The things we can live with are falling away, now
more than ever — replaced by an act without image.

Rainer Maria Rile, the 9th of the Duino Elegies

If you liked it then you should have put five golden rings on it! Muchas gracias to my hilarious sister who had the idea for this, despite it meaning that I suddenly had to sit through that music video about 15 times to do the sketches and pick poses.

Here’s what I have learned about Beyonc?©: you may think, at the get-go, that you are really going to “make this” by exaggerating her bulbous-bouffant, and maybe dialing it up on those haunches — but the reality of the situation is that you can’t: the actual, hand-to-heart physical proportions of that hair and those thighs and that derri?¨re make all hyperbole unnecessary; any embellishment looks, in fact, like you are holding back.

Also, that glove is much.

Here are some detail shots: I realize these are very small on screen, but I don’t want to do anything higher until I get prints out. Anyway, check out their teeny tiny pantyhose! And also, ‘cause this is driving me nuts now, I did not mean to draw that girl to so strongly resemble Mariah Carey.

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

This has been a lot of fun to work on, despite just how much work it entailed. The next four are going to be nuts! So many figures!

Here’s hoping you had a happy holiday — my christmas was wonderful. My mom remarked that it feels like the magic is gone a little: this is the first time in 26 years that there hasn’t been a child in the home to buy into Santa; so it’s true. A little of the magic has slipped away. On the flip side, as the holiday mythology subsides, the real joy of the season — being home with your loved ones and all the cumulative memories — comes to the forefront.

Like so many years past, this was a book filled holiday: I received The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, The Man who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective and a World of Literary Obsession, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World, Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books, The Bookseller of Kabul, and Only in Books: Writers, Readers & Bibliophiles on Their Passion; and I purchased Na?¯ve: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design for myself. Clearly you only need to know two things about me to buy me the perfect gift: I love a book about books, and I love a book with sub-title.

Besides that I got some other great gifts, one of which was 40 years of highlights from Sesame Street on DVD! I love my family.

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

Compared to the geese, everything seems like a dream: this one took me like, a sixteenth of the time to draw. So here’s seven swans-a-swimming in a winter wonderland. Here’s some fun facts: the young swans are called cygnets, while the male is called a cob and the female a pen. If you live in England, don’t even think about taking one home, they’re all property of the Queen (unless you live in Orkney, in which case do what you please!).

Also a fun fact: in my sketch book, by happy coincidence, my first detail practice at the swans face turned up looking like Robocop, but with a bill.

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

This went through some wacky wacky versions, but in the end I just had to cram them in a crate and be done with it. At first, I was going to do this very tiki/swank scene with Hawaiian NÄ“nÄ“ Geese Lei-ing some like, I don’t know, Canadian geese? I drew a giant Kane tiki, touristy pathway lined with torches, the works. But it just wasn’t working: too busy. So then I went with a WIlly Wonka themed one, with Veruca (who’s already basically wearing her best Christmas outfit) stompin’ her feet in a ring of geese, but again: way too complicated in the end.

At one point I was even sketching up some very risqu?© scenes involving a Multiplicity style scene with a gaggle of Anthony Edwards in bed with Meg Ryan (get it?! Like Goose from Top Gun! Eh eh eh?) But the down side there was having to entertain the idea of actually drawing Meg Ryan, (“Just draw a trout in a shag hair-do,” suggested a friend, “that should do.”) so that was out the window, too. It’s times like these that I wish I had an art director for goofy, self-imposed projects.

So anyway, here are your geese. Now let us never speak of it again.

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

Whew! I am finally caught up, and should be able to stick to one-a-day and have the whole song completed by Christmas day. This part of the song will be forever sung in my head al?? Miss Piggy from John Denver & The Muppets: A Christmas Together. As kids, we probably listened to that album — non-stop — from November 26 to December 25, every single year. You can insert your own “BadumpBumpBUMP!”

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

I couldn’t decide whether to do Colly Birds or Calling Birds), so I thought, let’s just do both! I really wish they still made phones like that — maybe some one can get fabricating a blu-tooth hand-set that would work with your cell but look like this. Er, I mean patent-pending, patent-pending, patent-pending.

