Hi Reader: One of my favorite graphic novelists is Ben Katchor, whose work smells faintly of mildew, corned beef, body odor, and industrial lubricants. He tells odd, meandering stories of a bygone era, a world of shoehorn salesmen and cardboard valises, peeling hallways, and faded ambitions. It’s a familiar world but long gone, possibly the early 1950s, probably New York. It’s so evocative and odd, and ultimately, it leaves me feeling washed out and bleak but also inspired. Paul Auster and...
5 days ago • 5 min read
When I was nine years old and living in Pakistan, my grandfather’s chauffeur drove me to school every day. After a year had passed, my grandfather told me that today, he wanted me to tell the driver how to get to school. He instructed the driver to follow my directions to the letter, and we would see where we ended up. Ninety minutes later, we ran into the Indian/Pakistan border. I had guided us out of the country. I shrugged, and the driver turned around and took me to school. Living in...
9 days ago • 5 min read
Hi Reader: I've always loved to travel. New sites, new people, new food, and so many new things to draw. However, my last international trip was somewhat of an exception. I was invited to a 2-week residency at a lovely school in Hanoi. Ordinarily, I would be excited at this opportunity to visit Vietnam for the first time. However, the trip was on the heels of several other long international sojourns. In the previous few months, I'd been invited to Basel, Prague, Kuala Lumpur, Doha, and...
12 days ago • 5 min read
At various points in my drawing life, I’ve had a yen to dial the world back to black and white. I watch old movies on the Criterion channel and TCM — I'm sated by the sumptuous black-and-white of the recent production of Ripley. I fill my pages with black line drawings, cross-hatching, and stipples. Occasionally, I’ll allow myself a lick of Sumi ink or a grey brush marker to add some tone. And then one day, I wake up, ravenous for color. My sketchbook becomes a fruit salad of pomegranates and...
16 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader: Sometimes, I have a tool, but I just don’t know what to do with it. For instance, I have a friend who swears by pocket brush pens and exclusively draws and writes with one. Infected by her enthusiasm, I picked one up and was horrified by the results. In my hand, it was hard to control, crude, an ink-soaked bludgeon. Years later, I tried it again. Maybe it was the paper, the subject, or just the fact that I had changed with age, but I fell in love with it and now swear by my brush...
19 days ago • 4 min read
Two weeks ago, I shared my own reasons for making art and writing essays. Being specific about this turned out to be a complicated business with a range of answers, but it has been helpful to puzzle it out. Knowing more about why I need to make stuff whenever I can has helped me make the best use of my time and energy and to feel better about making art. I now have clarity on the difference between inspiration and distraction. I know when to feel free to play and when I need to be focused and...
23 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader: Each month I share my favorite discoveries. But recently, many reader have been sharing their own favorites. I'm excited to have found so many amazing new resources. Thanks to everyone who shared! Meera K shared a bunch of things I loved, too: Isabel Seidel She makes gorgeous sketchbook pages that are loose and saturated with color. What’s in the water in Spain that they produce so many gouache artists I am mad for? Drewscape Serendipitously, I just came across this channel, too,...
26 days ago • 2 min read
’Tis the season. Halloween. Day of the dead. Autumn leaves collapsing to the ground. The season of death. Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag you down some morbid, dark alley. Instead, let’s look at the bright side of death — as it applies to our creative lives. Death is part of the cycle of creation, the essential breakdown of the past into the raw materials of the future. Every seven years, all the cells in our bodies die to be replaced by new ones. Thriving cities bulldoze ancient...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader: I love pens, and I have collected literal bucketloads of them. My studio is littered with pen containers — boxes, bins, drawers, and coffee mugs all bristling with pens. Despite all this hoarding, I don't necessarily love every individual pen that's in my vast collection, so I conduct a periodic assessment to cull the herd. Normally, my assessment consists of opening the back page of my current sketchbook, scrawling a few experimental lines with each candidate pen, and then...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read