Circle Madness

ink on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Dot Density

Previously I made a graphite drawing in which I varied the darkness of my dots. I called it Shades of Gray. For this sketch I used a Sharpie Fine Point to create dots of different sizes. I varied the distance between the dots.

Bubble In

It was the last school day of the 2004 - 2005 Year. Actually, it wasn’t even a whole day. The last morning of the school year is set aside for recognizing teacher years of service, retirements and accomplishments. Homeroom teachers stuff envelopes with report cards. Lastly is checkout. That means having all the different departments sign off that keys were turned in, paperwork turned in, etc.

While waiting for all activities to conclude I sketched this. It is also in keeping with the testing bubble sheet theme - see previous post. I drew the circles. Then some I filled in and some I erased. One of my fellow teachers glanced over and expressed disappointment that I wasn’t doing something pretty. I’m just glad I had my sketchbook handy for drawing.


graphite on paper, 5.5" x 8.5"

Organic Grid

This sketch was completed just before the next piece I'm about to post. It was rendered with a set of Staedtler color pencils. I wanted to compare it to a Prismacolor set of colored pencils. A Prismacolor set is more on the waxy side.

Even though there are no dots, the experimentation with a grid anticipates some of the things that happened in my next finished piece. It was a trial sketch, if you will. It also harkens back to a series of works in which I played with positive and negative spaces. That goes back twenty years. Once in a while I revisit the idea.


colored pencil on paper, 5.5" x 8.5"