charcoal, 4″ x 6″

China marker and colored pencil, 6″ x 4″

May 22, 2010 sketch – ink, 6″ x 4″

My Rapidograph pen got clogged, not to the point of not being able to draw at all, just skipping lines here and there and refusing to produce dots completely. Lines would not be much of a problem, but dots are essential for what I am working on right now, so this is my attempt to get the pen to cooperate without cleaning it. Anything to avoid cleaning it.

graphite pencil, 4"x 6"

The boarding stables near me have fenced pastures on a gentle slope of the hill. If you walk by, the setting sun will be behind the grazing horses and on a good day their manes would blow in the wind beautifully. This is one of those horses.

ink, 4" x 6" *SOLD*

There is always something very compelling to me about horses greeting each other, be it total strangers or the two who know each other well. For some reason, this pair got a bit of “rabbit ear” going on. Certainly didn’t aim for that, but there is no going back with ink.

colored pencil, 4″ x 6″ *SOLD*

Yesterday I visited a Japanese store that sells slightly defective ceramics for cheap (we ran out of small bowls again, and I refuse to buy real stuff when it gets destroyed so quickly). They had a lot of new designs with pale colors, not all of them even looked like traditional Japanese ware. This is a loose collective impression of what I saw but had absolutely no reason to buy. Yes, I wanted to. I behaved.

Someone mentioned Ragnar’s work to me and shared a link to his gallery. It turned out to be a whole world of images like no others. Just look at these stunning photographs!

Sadly, the web site had almost no information on the photographer himself, and it took some googling to learn about the man behind the camera:

PhotoBards.com – interview with Ragnar Axelsson
Showcase: Black and Very White

4″ x 6″, colored pencil *SOLD*

4″ x 6″, graphite pencil

4″ x 6″, ink *SOLD*

This is a quick study for a horse head that will be done in pastel pencil. I like the shape of the head in the reference photo, but it lacks contrast terribly. And the horse is milky-gray which does not help The sketch is my attempt to place the darks where I believe they should be.