Cleanroom Sketchbook

These pictures are from a very strange sketchbook that I kept while I was working in a cleanroom, a factory where you have wear a special suit to reduce lint and static electricity. They use special paper in cleanrooms, it feels like it's made of plastic and it doesn't shed lint. I drew all of these with a ball point pen - not my favorite medium - but I like some of the drawings. There is a long ugly section of people eating, those are called Pie Hole I, Pie Hole II, etc... The drawings area about 2" x 6"

My Perspective

First drawing done with the new Pilot V-Board Master Whiteboard Marker. I am withholding my judgement for the moment. I will say gravity is an issue with this design. My son Ian got us started with some perspective then told me to take over. There is a tiny figure on the roof of the Sausage House with a thought bubble that reads, "As I watched Mark and Alecia speed away all I could think was... great, now I'm going to be sucked into that building across the street".

A Sales Representative from the Pilot Pen Corporation met my Wife Chris at a vendor's fair. They are introducing a new line of whiteboard dry erase marker so my wonderful wife showed the Rep some pictures of my dry erase murals. What do ya know, Pilot just sent me a bunch of the new pens and asked me to evaluate them. I guess they think I'm qualified. So far they are great pens however, they are very limited in color choices (only black, red, blue, green, orange). Also, they seem to suffer the same problem as their competition - when you are writing on a vertical surface like a whiteboard, the pen is angled up so gravity works against you on the ink and the tip dries out.

Drawing Progression

I like those videos where you see a time lapse of a work so I decided to make one. This is a simple two-point perspective with a figure sitting on it. It's starts as a light pencil sketch and I begin adding more and more ink. It's just mechanical pencil and Sharpie on 8.5 x 11 printer paper. I took the pictures with a cheap digital camera and compiled them on a windows movie making program that came with my laptop.

"Sharkmouth"

This is a shot of my classroom whiteboard. The lesson is on value and texture. I tell students that once I've drawn something (like the sharks), if I use it a few times, I'll usually remember it. I tell them that once you figure out how to draw something new, you can almost always find some other way to use it or another place to put it. This piece is "Sharkmouth" and the whiteboard is four feet tall.

Expo Retablo

Okay, so here's my latest. This is a drawing executed with Expo dry erase markers on my bathroom mirror. It is 3' x 7' and I procrastinated and went on vacation so it's taken a couple of months to complete. The title is just "Retablo" and the format was inspired by the Retablo de Ciudad Rodrigo which is currently on display in the University of Arizona art museum. A Retablo is an alterpiece, a work of art created to stand on, or behind an alter in a church. The Retablo de Ciudad Rodrigo has something like 26 panels each about the size of the two panels I've drawn here. My Retablo is just for fun. Hope you like it.

Sci Fi Roots

This is the only good pic I could find of this particular piece, unfortunately the right panel is incomplete... there was water in the hole and around the bricks, but I can't find a copy and the drawing has been erased. Anyway, this is "Sci Fi Roots" 3'x7' Expo dry erase marker on bathroom mirror.

You know, because they are on mirrors, they are really hard to photograph.