GRIZZLY PEAR
The kids woke up and saw my sketchbook with pens on the desk. The flipped the page and made their mark.
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Taegan MacLean’s One Word substack is one of the best projects on the internet, and his latest video Woodbine is another great installment in this series. Check it out!
A lovely cool sunset after a weekend of heavy rains in the desert. The kids were drawing a highway for a rollypolly.
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The Liszt transcription of Beethoven’s Fifth, played by Glenn Gould.
The boy wanted to paint the Scarbunny Pokémon so I drew one for him on watercolor paper.
She wanted one too so I pulled out my rarely used light table, traced it, and let them loose with watercolors.
At the start of 2023 I got back into using fountain pens after a long hiatus after finishing Berkeley. The ink in my bottle of Waterman Green had dried out so I revived it with water.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to focus on finishing this bottle so I took it out of the dark storage box and left it on the desk.
Yesterday I realized there was a little white mold floating on the surface!
I’m most likely too cheap for my own good, but I refilled up a couple eyedroppers that already had this green in their barrels and pulled out a brush to burn through the rest. As you can see, the green had morphed to an interesting dark teal.
I suspect I got this bottle while still in high school, so it’s been with me for more than a quarter century. It’s now empty and washed.
Given my morning pages and sketches, I suspect this old buddy will be all gone in a week.
Last month, Hurricane Hillary slowly worked its way up from Mexico, prompting warning texts from from NOA. The boy kept asking about when the flood was going to hit. We explained that floods are bad events, but that couldn’t dampen his excitement.
Turned out to be a minor event. We got a little rain on Friday afternoon which led to a massive double rainbow during the golden hour.
We finally got our heavy rains and street flooding a week later — from a storm that had no name.
This is a great little survey of what’s possible with this medium. Hobbs picked a variety of artists and provided thoughtful commentary on each of his picks.
As I get deeper into sketching, this book is a definite keeper. It’s nice to have an overview of all the different approaches in a single volume. Seeing the multiplicity of technical skills makes the practice less intimidating than studying the work of a single master.
I got mine for $14, but prices fluctuate because it’s out of print. While you fish for a good price, I’ve included the list of artists in the photos below.
Please note that this book is a bit smaller than I expected, so I included a Lamy Safari for scale on a couple photos.
Now go and fly that pen!
My rediscovery of fountain pens has resulted in a more purchases. The hedonic treadmill led from cheap flexible nibs to boutique inks and now better paper. Ironically, the photo below shows drawings with decades old ink, but on a fresh Rhodia pad. And yes, it’s a world of difference from the cheap Office Depot steno pads I’ve been using.
Along the way I’ve also discovered Pinterest after being nudged by some folks on Substack. It’s an amazing place for reference imagery (duh!). I had assumed that Instagram would be the place for such a library, but Meta has turned their place into a video service.
Here’s to new (and old) tools, toys, and platforms.
On our way home from San Diego, we checked out the dying outlet mall at Primm. The adjoining casino is trying to revive it by making the cavernous space a huge mural gallery.
There were a couple claw machines at one end of the concourse. After watching Toy Story, they begged to try it out. I told them to not expect anything.
We had one dollar.
We got lucky.
This is a $200 drawing, the most expensive that I’ve made.
Late last year, I started sketching again, drawing the letters of the alphabet in my steno notepad. After drawing the “R” at the top, I tried again on decent paper, splashing an ink wash. It blew my mind that this could come from my hand.
It kept me drawing. Half a year later, I found Ashlyn Antsee’s series on fountain pens and bought a mix of nibs and new inks…and I plan on upgrading from the cheap Office Depot steno pads.
It’s a fuzzy line between art, consumerism, and privilege. I’m grateful that it’s no big deal for us to buy fancy drawing supplies.
Stop making products and start making magic.
This has been Seth’s mantra over the years. This book is no exception.
It’s a fun read, delightfully nostalgic for someone that live through the internet revolution. Even though this book was about the World Wide Web before social media inhaled the information superhighway, Seth’s encouragement is still as powerful as ever.
Go out there, let it all hang out, and do something.
This book emphasizes “zooming” — acclimating to the difficult art of change. He posits that zooming is a powerfully motivating way to view the world.
This book comes from that short lived genera of collected blog-posts volumes. The world has changed a bit since publication, but it still rhymes with the 00’s, even if things feel a little gloomier.
Seth has been telling the same story for the past three decades.
So if you dig him, check it out. If you don’t, this book won’t change your mind.
With AI, change is coming (again!). What would you do if you knew for certain that what your work today won’t survive the next two decades of disruption? How will you embrace the change that is coming? Are you gonna zoom?
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One of my favorite riffs is when Godin embarks on an extended discussion about “maybe-proofing” the company. One of the best ways to kill a project flow is to dawdle. Sometimes we should pause and let things develop, but that should be a deliberate choice. As OPM’s, we have to maybe-proof ourselves. Our job is to make choices.
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In the two years after reading this book, I’ve realized that I’m on the back half of my career. So I’ve lost interest in self-help and Seth has been a casualty of this shift. He’s correct that one needs to embrace change in your career, but I’m not focused on my career anymore.
I will always work hard and dabble with process improvements, but when I’m not at work, I focus on other joys. I no longer feel an urge to to maximize my output or lead the charge to make things better in the office.
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Some Links
At the end of each month, I often need to use up my quota at Hoopla (a library streaming service). I invariably return to these albums. Two of them are absolute classics. The third is lesser known, though by perennial request by our kids. The fourth is a nod to my weakness for EDM.
Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert. It’s the best selling solo jazz album of all time, but I’ll switch it up and borrow his Paris Concert which forays into baroque counterpoint.
The Awakening is one of the most sampled albums in hip hop. Recorded in February 1970, it feels like a distinct evolution by the Ahmad Jamal Trio from the bebop of past decades. If I’ve had too much piano lately, I’ll get Way Out West with a unique trio of bass, drums, and saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins.
My kids are obsessed with the “Ballad of Pancho Villa” (which they call “cafe music”) so they always insist on borrowing From All Sides, a collaboration between guitarist Bolo Sete and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
I recently mentioned Klangphonics for their quirky YouTube shorts. Driving feels better with Songs to Try on the speakers (but it’s not so aggressive to become dangerous).
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Thanks for reading!
Justus Pang, RA
I discovered a pile of blue fuzz.
And his new red scissors.
She wept.
䷔䷲
bite through
wood shackles
no regrowth
cerulean ears