crabs

...embroidered on shorts. Normally I would insert joke here, but today I'm going to take the high road and avoid it. So mature of me. Though this should serve as warning that sleeping in public is not advised, especially near The Hot Seat.

catch it while you can

I'm not sure if it's the cold weather, or the caffeine from the soft drink I had earlier, or the encouraging conversation I enjoyed with my dinner buddy, or the quick trip to the magazine section of Barnes and Noble afterward...but I feel totally alive tonight with creative energy!!!! What an elusive drug it is. Please cross your fingers that it lasts....Oh, and did I mention the person sitting in "The Hot Seat" at Barnes and Noble was wearing a beret? How cute is that? I just had to draw her. See others who've sat in "The Hot Seat" here. This is by far one of my favorite series.

sketchy sketching

I think it is pretty evident that I was tired and didn't feel very much like drawing when I sketched this! Poor guy...he didn't have a chance!

you say tomato, i say toboggan

Another day in the hot seat.
I think it's probably a southern thing, but I've always called the type of hat this guy is wearing a toboggan. Recently, however, I was "made aware" that this word doesn't exist (at least in this context) in the dictionary. Oh well.. So, if it's not a toboggan, what is it? It seems I need another name.

UPDATE: Check out the comment to this post from Scottie. One of my students recognized this person as being her friend, Scottie, (based on the green toboggan) and showed him the image.   Ha!  "It's a small world after all.."

quality reading?

This sketch is baaaad...as in bad with a capital "B." But, there's a reason. I had to make a quick run to Barnes and Noble this morning. My intention was to be in and out in less than 5 minutes. But, on my way to the magazine section, via the hot seat, who do I see but "PC Man!" (It's a small town) And, guess what he was reading about yet again...PCs! I had to get his reappearance in the hot seat down on paper, no matter how pressed I was for time.

By the way, in case you live in Greensboro and are on the lookout for PC Man, he looks much more like the first drawing than this one.

the hot seat

If this sketch looks familiar, there's a reason.

This morning I made a quick stop at Barnes and Noble to flip through some design magazines and sketch. Tucked away in a corner of the store is a seating area furnished with six overstuffed chairs. This is one of my favorite spots to sketch as I can always find someone to draw who is completely engrossed in their reading and oblivious of my existence. I've done it several times as you can see here and here.

Turns out that today's gentleman was interested in reading about PCs..."PC Answers" to be exact. While I was definitely tempted to spread the gospel of the mac with my model, I decided to sit back and draw instead.

incognito or impaired?

I'm not sure if this man was hiding from me or just had bad eyesight. Regardless, I had to draw him. One of the things I really like about sketching people are the details I notice, that otherwise I would just pass over. For instance, this man, though chubby, had really thin ankles, wrists and hands. Probably he has my problem; whenever I go on a diet, I lose weight in my wrists...go figure.

seven generations

I'm all for being comfortable, just not at the expense of others. I was cruising through Barnes and Noble the other night searching for the new issue of Blueprint, when I noticed this lady out of the corner of my eye. At first I was struck simply by her position. She looked like she was vegging out at home with her leg thrown across the chair and a bag of food on her lap. After I found my magazine, I settled into a chair near her and began to draw. It was during this time that I noticed she had spread her belongings out everywhere...her iced coffee, a plate with brownie crumbs, several books and magazines. While I guess this is ok, what appalled me was that when she left, she left all those things just as they were. I guess she could care less that this provided extra work for the employees of the store. I wonder if she's this careless in Barnes and Noble, how she is in real life. In a way I feel like this small incident is just a metaphor for us as humans today. Driving big cars, squandering away fossil fuels, building mcmansions. What are we leaving behind for those that come after us to clean up?

Dan Price writes about the Nex Perce Indians who considered the consequences of their actions seven generations down the line. He writes,"If decisions you're making now would adversely affect future people, you change your plan." While I'm not ready to live as simply as Dan, I do think he and the Nex Perce Indians are onto something.