Lyle Lovett, ink on paper, 2008. Click image to see full-size.

I’m really enjoying this marker sketch process. They’re either cheap markers or old markers, so in either case they dry out quickly. That gives me an opportunity to layer colors like I would with glazes in painting.

Join BookMooch! It’s a great way to match old books with new readers.

The BookMooch Journals are an offshoot of BookMooch. Read more about the journals here.

Related: I’ve been updating my Flickr page. Pop in for a visit, yeah? The Mooch Journals have a Flickr pool, too.

Still from Ryan, an animated film by Chris Landreth.

Not only does Landreth use his medium for purposeful and poetic storytelling, but he portrays strikingly accurate visual representations of love and addiction. Watch the film online at the YouTube Screening Room.

Read more about the film here.
Read more about Ryan Larkin here.

Let Things Be Foggy, ink on paper, July 2008.

I began this sketch during my stay in Canadian, Texas over the Fourth of July holiday. I don’t have any major shows planned or new projects in progress at this point, so I feel a mite bit purposeless. (It’s been a long time since my schedule was this open.) Plus, I’m exploring some less graphic, more painterly stylistic ground. This foggy place is the perfect environment in which to let some new ideas germinate.

See more of Illustration Friday here.

Here is a snapshot of my desk upon completing the drawing, where you can see my collage sketch:

Satellite Image of Aleutian Clouds, North America. Click image to view its source.

Are you looking for ideas for your next thirty abstract paintings? Because NASA beat you to it. But you can go visit them at the Environmental Graffiti blog.

Untitled photograph from Flickr user Sevenshades. This photo is one of many images on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Click image to view its source.

From the creativecommons.org blog:

Our good friend and new media sociologist Alek Tarkowski from CC Poland has been working hard to compile data for a new report on Flickr user patterns and content licensing. This’ll be a great boost for deepening our developing case study, and will go a long way to supporting our ongoing efforts to develop an understanding of how creators release their works.

But he needs your help to gather data! You can get a link to his short survey here. Definitely worth the few minutes.

For more on CC Poland’s work check out their site.

I, for one, use Flickr both to showcase my cc-licensed work and to search for other cc-licensed images. Help spread the word!

Christoph Niemann’s sons give helpful directions to a stranger.

Here is a delightfully illustrated story in the New York Times about two little boys and their love for the MTA. An excellent example of using symbols as visual language, the perfect mix between pictures and words. You can see more of Niemann’s work at his website, www.christophniemann.com. (Ooh! Ooh! Turns out he did one of my favorite New Yorker covers, which you can see here. Scroll down to the lady with the pikachu kimono.)

I love how the map background color is Necrosis Black and the little store-spores are A Pox On Ye Green. Enticing.

I also love maps.

Coop killing his devil. Click image to visit its source.

Paintblogger and pop-culture powerhouse Coop recently published his thoughts about a runaway image. He painted it, he sold it, and the durn thing grew legs and ran away to live its own life. (One never knows what’s going to take hold of the public’s attention.) Coop likens his experience to the nail salon poster phenomenon. You know, the ones with the white skin, black hair, sharp eyes, linear features? I’ve seen those my whole life and wondered where they first came from. Now, thanks to Coop and BoingBoing, I know. Those of you who, like me, were born after 1979, meet Patrick Nagel.

notabene. Sites linked to from this blog post may contain R-rated material.

Link to the All Faiths Beautiful Flickr set.

From a Washington Post review of the All Faiths Beautiful show:

Outsider artists are presumed to create out of some pure inner vision and not in response to any trends in the art world. Their creations tend to be idiosyncratic and sometimes inscrutable, and have a long-night-of-hallucination feel. …The creations seem driven by an instinct that lies somewhere between compulsion and belief. They express less a coherent faith than a desperate attempt to be seen and understood, even if the outreach ultimately fails. …The show is at its best when it showcases the more peculiar “faiths,” and then challenges you to connect.

One of the more challenging parts of All Faiths Beautiful is the portion of the show devoted to atheism. As to whether atheism can be considered a faith, that’s up for grabs. But one individual who has expressed a particularly poetic atheistic worldview is the late great Mr. George Carlin. In a 2004 interview with Terry Gross, Carlin explained that while he was not a religious man, he did find spiritual sustenance in the notion that everything in this universe is made up of atoms that were created in the heart of a star. If we are all made of the same material, he reasoned, then we are all one, and if that’s true, then what is there to be afraid of? I’ve included a video of Carlin explaining his views on religion below. (Caution: salty language and challenging notions.) Because all faiths ARE BEAUTIFUL in this here blog post.

Related: Sarah’s del.icio.us sites tagged religion.

(Mommy, why did the lelephant take his clothes off?)

The above photo is from the new web-based exhibit Picturing The Museum from the American Museum of Natural History Research Library. This came to me via Morbid Anatomy.

Can I just say? Those men are cleaning an elephant skin. With no elephant inside. It makes my ontology ache.

Related: Sarah’s del.icio.us links tagged anatomy.