Faces, mild or fierce

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The matted portrait is conte pencil on pastel paper; the B&W piece is graphite on drafting film, with eraser highlights.

That’s the fierce one! Ink and gouache. This sketchbook page was prepared earlier, without any particular subject in mind, using torn paper and watery purple paint. I took a photo of this doorknocker in Italy years ago.

Re Covid-19

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Amabie ink on acrylic-washed paper 8″ square

My version of the Japanese folklore creature Amabie, a sea creature with three legs or tail-fins, scales, a beak and long flowing hair… when first encountered in the Edo period, it announced that its image should be shared with sufferers of plague so that they and their communities would be cured. The helpful and hopeful notion of Amabie (pronounced ah-mah-bee-ay) became popular with artists around the world in 2020.

Corvid 19 ink on paper… though the 19th corvid and the powerful object in its beak are gouache paint… 18″ x 24″

Ar first the new virus didn’t have a name. When scientists agreed on the term ‘Covid-19’ spellcheck and autocorrect didn’t recognize it and sometimes changed covid to corvid. (Corvids are birds in the crow/raven/jay family.) Well. That was kind of funny. And I like crows.

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