Sketchbooks And The Stickers That Adorn them

Hey, a double post today!

My latest Substack is up and is about... stickers! You can read about it HERE.

 

Emerge! 2026

 I will have two pieces in the Emerge! 2026 exhibit starting tomorrow at the Hannan Center in Detroit. The show will run through mid September . 

My two pieces are a sculpture and a woodblock print, keeping with the them of emergence. 

Emerging

soapstone
photo by John Wood

The sculpture, pictured above was carved out of soapstone and has all these great looking colors that come out when wet. I had applied a coat of tung oil recently that brought out some of those colors, but it did make it darker than what is pictured here. 

Ascending

9x12

woodcut print

The woodcut print was a lot of fun to do. My first woodcut, actually. I was happy with how the patterns of the sea came out. And... it's a hammerhead!

So, the opening is tomorrow as stated in the flyer and it goes from noon until 7.

I will be exhibiting alongside a few friends, as well. Dug Rusin will have two colored pencil pieces and Mary Stebbins Taitt and Laura Reed will have pieces, too. Stop on by, check out the show. I'm sure that it will be a good one (I saw some of the works when I was dropping my pieces off and there are some good ones). And remember, there will be a hammerhead present!

Broomstick Bee Sketch

5x8

pencil sketch in sketchbook

Recently, we watched the documentary Secrets of the Bees and in it they showed a cool little bee named the broomstick bee, because it collects sticks and branches that resemble broomsticks to build temporary protective covering for themselves and each other. So, of course, I wanted to do up a sketch of a little witch bee riding its broomstick. And they do need a hat, after all. 

 

Elroy

 

colored pencil from sketchbook

We lost our faithful, loyal and best buddy, Elroy on Monday. 

I was looking for this sketch done last December when I was working on ideas for future Christmas cards. This one was done of Elroy wearing a plush reindeer hoodie. He looks a little crazy here, but sometimes that tooth came out. So, instead of an elf lip-locked to a giant candy cane, this is what you can expect for this year's card. 

He was a good boy. 

Bill Mauldin

 

I wasn't too sure that I would be able to write up this post for today due to unavoidable circumstance here on the home front, but as I started to make it yesterday, I found it to be helpful with dealing with what we were dealing with. I suppose, more on that later.

Anyways, today's Substack is about the cartoonist Bill Maudlin and how he influenced my own cartoons. You can check it out HERE.

Ye Olde Quill Pen

My latest newsletter post is up and is about sketching with a goose quill pen. Fun. You can click HERE to read it whenever you get a chance.

 

Sketch Safari At The Detroit Zoo

 In the two sketch groups that I am a part of, there has been talk for about a year now of having a sketch night at the Detroit Zoo. We were finally able to do so, albeit a low turnout for this first time. We started when most people are still at work (peeps can arrive whenever they want as the zoo is open until 8 on Wednesdays) and there was intermittent rain, but that didn't deter us. Plus, there are buildings to duck (pun intended?) into when the rain became heavy. The animals were quite active, so we did a lot of walking around and taking pics. We did sketch, as that was the plan!

Here a some sketches that I did.

The male otter was out and was swimming in the rain. before he became active, I sketched the enclosure, including the water slide.

The top sketch is of the otter zipping by underwater. Sketching movement quickly is an exercise one must work at. The rhinos were out and about, moving around in the rain.