’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...
4 days 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...
6 days ago • 6 min read
Hi ______: Every week, I'm a whirlwind of activity. I churn out this newsletter. I write the Tuesday Studio Notebook. I make at least one YouTube video. I do "Draw with Me" with Jenny on Thursdays. I go live for our channel members several times a week. I podcast. I draw and journal. I come up with writing ideas and thought starters for future projects. And that's not even counting all the books I read and documentaries I watch to feed my insatiable curiosity. Phew! I'm exhausted just writing...
11 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader: This week's sketchbook documents my wonderful trip to Prague and Vienna. I was very excited about this trip because I knew that both cities would be full of wonderful things to draw — I was not disappointed. As I often do when I travel, I began a brand new sketchbook and dedicated it to this trip. It’s a pocket-sized watercolor Moleskine. The sketchbook begins in the Frankfurt airport, sitting around eating questionable food and drawing it to kill time. As I wrote in the corner, I...
14 days ago • 2 min read
Hi ______: Ever rummaged through an attic crammed with decades of family junk? That's exactly what Jenny and I did when we cleared out my mother-in-law's house after she moved to assisted living. Talk about a trip down memory lane — and a lesson in creative persistence. Days of spelunking through closets and boxes and crawl spaces chin-deep in dusty knick-knacks, shop-worn christmas decorations, expired laxatives, and enough tchotchkes to start a flea market. It felt like the world's most...
18 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader: I had a friend who was a lifelong New Yorker, and I was surprised when he moved to Los Angeles. I visited him once he was settled in his mansion in the Hollywood Hills, and he told me, "New York is a great place to visit and a lousy place to live. But Los Angeles is a pretty lousy place to visit and an awesome place to live.” Not long after, Jenny and I followed his example, and we moved from Greenwich Village to a small house on the west side of LA. Our new neighborhood was pretty...
21 days ago • 3 min read
We just got a second dog. It's turned our house upside down. It’s not that Clover is a bad dog — far from it, she’s lovely — but it has been a massive change in the tidy life that JJ, Twiglet, and I have lived for the past four years. We don’t sleep the same way, get up the same way, play, eat, walk, or watch TV the same way. Everything is different. This especially perturbs Twiggy. Dogs like routine. When I was a kid, my grandfather would always ask me over breakfast, “What’s your program...
25 days ago • 3 min read
As you know, once each month, I share new discoveries of things I love, and think you will, too. Last month, I asked you and all the readers of Studio Notebook to share your findings and recommendations. Many of you sent in loads of super-cool stuff and here’s just the first serving — thank you to all who sent in recommendations. If yours didn’t get in this month, I’m sure they will in future! Derwent Graphitint Paint Pan Set. The colors are good right from the pan for urban or field...
28 days ago • 3 min read
The world seems infested with billionaires these days. Tech bros. Kleptocrats. Crypto-kings. Hedge-fund goobers. Of course, they’re nothing new. A century ago, there were robber barons, monopolists, and railroad tycoons. Go back a millennium, and you’ll find a plague of viscounts, marquises, and emperors. Grasping grubbers all the way down. I find these types annoying, but I don’t envy them. They are bottomless holes. All the rest of us on the planet have to chip in to feed their rapacious...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read