Then, unexpectedly, I was returning a few weeks later, this time with my in-laws, and my sister-in-law, and my wife. And my wife told me before we went: "You can paint the page when you go!" "Wouldn't that be rude?" I asked. "Of course not," she said, "we're all family". I wasn't so sure. But excitement trumped manners, and they didn't seem to care. They were a bit amused by it, I think.

This time it was the weekend. This time again, good company, soft breezes, relaxing view. This time a guitarist playing tunes by Crosby Stills and Nash, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffet, and the like. Art and Good Music and Food at a dockside cafe'. And a chance to paint the scene on site. I was in paradise.

This page is not complete, but a few folks have told me they like it this way, so I decided to share it like this - playfully incomplete. Eventually I plan on filling in the faces though. I was observing (coincidentally) a bald man with his back to a plate glass window the other day. He had a penumbra of light at the edges of a face that was a bit darkened by the light backdrop. I want to paint that.

I have trouble leaving parts of pictures incomplete. And need to work on doing that, creatively. But at this stage the background is emphasized beyond the people, and the people are important to me.

Graphite in sketchbook, approx. 7-3/4" x 6"

The other day I saw a wonderful half-hour film at the website, Art Babble. The film is called "Conan O'Brien as seen by artist John Kascht." You can find it here. If you have limited time, at least watch the first two minutes twenty-five seconds. In those minutes, a beautiful portion of the film, John Kascht, mirrors my feelings on sketching from life. He says, for example: "I know from experience that most of the freshness of a drawing comes from the accidents. Drawing isn't exactly planned - it emerges as a kind of artifact of the struggle between what I intended, and what I did not intend." But watch the rest of the film and be prepared to be launched from pure enjoyment to total amazement!

During the first two minutes (and 25 seconds), Mr. Kascht sketches a woman, and for a short time, the video shows his model as the artist sees her. Well, that was enough for me. I had to pause the film and draw her myself in my sketchbook. I drew this fairly quickly. I could make slight adjustments to my final drawing to get a better likeness - to the nose, and to the chin, but have decided to let it go. I have portrayed a mood and don't want to destroy it. I note that John Kascht's caricature changes the shape of the nose as well - his nose bows in, while hers is flat with an ever-so-slight bump, so although her nose is more pointy than my drawing shows, I am not alone in letting some things pass, it seems. Watch the whole film and I am sure you will agree that John Kascht is brilliant. So if he can do it, why not me, right?

This is only my second post this month, so I want to catch you up a bit on my activities. I've been engaging in some research and development of late. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I want to improve my drawing of hands. So I've given myself a minimum daily quota on hands to draw. My hope is that I will one day be able to sketch hands just as I do faces and bodies at a public place, despite the shifting and movement. It is quite a challenge.

ink and watercolor in moleskine

One day I was restless. So I began randomly putting paint on a page in my moleskine. I smeared, I blotted, I swished and swirled. When I was done, I sat back and decided to find objects in the shapes, and this is the result. I am not really satisfied with the page, but parts have possibilities to me. Exciting possibilities for future works, I think, beyond washes over large areas. (You can enlarge the image by double-clicking, and perhaps you will see what I mean). One person told me it reminded him of Chagall. I'll take that.

3-1/2" x 6-1/2", watercolor

I took a watercolor class at the Bass Museum of Art this weekend. I have never painted in a group before with other artists. I have never taken a watercolor class. The class was for "emerging artists age 13 to adult". Thirteen-year-olds are truly emerging, I think. It was for "all skill levels", and was only $15 at a time when I was able to go. So even were I to be surrounded by seventh graders, I figured it'd be fun. As it was, there were all adults, except one, who was the child of one of the students. And it was great fun.

One exercise was to cover the paper with water and and let the watercolor spread. This is a basic exercise. We were also invited to play a little afterwards, which I did with the brush handle and in other ways. But what a reminder of the vividness and delightful unpredictability of watercolor! When I got home, I examined the page, and split it into two parts, and think the semi-random marks of this exercise are awfully fun to look at.

7-1/2" x 1-1/2", watercolor

I even named them. The tall one is "Sunspot", and the square one, "Amoeba Love." Why not?

But the most exciting part of the class was the large paper the instructor provided, 15" x 22". He said we should figure out what to draw. I had no clue, so I grabbed my moleskine and pretty successfully laid in color on a very large quick sketch of a man originally pocketsized! I had never painted in watercolor so large!


Then there is my sketchbook. Somehow in my moleskine I have restricted myself to these little ink and watercolor representational sketches. I find that my idle sketches on post-it notes and cheap paper are much more creative and free. So I've bought a sketchbook I take with me now, just to scribble, play with shapes or ideas, warm-up, or experiment. No self-imposed pressure to make a great picture. Like this sketch on the left - would make an interesting painting, don't you think? And it is more playful with line than when I stalk an image.

So there you go. This is my State of the Artist address. I see possibilities everywhere, and different directions to go. So much to learn. Much to experience. It is good to be restless, to be playfully incomplete.  I strongly recommend it.

