lazy morning

that's me just before i make up my mind to get out bed.

testing emissions

this man was doing just that at the emissions testing center

somewhere in hunt valley, maryland.

(sketchbook)

somewhere in east berlin

maybe?

siegen

this is the charming city of siegen, germany. this winter was my third time in siegen and every time, i am amazed by how agreeable it is. the houses all look like lego pieces. i will send this illustration to our nice friends there.

das leben der anderen

conversations.

(sketchbook)

summertime

now that the abysmal wretchedness of this semester is over, i am happy to start working on my own projects, and a few things for nagging friends. i ordered a five-piece blank nesting matrёshka set, direct from the russian federation. they arrived today, in very happy condition. if they had faces they would be smiling, i am sure.

kitchen

continuing in that manner, this idea of a quiet aesthetic. there was something italo calvino wrote in invisible cities that i think about often: "the foreignness of what you no longer are." this is more like the familiarity of what i never really was.

the smiths

think of faraway things

this is a new - and sudden - direction for me, one that i am very excited about. memories of places from childhood, real or imagined. old apartments with soviet era interiors, crooked and crumbling communal flats, rainy window views of rooftops, radiators, parquet flooring, wallpaper, leaks and exposed pipes, continuous mumbling of radio in silence, muffled kitchen conversations with black tea and cigarettes.

dwelling

another unusual character from russian folklore. painted with acrylic.

onomatopoeia

if there's nothing out there, what was that noise? after "virgo" in the horoscope series, the typewriter became one of my most frequently drawn objects, after "hey bird" and the rapidly shrinking elephant.

variations

i have a big book called marimekko: fabrics, fashion, architecture about the history of the lovely finnish textile company marimekko. some of the black and white photographs from the 1960s and 1970s feature models doing mod poses that i wish people still knew how to do.

love and its finitenesses

valentin valentinovich slon

he is made from different scraps of wood, and the trunk is on a movable dowel joint, so it moves up down up down. first time working in three dimensions; i really had to consider the order of things.

talking zoo

the loveless provinces

a little project i did over winter break to keep myself busy in snowy ohio. i was on the verge of tears because my fingers went numb and the wind lifted just about everything. words: theodore roethke.

which is more than i can say for some people

the unkind prince

crocodile says: "you cannot run away"

small text says "ciao"

i'm glad it was you

bad dating stories and how the right person came along after all.

not the best day.

horoscope illustration: pisces

pen, watercolor, and white gel pen on illustration board

aries and virgo

gemini and leo

sagittarius

balloons

i am in a jazz age phase.

russian folklore series

these scenes are based on the prologue to aleksandr pushkin's 1820 poem "ruslan and liudmila." pen, watercolor, and white gel pen on illustration board.

magic forest

i cannot really know what happened at this point, but something started with this drawing. this is where everything else began. pen, watercolor, and white gel pen on illustration board.

georges perec

french novelist (1936-1982)

the color grey

earl grey, on an elephant, drinking earl grey tea, in a desolate landscape on an especially dreary day.  that is what i think of when i imagine the color grey.

diptych: wrath and patience

pen and acrylic on illustration board

"i am tired." pen on paper.