When my parents gave me my first box of crayons and a blank drawing pad, they had no idea I would turn it into a career. I majored in art in high school and attended a vocational art school after spending a year in the retail world and realizing that I was better suited for …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “highlight”. When I was a kid in the early 1960s, a trip to the family doctor was a dreaded thing. I did my best to hide every sniffle or stomachache, lest I be subjected to some poking and prodding from that creepy, bespectacled guy with the stethoscope around …
My mother’s parents ran an antique store not far from their home at Fourth and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia. In the summer months, they operated a bath house on the boardwalk in the seaside resort of Wildwood, New Jersey. In addition, eighteen years separated my mother from her oldest sibling. Needless to say, “family time” was a rare …
This week’s Illustration Friday inspirational word is “silent”. “Now hurry down, baby she’s the hippest street in town!” – South Street by The Orlons (1963) The Orlons sure knew what they were talking about in their 1963 hit “South Street”. By the time I started hanging out on Philadelphia’s South Street in the 70s, it was …
I have ranted… I mean, related many anecdotes from my nearly thirty years as a professional artist. There’s one story that I have told numerous times, but have never put into print… until now. I was employed for almost five years in the advertising department at the main headquarters of a major after-market auto parts retailer whose …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “mysterious”. On Saturday, I went to meet my son at a free concert at the Great Plaza on the Delaware River’s waterfront. Instead of driving and fighting for a parking space on a busy holiday weekend, I took the train into downtown Philadelphia. I disembarked at the Market …
My wife’s grandmother turned 101 this past July. When I met her nearly thirty years ago, she was a feisty, strong-willed woman who called things as she saw them and took no shit from anyone. She came from humble beginnings in Russia and lived an even more humble existence upon her arrival in the United …
Continue reading ‘from my sketchbook: an exercise in selfishness’ »
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “obsession”. Regular readers of my blog (all four of you) are already familiar with my obsession the one aside from drawing. I love old movies, Hollywood scandals, obscure actors and actresses and stories of untimely demise. So, how do I satisfy all of those interests at one shot? I visit cemeteries, …
In the long-ago days when a band called Led Zeppelin still existed, when the mention of The Rolling Stones entering a recording studio did not evoke an exasperated “eye roll” and Cat Stevens was singing about the joys of moonshadows instead of Jihad, a local stop on your favorite band’s concert tour came with the perennial regularity of Daylight Savings Time, the …
The Illustration Friday website suggests “midsummer night” as this week’s inspiration. My son and I experienced Niagara Falls for the first time at the same time. My wife, whose parents took their three children on numerous family vacations, saw the renowned natural spectacle in her youth. I went on my last furlough with my parents …
