I’ve been scanning my sketchbooks this year and recently scanned one from 2000-2002. There were a number of drawings of people on planes or about to get on one. Planes and waiting rooms are wonderful places to people draw and I always make sure I have my sketchbook with me when I travel for that exact reason.
In some cases I met these people, found out their name and a small portion of their story. Some knew I was drawing them, like Jess the flight attendant. She was sitting staring down the aisle late at night and it was kind of hard to miss me drawing since I was the probably the only person with a light on in the cabin. Other times I am observing, taking in not just the face but the whole environment, like in ‘A Passenger’s Story’, which really more my story of what is happening all around her rather than what she is thinking. And then again I am often just imagining what someone might be thinking based on just a brief conversation like in ‘Cate Wishing’ or on nothing at all, like in ‘I Hope He’s Nice’.
Click on any image to start a slide show. Let me know what you think, do you have a favorite?
In September of 2018 I went to Erie, Pennsylvania to run the Erie Marathon. It was my final effort to qualify for the 2019 Boston Marathon before the registration deadline the very next day. We had to take a short bus ride from a giant parking lot to the small start area in a nature preserve. While on the bus I met sisters Katie and Emily Funk who had flown in from out of town like I had to run the race. We had a good, if brief, conversation before we arrived at the start area and went on our way. We traded names and promised to connect on social media to see how we all did.
Katie and Emily Funk after the Erie Marathon, Sept. 9th, 2018
After the race we did indeed connect on Social Media. All 3 of us had qualified for Boston at the race and were making plans to connect again in Boston come April. However, one of the quirks of the Boston Marathon is that you can qualify and still not make it in and that is what happened to me. I missed out by 16 seconds. But the sisters made it in with time to spare and fulfilled their dream by running in the 2019 race.
Emily and Katie
Sisters, Sisters
You can see two things by the t-shirt Emily is wearing. One, they live in the neighboring states and two, they love each other a great deal and cherish the times they can get together. This was often when they were running marathons around the country together, always with the hope of qualifying for Boston.
Emily and Katie with the father, Charlie Funk, after the race
Not only are the two of them runners but so is their dad and a third sister, Jennie. Charlie Funk got the idea he wanted to run Boston when Emily went off to Boston College and he got hooked on the idea of running past BC at mile 21. He made it happen in 2008 (and 3 more years). Jennie has run Boston as well. Ever since then they have been a running family.
Painting the Relationship and the goal
Late in 2020 I got an unexpected message from Emily. She told me that they had tried for years to qualify, running 4 marathons together, each time coming up short until finally at Erie they made it happen. And now she wanted to give Katie something that would be a memento, not just of Boston, but of the entire journey they have been on together. So she contacted me hoping I might be available to create something. She sent me some photos of them together and some in action during races. She also sent me pics of the 5 medals representing the 5 races they had run.
After doing a lot of collaging and editing of the various photos I came up with an idea and executed it. I wanted to include the two of them, the 5 medals and the ribbons that held the medals. Here is the final result.
I sent it off to Emily in time for her to present it to Katie when they got together sometime after Christmas. She sent me a pic of them holding it along with all the medals. It made me feel great to have been asked and to be able to produce something that represented their love and their journey.
The Elegantly Dressed Beautiful Woman | Ink on Paper | 2004-2018
‘The elegantly dressed beautiful woman with the cat as her carry-on wearing black and an orange scarf and visiting her parents in San Diego who can’t have pets and thinks her nose is bigger than I drew it but was flattered and thinks I am lucky.’
I created the line drawing portion of this drawing in December of 2004 while at the airport waiting to go to San Diego. The woman and I kept in touch and I sent her a photo of the drawing. 14 years later I decided to finish it with color.
“The woman moving forward while the baggy pants guy waits for his boarding pass while I sit on the floor waiting for the flight to California and wait for Linda and Caitlin to return from getting food during fall break in Tulsa in October of 2004.”