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

I don’t know, how about you just be grateful you don’t have three leghorns running around your feet while you try to manage that partridge and those insipid turtledoves.

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

In the mean time, WHY SO MANY BIRDS? Your true love is a weirdo, unless you yourself are some sort of ornithologically obsessed pariah — that or he is just trying to facilitate the preparation of your yule-tide r?´ti sans pareil, in which case I cannot fault him in the slightest!

These are part of my 12 Days of Christmas, you can view the whole collection here!

Weston popped this shot the other day leaving work, when at 5pm it was around -1??F/-18??C. This has since been the way I look just about everyday whenever I attempt to go out of doors. Remind me why I live in this frigid state, again? Didn’t I used to live in Hawai’i? Downgrade!

Today is my final day of finals and could not be more excited and also hideously stressed. I was up until 4:30 this morning putting the finishing touches on my final German 3050 paper, Angels and Authority: Helps and Hinderances on the Trail to Transcendence. A comparison of the angels of Rilke’s Duino Elegies and figures of authority in Kafka’s short stories. Now imagine that title reworked in German and you’ve got a glimpse at how exciting that’s been. I’m still stressing out about the final despite the fact that I’ve reviewed everything, on top of the fact that I am re-taking the class next semester for clarity anyway.

Speaking of Hawai’i , about a week ago I twittered (sigh) that I had randomly come across an enclave of polynesian produce in my favorite grocery store. This is the product of that discovery, a delicious veggie salad of purple onions, zucchini, and Ufi. Ufi is a super-dense tuber that I first had on the big island of Hawai’i at the Apina’s house. They had planted some a while back and promptly forgotten about it. Later, when putting in a sprinkler system, they discovered it had grown to about 12 feet long. Digging the whole ting up, the chopped it into about 10 inch logs, and stacked it like firewood next to side door. We ate it like baked potatoes and I loved every bite. For this I peeled and sliced the ufi, roughed the surface and tossed it with oil and garlic (so, so slimy when raw! who knew?) and then roasted it with the other veggies. I swear each portion triples in your stomach, it is so filling. It kept me warm for days!

This, folks, is the way to make my day: deliver packages from Meg Hunt, Frank Chimero and The Pencil Factory all in one day! Mailman, I could just kiss you.

I guess I got lucky, and was one of the first to order the Pencil Factory promo 15 Uses for Newsprint, because I got two hand drawings with! One is a lovely little thing from the amazing Jessica Hische, and the other is a bit of a mystery (I suspect it comes from someone who either works in the same space as Sam Weber, or who’s married to him; the shimmery paint looks suspiciously similar to that used on this piece, but I could be totally wrong).

Sigh, I need more wall space — and at this point, an on-call framing service.

I, unlike Jason, am not a terrific photographer — let alone a terrific food photographer — but here are some of the more memorable scenes from my month-long experiment of eating nothing but what I cooked myself. Not featured here because my camera died for a few weeks there: a whole roasted chicken, after Natasha’s brilliant recipe; pan seared ahi; stuffed & roasted acorn squash, and bevy of other tasty meals. All in all, I have loved the experience, and by and large will probably be sticking to the process — I cannot stand fast food now.

Or, Calls that Never Come.

The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the early 19th century (originally called a R?´ti Sans Pareil, or “roast without equal”) - a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting and a Garden Warbler. The final bird is very small but large enough to hold just an olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. It appears illegal to make today as some of the species are endangered.

I would, of course, replace the olive with a ruby-throated hummingbird, stuffed with a bee hummingbird.

1. Esthero Country Living
2. Antony & the Jonsons Crazy in Love
3. The Wild Beasts The Devil's Crayon, Acoustic Live
4. Bryce Dessner & Antony Hegarty I was Young When I Left Home
5. Rufus Wainwright One Man Guy
6. Iron & Wine Serpent Charmer
7. Libbie Linton I am a Stone
8. Grizzly Bear & Feist Service Bell
9. Aco & M??m Machi
10. Sigur R?³s Heys??tan, Live
11. M??m Song 8, Live in San Francisco
12. Bj?¶rk Akkerilagi?°/Anchor Song, Live