Pen And Ink Drawing - Blog Posts

The great Harold Ramis passed away today.  His work meant a great deal to me; not only Ghostbusters (which I love) but his many other contributions to the world of comedy and the art of filmmaking.

As the news circulated, a small shrine to Ramis popped up on the sidewalk in front of Ghostbusters HQ (or, as it’s known in real life, Hook and Ladder 8.)  I sketched a portrait of Ramis on a small art card, and went downtown to add it to the memorial.  I then got to hang out for a bit with the others who had gathered there in the cold - including a Ghostbuster in full homemade uniform and proton pack - and we all chatted about what the man and his work meant to us.

He’ll be missed.

The Fifth of November, 1955

Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The scientist hanging a clock, Who knew on that date, That fortune and fate, Would reveal so much more to the Doc. Doc Brown, Doc Brown, he did invent Such objects of folly, with good intent, He tumbled and fell in his lavatory But soon after took to his lab'ratory For though he'd been woefully injur'ed A vision unfurled in his bruis'ed head Great Scott! Great Scott! From this disaster Great Scott! Great Scott! The Flux Capac'tor! And what did he do with it? Build it!

Archival ink on paper, 6x8". The original drawing is now owned by a private collector. I've also done a reading of this poem on YouTube.

A rough Doctor Who sketch from 2000 or 2001, done to stave off the boredom of the retail job I had back then.  I wasn't allowed to nap, so the Doctor got to instead.

I sketched this clandestinely behind the store's counter in black ballpoint.  This scan is color-corrected to counteract the old cheap ink having gone a bit violet over the years.  Around 9x6".

This past Wednesday I volunteered to add something unique to the thank-you gifts we gave to Off the Hook listeners who pledged their support during our final fundraising episode of the season.  During the show I drew a series of telephones, all different, all off the hook, one after another in a live marathon.  Everyone who donated to WBAI during the show's live broadcast will be receiving a random one of these.

This was lots of fun.  I did better than I thought I might both time and quality wise, and the fundraising was successful with many awesome folks supporting our listener-funded exploits.

You can listen to the episode by going to this archive page and selecting the May 18, 2011 link.

Signed, dated, and numbered series. Archival ink on heavy paper, 7x10".

Studio photos by Mike, first-five photo by dot.ret

I liked basing a drawing on the userpic of my 400th Twitter follwer so much that I decided to make it a habit for every hundredth follower after that.  Here's a fifteen-minute sketch of my 500th follower, who just happens to be my old pal @jayeennenn.  Jenn's an old-school telephone enthusiast like myself, among other things she archives old telephone company recordings, so I dug up the last telephone book left in my house and doodled her on the telephone page.

I must point out that Jenn is more attractive than her userpic or this sketch of her userpic would suggest.  I'd snark at her extreme-eyeball-close-up avatar and tell her to go back to MySpace with that stuff but, well..

Ballpoint pen on telephone book page, 9.75x6.5".

When I learned that Neighborcon's own Travis Goodspeed encouraged attendees to counterfeit the con's Tennessee-shaped badges, I swore I'd make the best Tennessee-shaped badge ever and proudly display it at Neighborcon NYC in December 2009.

When I arrived I found out Travis meant the badge should be shaped like Tennessee the state, not Tennessee the playwright.  How embarrassing.

Permanent marker on PVC.

One fine evening in the lobby of the radio station WBAI, where I work on Off the Hook, I was doodling in my sketchbook to kill some time.  I decided to draw the file cabinet, plant, and telephone which happened to be in front of me.

When the drawing was complete I stuck it to the wall behind the cabinet, natch.  It was suddenly inaccurate, though, so I added the picture on the wall to the picture, and so on.  It's cabinets, plants, and phones, all the way down.

I figured someone at the station would get rid of this before too long, but as you can see from this photo taken a couple of months later (note the plant's growth) it's still in place. In that time I've witnessed a few other denizens of the place notice, do a double-take, and get at least a slight chuckle out of it.  RESULT!

2013 UPDATE: The sketch, which I posted in November of 2010, surprisingly ended up staying on the wall for a couple of years.  It remained even after the plant had grown larger, the phone had been replaced, and the cabinet had been moved.  The lobby closed down, and the station and its contents hurriedly transferred to other facilities, when the building was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012; the drawing's fate remains unknown.

A pen-and-ink drawing of a candlestick phone.  My separate obsessions with telephones and the design sensibilities of the early 20th century work well together.

Felt pen on 2.5x3.5" bristol board.  Incidentally, this happens to be the first ACEO I ever made.

As my follower count on Twitter approached 400, I mentioned that it might be cool to do a drawing based on the Twitter icon of my 400th follower.  Number 400 turned out to be an affable fellow known as @cjp, whose icon was a small photo of himself.

It was then that I realized randomly receiving an unsolicited portrait from some dude off the Internet he'd just begun reading might be perceived as a bit creepy, so of course I went ahead as planned.  He seemed to take it well, and I've received no restraining orders.

Felt pen on paper, 9x6".

In the interest of art-blogging something as quickly as possible which isn't my big ol' face, here's an illustration commissioned by Brad Carter for the Phone Losers of America book.  It's the first of three illustrations of mine appearing in the book, for which I also wrote the foreword.  You should probably go purchase a copy right now, before you've had time to think it over properly.

Archival inks on acid-free paper, 8x6".  Scan is low-res.