An illustrated short story from my 2004 sketchbook that I came back to this year to color. I did a lot of drawing while I traveled in 2003-2004 and I often would write a description of what was happening in the drawing right on the drawing. I hadn’t drawn anything in the windows originally. the gangway and airplane were added as I colored it in 2017.
Last week I went to ‘The Hills’, an elite high altitude training camp in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I was there to train my lungs, legs and mind in the thin air of 10,000 feet. Ok, I actually went with my wife to visit her sister, Cathie Hill and her family, who live in Breckenridge. But it is at 10,000 feet and I did go for a number of runs so I am going to stick with the training camp idea.
We had a fantastic time with family doing all sorts of fun activities. We rafted down the Colorado River one day and hiked 6+ miles up to a magnificent waterfall and back another day. We went to a cookout in Denver, then to a Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball game. And we witnessed and worried about a threatening forest fire near their home. There was also a fair amount of cooking, eating, game-playing, singing and general fun. In addition I read about 100 pages of my current book, Alexander Hamilton. However, I still have close to 600 pages to go so I definitely need another vacation.
4th of July Spirit!
High Anxiety
There is anxiety for a runner when they face a new challenge. My worries up that high were simple: ‘Will I collapse and die?’ and ‘will I get eaten by a bear or stomped by a moose?’ I can safely report now that none of those things happened. But, when we got to their house and had to climb a flight of stairs I definitely thought any running would include a collapse. It’s SO easy to get out of breath in the mountains! But because the air is so much thinner, high altitude running is fantastic for building lung capacity and oxygenating the blood. It can be done, it just takes patience.
Plans and Expectations
My plan was to acclimate gradually by going a short distance the first day, then increasing that each successive day. Day one was a 3 mile run. I took a walk break after the first mile, then each half mile after that. I felt good at the end but it felt more like I had done 6 miles, not 3. Day two was a 5 mile run. I took a walk break at mile 2 and 4. Day three was 4th of July and I skipped that day.
The scenery made the miles easy
At this point my plan for day five was to do 7 miles and day six I would do 9. As I started my 7 mile run I definitely thought I was not going to make it 7 and certainly wouldn’t make it 9 the next day. It was tough, even when I tried to slow my pace. I took a walk break at each of the first four mile markers. Then I turned around and instantly realized I had been on a very slight but insistent uphill grade for those 4 miles. Once I headed back I felt great and didn’t stop at all, stretching the 7 miles to 9 miles! I was acclimated!
“I am NOT impressed!”
Day six we decided to do a rigorous hike. Because of that I didn’t want to wear myself out beforehand and decided to skip the 9 miler (since I had done 9 the day before anyway, right?). The hike was more of a challenge than the runs because it was a 1,000 ft climb over mostly rocky terrain. That pushed my Achilles and my legs in ways my running does not. I am not a trail runner but I took the opportunity to run a few times during the hike anyway. I loved the hike and it made me want to do some trail runs in the future.
WAY high up!
The Conquerors!
Home Again
We got home late Friday and the next morning I was ready to lead Pathways and do extra miles to get in my scheduled long run of 12 miles. But, it was storming quite a bit and we were only able to get in about 3 miles, 2 of which were in a pouring deluge. It was invigorating and exhilarating (I love running in the rain) but it wasn’t 12 miles! I could have just let the long run go but as I mentioned before my goal has been to hit at least 30 miles a week running. So I did my 12 miles Sunday morning before church. It was a solo run, probably the longest solo run I have done in 3-4 years. I took a unique route along a busy street so that I could pass a pharmacy and get some hearing aid batteries I needed. It all went great and I averaged the pace I wanted (9:30). I could have gone longer even as the day heated up so that was a good sign.
This coming week will be filled with leading the start of the Fleet Feet Tulsa Fall half and full program and continuing to coach the Pathways group. Getting in my miles shouldn’t be a problem since I have a lot of running to do just covering those groups.
That’s it for now. Feel free to ask questions or give suggestions about running, training, etc.
