"There but for Fortune . . .

Go You or I, you or I." Last solo piece in Willie's Mole.

Half a collaborations for Mike in Willie's

I thought I would continue the theme I seem to be going with on Willie's of homelessness. If it goes too far, that hunger . . .

Pen and ink with watercolor, click to view a little larger.

(Later: I made a few changes on this, but don't feel like rescanning it--I worked on the lettering and the shading above the eyes etc.)

We love Detroit, Homeless, Hungry and Cold; #3 in Willie's

Detroit is really suffering because of the downfall of the auto industry and many many people here have lost their homes. Meanwhile, all the homes stand empty and get burned down or ruined by urban mining for copper etc.

I messed this one up and was wishing for an undo button. It looked MUCH better before I added the background. :-( I should have left it white like the others.

Click image to view larger.

ink feathers

flock in Ash's

Willie's Mole piece #2 for me: Dale, Sam and Keith

Sam and Keith are talking to Dale, a homeless man in Detroit, about where he sleeps in the winter (an empty deserted factory) and how he eats and stays warm. This is a companion piece to the one I posted yesterday. It's on the facing page.

I want a book!

I know it's been a little less then 2 weeks since Heidi got the 3 books from Ashe, and so it's really too early for me to get one (though she is a super productive person and always doping lots of cool stuff) but looking through the group blog this morning, I really really want one!

It's not as if there aren't enough books in my life at the moment (finishing the one I've worked on since November in the next couple of weeks would be great) but with the weather being so hot and me being so anxious lately, it would be so awesome to have one of the group books now to keep my mind off things.

Everyone's pieces from the past few days are so beautiful! I'm jealous! 

The photo, by the way, shows my inability to concentrate lately,  as you can see - I was working on 3 different pieces at once...

First one in Willie's Mole, Dale and Sam

If anyone knows Detroit, this is down near Eastern Market--it was a few years go. The bundle under the bridge is Dale's belongings. Now it is my understanding they made a walking trail there, so where is DALE? Where is he living? It's cold in Detroit in the winter--and hot in the summer.

Pen and ink and water color.

YAY! WHY IS THIS WOMAN HAPPY????

YAY! I got a Moley! Woohoo!

I have Willie's Moley now! It just came! It blew me away--everyone's work is SO FINE!!!!

Treasure in the pocket--BOOBIES! Birds! And wonderful art, and lots of it.

On the top right are some of the things I've done for Willie's pocket! YIKES--I'd been putting them into an envelope, and I didn't realize how MANY there were!!

Y'all are fantastic. Amazing! Wonderful.

(Click image to view larger.)

INSOMNIA again, for WIllie's "pocket"

I did this at dinner tonight, in marker. It will be included int he
packet of stuff for Willie. Yoo big for his little pocket, so I will
send it to him.

Moley on the move!

Just a quick note to say "Milo's" book will be on it's way to Steve on Monday. It has been a VERY busy summer so far! (Above: a photo of one of our beaches.)

bacon and eggs

Another for Willie's "Pocket": Homeless and Hungry

OOoh, an unintenional Cripple! I made this for poor Willie--it's pretty big, 9 x 12, I think, slightly too big for my scanner. I'm going to send it with the other too-big homeless pictures I made for Willie before I knew he had a small mole.

Here;s the kicker--I drew it, painted it and scanned it and then noticed that I drew NO ARM!!!! I made a hand without an arm. DUH!!

Sorry Willie. Since I made it for you, I think I will send it anyway. You can use it for a dartboard or toilet paper or something.

I was holding something in my hand and looking at my hand and forgot all about my arm. And I have the thumb on the wrong side because I had turned my right hand around to face myself to sketch it. Galloping Alzheimer's, I guess. :-(

Water color and black permanent marker. Click image to view larger.

I fixed it up a little on photoshop and Artrage and printed a new copy for Willie--he will get both the new one and the old one. The bigs ones, however, will go directly to him, since I can't put them in the pocket for the remainder of the people to see--UNLESS y'all tell me you want me to mail them all together in a larger envelope--then you'll have to mail them all on. Other wise, when I mail the mole on to Mike, I'll mail the big pix and poems directly to Willie.



This is "self-portrait" of myself as a homeless person, but when I was homeless, we weren't called homeless, we were called street people" and we had no signs except if we were hitch hiking somewhere.

Insomnia! for Willie's Pocket

I did this last night for WIllie on my iPad. Printing it for his pocket. Did it on ColorPad HD. I enhanced it only slightly on the IPad's Qvik Sketch (eg: Colored lips). The background reminds me a little of Steve's fab washes and it might be fun to use one for a background to sketch over like this--which I guess is what he does only much more finely and with better detail. Like Andrea, I'd like to try it, too.

Ellen's Moly goes in the mail today.

Hey Baby, It's the 4th of July ~ 7/4/10

Blue: Between Thick and Thin ~ 7/14/10

The collab page I am leaving for Ash, half of a found photo.

It's shipping day, y'all!

If you are behind please communicate with the person you are mailing to.

Another for Willie's Mole pocket

Since there is such a long wait, Willie will get a fat pocket.

This is a watercolor sketch I made while eating at Crosswinds in
Whitehall, Michigan on our vacation. I am making a small print of it
for Willie's pocket.

It is too big to fit all the way on the scanner.

Iris for Willie's Pocket

I made this digital Iris smudge painting on my computer with the Cintique tablet--it was such a relief to use after trying to draw on the wretched iPad. (I'm not very good at drawing on the iPad!) I'm making a small print of it for Willie's pocket. It will be a contrast to all the other pieces which are mostly about homeless people. I am assuming that the Mole will be headed this way sometime soon. I hope.

I am home from my trip to the "Porkies" (Porcupine Mountains Wilderness Area) where we were camping and incommunicado --I'm back a week early because of some very distressing health issues.

Expecting 3, Got 4

A pile of sketchbooks has landed on my doorstep! The Moleskines of Ballookey, Mike & Mary arrived safely in New Hampshire. I just wasted a perfectly good hour ogling them, yes indeedy.

Also enclosed was a sweet little blank sketch-journal, with gold & silver metallic cover art of the Toronto skyline drawn by Ash. Thanks, Ash! It's a lovely way to mark a "fresh start" for all of us :-)

And start I must, as I have my work cut out for me now, HA! The first thing I should do is figure out whose book to do first, so I don't mess up the shipping order. I admit I'm easily confused. I think Ballookey's book is first, then Mike's, then Mary's... did I get that right?

Creatures Real & Imagined

Here's a sketchbook painting I did this weekend, but it's in Mary's Mole from Round 1! I am still waiting for some Round 2 books from Canada, which I expect to arrive any day now. I will happily post the day they hit my mailbox. Meanwhile, Mary had sent me her Round 1 Mole, which still had a few blank pages in the rear :-)

This rooster kept me occupied over the weekend. I was inspired by an art show I saw, blogged here. Steve, I hope it is alright that I mentioned & linked you in my blog post. The theme of the show was especially right down your alley, though I think many of us may have enjoyed it.