Still Here

Ink and watercolor in moleskine, sketched on site, colored later

Ya gotta hand it to James Taylor. I didn't know quite what to say in this post - I had too many words or to few, and then he sang it in only a few simple words: "So the sun shines on [a] funeral just the same as on a birth, the way it shines on everything that happens here on Earth."

Good 'ole James.

The sun continues to shine no matter what happens.

The old doomsayer in the news got it wrong. All he managed to do was give millions of young men across the globe the chance to use the greatest line ever for seducing young ladies, starting with "baby, the world is ending tomorrow.."

But the world is still here, and will hopefully continue to be here for some time yet. The headline on Google News this morning was "World Still Here". And this is good.

Ink and watercolor in moleskine, sketched on site, colored later

I grabbed my wife's Good Housekeeping magazine the other day (June 2011 issue) because there was an interview with Michael J. Fox, whom I greatly admire. He has Parkinson's Disease, and seven years after he was diagnosed, Mr. Fox had a revelation, and we can all benefit from his hard-learned lesson.

He says that having such a disease is like being in the middle of the road in cement shoes with a bus heading straight towards him. He knows it's going to hit him some day "but you don't know when".

Life for all of us is like that if you think about it, although more subtle. We never know what will come next. We do know where we will all end up, though, although we don't know when or how.

It was difficult to be diagnosed with such a disease. But eventually Mr. Fox remembered being taught as an actor to play each act in turn and not to focus on the final act, no matter what might or might not take place then. And he realized that he didn't have to "play the result" in life until the end either. Until that day, "there is all kinds of room in that space."

We can borrow his philosophy for our lives as well, of course. We can worry about all of the things that might happen in a given situation, but that's playing the result, isn't it? We can dwell on what might occur or dwell on a past event, but then we are not playing the act we are in.

We can give ourselves permission to play, to imagine, to enjoy, in our space.  That is truly living.

In Memoriam

5"x 7" watercolor and ink on Arches 140 lb. cold press paper

This watercolor is based upon a photograph by Morten Liebach. You can find it here. I was amazed by the complexity and beauty of the pattern in the dragonfly's slender body. As the wings were difficult to discern from Mr. Liebach's photograph, I snatched the wings from another photograph, taken by Dean Gugler, which you can find here.

In this watercolor my goals were to achieve texture, and to explore the effect of luminosity as described by Faber Birren in his book "Creative Color", and in the more accessible book "Exploring Color" by Nita Leland. Both of these works were introduced to me by Myrna Wacknov. She was kind enough to send me an e-mail about Nita Leland, and unless you want a more scholarly tome, Nita Leland is the authority I'd recommend. I return to both books now and again.

I am dedicating this small painting to the memory of my father. Joel G. Kent, a victim of Parkinson's Disease, was released from years of suffering and decline on Monday. His death falls on the calendar just 7 days after the anniversary of the death of my daughter, Taylor. Last year's post, in Taylor's memory, is here. Perhaps they are together, comfortable and whole, casually reading this blog post via heavenly connection by modem to the world-wide-web. I hope so.

Joel Gilbert Kent, March 13, 1933 to April 25, 2011.

One Day

Ink and watercolor in moleskine

A day that sings softly and subtly,
Its tune a gentle breeze,
Its lyrics whispy white clouds drifting.

A day disguised as any day,
That winks in delight, and waves
One hand as though it dons a magic cloak.

Beside me you rest as I sketch the day
And the children, the cotton candy, and trees,
But all that I know is you, your touch and your smile.

When lifelong companions are one day old,
And under the spell of a day,
We remember together that day, and no more than one.

In Construction

Ink and watercolor in small moleskine

Construction.

I was attracted to the industriousness of the workers, the grays and yellows, and the geometry of it all.

Construction.

I sat across the street from the construction site in South Miami, sketched in ink in my moleskine, and then colored as much as I could in watercolor. Then I went back a few days later and finished painting. I was constructing as they were.

Mine is, of course, an illusion.

Construction.

One hundred and fifty years ago, none of the buildings I see around me existed. If I could return to that time, I would recognize nothing. One hundred-fifty years from now, with few if any exceptions, the same will be true. It will be a different place. I think about that sometimes.

The idea that their building is representative of the world around me is as much an illusion as my picture.

Ink & watercolor on 3" x 2-1/2"140 lb Fabriano Artistica hot press paper

I found a card I had cut from watercolor paper, smaller than an artist's trading card, only 3" x 2-1/2", and drew and painted another building just blocks away from the construction site. I had to draw quickly before - poof - it would disappear. Or before I would. Just kidding.

As an artist I am constantly thinking about construction: composition, value, shape, color, line. This blog has featured mostly ink and watercolors in my small moleskine. I am capable of detailed ink drawings, such as the one in my February 13th post. But I enjoy attempting to manipulate the watercolor for nuances of value, and so have refrained from doing other than outlines. I am getting restless though. Line filled with color - people see my moleskine drawings and say they are like a comics drawing. "They are not!" I say emphatically, even though I am interested in doing those too.

a quick idle sketch

a loose sketch from life

I sketch from life in much of my spare time, and sometimes from other sources. Some of the sketches I am finding most engaging these days are those done loosely and quickly. I will continue what I am doing as well, but I suspect there may be some experiments in style in the coming months.