We often talk about getting lost in the landscape. The idea is to go out and lose oneself, and I get that. You lose all those society-laden elements that burden you. But losing is only half the story. The other is about what you find out about yourself when you are away from all that.
Here are a selection of photos I have taken over the years that visualize the lost and the found.
A woman named Nancy at the Del Mar Motel who has 3 kids and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses & always reads the sports section because her dad was a high school football coach who talked about her son with ADHD & Tourette Syndrome whom they adopted from the next town over in Orange County and took to Hawaii on his 6th birthday and hoped he didn’t think he would always get trips like that and who is trying to think ahead about real estate for her kids’ future.
I like to think of myself as mostly being in the traveler category. But I am also a tourist and go to tourist spots, especially when I am new to a location and I like that. They are popular spots for a reason and I want to see them just like most other people. What puts me primarily in the traveler category isn’t where I go as much as it is how I am looking at the places I go. I look with the artistic eye I have always had and I think that makes the difference.
Doing the Act
As an artist I am doing two things when I travel that others may not be doing. One, I am actually creating my art. Both times I have gone to Europe (and other places) I have spent each morning up early at a cafe drawing. My wife and daughters were sleeping still and I used the time to observe and create. I drew at other times as well, when going from one place to another. I have drawn in trains, planes, and automobiles.
Observation of the Juxtaposition
The other thing I do is look for the artistic moment according to my aesthetic and artistic inclination. This of course is different with each person, artist or not. I tend to see that artistic moment when I see a juxtaposition between two or more things. I don’t see it so much in a depiction of one thing, like the Eiffel Tower, though an image of that can be pretty. I instead will be looking primarily for the Eiffel Tower in relationship to a person. Someone at the Tower. Not posing, but being and acting. I have my eye and my camera ready when I am in a place like that to find that moment.
The Relationship
The drawing above illustrates that idea. I would be the one seeing the Eiffel Tower tattoo on the back of the woman looking at the Eiffel Tower and wanting to capture that. It’s not that I don’t like pictures of the Eiffel Tower, I tried to get a number of classic shots. It’s just that the really compelling images, the ones I truly love and am excited to have captured, show more than a place. It shows a relationship between that place and someone or something else.
The Difference
Here are two photos I took during my recent trip to Europe. Both are good in my estimation, but the second one is the one that moves me. It’s the one that makes me feel like I really captured the essence of the Eiffel Tower in it’s affect on a real person.
Tourist Eiffel
This one is all about the tower. It’s pretty. It might be a postcard or a stock photo. It tells someone it is a beautiful site. It’s me as a tourist trying to get a great photo of an iconic site.
Traveler Eiffel
This is about the affect the tower has on someone. It is telling the hint of a story and that draws me to her and what she is thinking and feeling. It’s the one that stays with me. It’s me as a traveler finding out about the people of the world.
Which are you?
What do you all think? How are you a tourist and/or a traveler when you go some place new? What do you see that you think others may miss when they are in a new place?
I have started to Periscope myself drawing my napkins and sketchbook drawings. This one ended with a really cool revelation that I want to tell you about.
I drew the quote and the tree with the snake first. It was to be about travel since I had just gotten back from our London/Paris adventure. One of the people watching suggested I have the quote go around in a circle and I adapted that idea to have the first half go across the top and down the side. But then I decided to make the second have a more traditional bubble so it would be easier to read.
My Thought Process
I came back 2 days later and, while scoping, talked about how to illustrate the quote. I thought of what would symbolize ‘the end’ and the idea of a hammock, the ultimate resting spot, would be cool to bracket the bottom. I have an actual hammock in my backyard so I decided to draw in stripes as mine has, plus they would help create the bottom curve holding the image in. The hammock would be empty since the quote is about the journey is what matters in the end, not the end, right?
I decided to draw someone walking, perhaps just having gotten up from the hammock. She was naked at first. I drew the path up to a mountain and then was a bit stuck. What was going to happen behind her? The idea came to me that maybe the path could be never ending, leading off behind her to perhaps the same place she will find going forward.
