What a Horse Taught Me About How I Make Pictures

Reckoning In my last post, I described my picture-making process as sequential: beginning with ideation, then testing visual structure, and finally rendering the idea. I thought I understood it. I didn't. I punted last time, not just in saving the third step for a later post, but about all of it. Let me pick up where I left off and see what a horse taught me about how I actually make pictures. The Year of the Fire Horse I recently gave myself a project: to make a series of po

Apr 133 min read

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Storied Iceland

Our first view of the Land of Fire and Ice Right before Christmas, we have this thing called the annual book flood. We have such a strong literary heritage, and we read a lot in this country. We really like to read. Every tenth person is an author in Iceland. We have a Nobel Prize winner, Halldór Laxness. The annual book flood is when all the authors in Iceland release their books. And I remember as a kid, we got this brochure on our door with all the books that were being p

1 day ago4 min read

Finding Life in Still Animals

He was a punk rocker, no question about it. Cracked me up. This porcupine didn’t come easily. Leaving the Black Barn Studio last Saturday, he was my least favorite drawing. Not today — I love him. A pose that’s held — a pose that’s made I have plenty of experience with life drawing from human models. Drawing dead animals, not so much. I’d look for the overlaps. A model holds the pose for a short time. The artist draws quickly to capture the story, emotion, and energy befo

May 293 min read

The Words Came Easily

I swore I wouldn't share the innards of my illustrated journal. Working unobserved is what keeps me honest there. But here I am, opening a narrow window into my most recent pages. I’ve blurred the words in the examples here and am getting on with it. I journal to give myself pause. A little “meta” time to notice what I’m experiencing. An entry starts with brief ideation (words/thumbnail captured on a back page in the same journal), followed by a first layer of tone, texture,

May 42 min read

ABOUT ME

In 1985, my thesis took me from the tidy academic world of MIT to the muddy valley of Armero, Colombia. This contrast between academy and mud would set the pattern for my future. For the next 20 years, I worked as a project specialist, policy advisor and manager in Latin America and the Caribbean. Finding solutions to often messy challenges.Ten years ago, I stepped away from this work (...)