And after a year of talking about it, I have finally bought a drafting table. It is in a large box. Now if I can manage to clear the space for my studio and create a good working area with the new table, my easel, and proper lighting before all the buildings around me disappear, then I have grand ambitions for a series of paintings on a large scale. How will it work? I don't know. I will need to reinvent what I do. I will need to learn more about how to do it. It's exciting..

on a receipt

In legal parlance, the word "construction" means "interpretation". And that is what I do. That is what we all do, whether artists or not. We take what we see and interpret to match our image of the world which is every bit as flawed and personal as we are.  Of course, that is what makes our creations so special and so unique. 

For this week's Shadow Shot, for Shadow Shot Sunday, I lay down the cones because there is work to be done. There are boxes to build and to break from. Bur most of all there are wings and floors to add. Why? So I can fly and still stay grounded, of course.

Pamo vs. The Old Man (And No, I am Not Talking About Me!)

Pamo and I have finished our virtual comic Tic-Tac-Toe Game. And we have Simulblogged (or something like that) so you can see all about it!

So first please go to Pamo's blog, here, and see our finished tic-tac-toe board. There Pamo will tell you the story of our collaboration. And then - don't forget to come back!! Promise?! Come back please, and there is more..the pictures in order, and a story.

************************************************************************************

Back so soon? Great! Here are the pictures we made in order. After that is a story that Pamo wrote (and that I contributed to) that is based on the pictures:

Square 1

Square 2

Square 3

Square 4

Square 5

Square 6

Square 7

Square 8

Square 9

Pamo vs. The Old Man

Square 1

It was a sunny day full of promise and sunshine. Pamo looked at Scooter and said, “Let’s go to Circle Park and have a picnic lunch.”

“Woof! Woof!"

Square 2

Pamo and Scooter jumped in the car, top down, picnic basket in the back, excited to be going to Circle Park where the trees grow tall and the grass feels silky. “There’s that nice Old Man enjoying his daily walk.”

“Woof!”

“Hi!” Pamo shouted and began to wave. “See you in the park.”

Scooter wagged his tail and barked, “Woof! Woof!” to the bird flying above. And they continued on their winding path to Circle Park, leaving the Old Man to enjoy his exercise.

Square 3

The Old Man relies on his daily walks to keep himself in shape. He uses his cane. He doesn’t really need it much, but it keeps the dogs and birds at bay. Circle Park is the perfect place to exercise and then relax.

As the Old Man sat down on the bench, SPLAT! The bird pooped on his head!

“Darn bird! Watch where you’re flying up there,” he yelled as he shook his cane. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the bird poo off his head. He thought, Maybe now I can get some peace and quiet. I think I’ll just rest my eyes. He began to snore.

The bird liked the Old Man. His head was shaped like a giant cue tip, with curly cotton hair, perfect for her nest! “Tweet, tweet,” she sang and then swooped down low and PING! She plucked a strand from his head.

He woke with a start. His hand flew to his head, “Ow! Bird! Stop pestering me.” His arms shot up and he grabbed for the little bird.

Square 4

“Got you now, Bird!”

The little bird looked at the Old Man who now held her tail feathers in his hand. She dangled there not quite sure what to do.

Square 5

“Drop the bird Old Man!” Pamo couldn’t believe her eyes! What a cruel old man! Poor little bird!

Scooter sat watching the bird when suddenly Pamo threw the apple from the picnic basket at the Old Man.

Square 6

In a flash, the Old Man and Pamo balled up in a fight, the bird just above the fray. Scooter barked, “Woof! Woof!” The apple lay on the ground while the bird flew high in the sky.

Square 7

Suddenly, the Old Man went sailing overhead, the little bird soaring with him. Pamo landed on the ground while Scooter gawked in amazement.

Square 8

When the Old Man tumbled down, he was wound up like a pretzel. Pamo folded her arms, and practically floated with pride and confidence.

“Have no fear! I can fix you! I’m practically a doctor!” she said. She began to unfold the Old Man.

Square 9

The Old Man worried that all was not well. “I don’t think you fixed me right,” he said, as he looked himself over.

But Pamo knew better. She was satisfied with a job well done. She had fixed the old man, and made her dog happy too.

“Oh, you’re fine,” she said, as she bit into her sandwich. What a beautiful day it was!

Scooter was satisfied too. Oh, you’re fine, Scooter thought, as he bit into the giant and juicy bone that Pamo had given her. Pamo was wonderful! It was a great day!

And the bird was happy too. All that curly cotton hair, here for the taking, and no one seemed to care. She was going to have the best nest ever!

************************************************************************************

Thank you to Matt Madden who came up with the idea for the collaboration, which was great fun and very rewarding for Pam and me. You can see his post about it here.