Breaking out of a Pattern
Right about then someone said maybe the middle area between the path could be a body of water. One of the things I like about Periscoping is that people through out their ideas and it sort of breaks me out of my typical drawing response. I have the type of water I draw, the type of mountains, of people etc. So it’s fun when someone suggests something that makes me view the possibilities a bit different. So, that is what I did, I drew the middle area being a body of water, like a bay or lagoon.
All this was done before any coloring took place (except the tree and snake on the side).
Conscious Choices, Unconscious Results
Once I had the stripes on the hammock the idea came to me to make it a rainbow. This wasn’t hard to come up with since the marriage equality ruling had just come down from the Supreme Court the day before.
Then I had to decide whether to keep the walker naked or not. It really made no sense given the quote and the image so I drew in shoes, shorts and a top. I wanted her to pop so I made her shorts red. I had a lot of green and blue in the background so I was trying to figure out the top, considering purple. But in the end I thought a darker blue would still stand out and colored it in.
Then I had to decide what color to make the walker. I put the drawing up for the periscopers to see and when I did that, and was able to see it on the screen it hit me. The walker was red, white and blue. And what is coming up this week? 4th of July. At that moment the whole drawing changed. It wasn’t just a walker journeying. It was an American. And it was the American journey into and beyond Marriage equality.
Good Art is More than the Artist Intends
I had no intention AT ALL for it to be about that. None of my choices were consciously leading to that. But I went with the unconscious flow, my creative choice flow and it came out to be something I believe in but didn’t intend.
I love that about art.
You can find me on Periscope daily. I am @thenapkindad there and on twitter.
Quote by Earnest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American author
We have moved on to Paris in our epic adventure. We are staying in an Airbnb apartment, just like we did in London. This apartment is on the Rue de Dames, right off of Place de Clichy. There is a cafe right at Place de Clichy called Le Petit Poucet. I sat there two mornings and drew the scene I had in front of me.
As it says, the story is made up. I have no idea who either of them are in reality but that is the fun of storytelling. I catch glimpses of things and build them into a tale that makes some sort of sense to me at the time.
Here is a photo of the women and the space. The woman on the right is obscured by the man but he left before I started drawing.
Le Petit Poucet, Place de Clichy, Paris
This one was fun because the woman eating in the background noticed me drawing and came over. She introduced herself and as I was periscoping, introduced herself to all my followers as well.
Here are the 2 edited periscope videos I did of drawing this scene. Each one is about 7 minutes. The second one is where she comes over.
Part 1
Part 2
Here is the photo I took of her and myself.
Train from Versailles
On the way home from Versailles (not the best experience, too crowded) we relaxed on the train. Caitlin was trying to find WiFi access on her phone and I took advantage of the rest time to draw her. We changed seats right in the middle of the drawing due to Linda not wanting to listen to two vapid girls next to us closing the window and talking about stupid stuff. I had been set to draw this one person behind my daughter but we moved so I drew this Japanese girl instead. She was at a different angle, farther away from Caitlin than the person at the earlier location so I moved her a bit closer so I could get her in. That is why they don’t look like they are facing the same direction on the train. That doesn’t really matter but I thought you might like to see my decision-making process in action.
Charles De Gaulle Airport
I drew her after we arrived at our gate at De Gaulle Airport for our journey home. I knew I had to draw her fast since our plane would be boarding any minute. She looked elegant and refined and I wanted to capture that with a simple line. We talked and I gave her and her friend my card so she could connect later to see the drawing if she wanted to.
We never talked about what she was doing in Paris so when it came time to tell the story I imagined a romantic scenario for her. Part of it was based on a kind man that helped us in the train station in Britain. I just imagined her being the person who met him and what might have happened.
Most people, by the way, never end up contacting me. Many do though and I like to think they enjoy seeing themselves in a drawing published on a blog. I often wonder about those I draw, if they ever wonder about
