The Little Dog

Sean wanted blue

colored pencil, calbayog city, 2025

Sean, my nine year old son, told me he wanted a drawing that was just blue, so I'm drawing this. I've used four different blue pencils so far, but hear me out. As I worked the pigments with alcohol, I could see that the darker blue was bleeding off some purple, which was lovely. So I went back to my pencil box and found a lavender pencil, which is not exactly blue, but it made the drawing look just like the ocean off the coast here which is way cool.

Sean likes it, so far, so..

I'm going to add more. I think. But I seriously love these colors.

Brian Wilson - The Lonely Sea

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Reading tea leaves

ballpoint pen and alcohol

Calbayog City 2024

These drawings are like reading tea leaves. I draw a bit then I splash alcohol on it and see what the smearing tells me to do next. This particular drawing I actually made on the backside of another drawing using the bleed through. Really fun when a face starts looking back at me..

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Carrickfergus

pen and watercolor

Los Angeles 2016

Carrickfergus

I wish I was in Carrickfergus,

If only for the night in Ballygrand,

I would swim over the deepest ocean,

The deepest ocean for my love to find.

But the sea is wide and I can not swim over

And neither have I wings to fly.

If I could find me a handsome boatman

To ferry me over to my love and die.

Irish folk song

Carrickfergus - Headland

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She come in colors

Colored pencil on paper

Calbayog City 2024

"Dad, what do you call a solar system without a sun?" Sean, my seven year old son asked me.

It was evening time and we were walking into town to get a snack.

I thought about it for a moment and couldn't think of a fast comeback so I said, "I don't know, what do you call it?" and braced myself.

"A system!" he said and looked up at me grinning. "Ya get it?" He asked and laughed.

Got to admit that made me smile.

It's about four blocks from our home to our town's downtown area. Along the way I stopped off at an ATM machine to get some cash.

When I got the money my son said to me,

"You mean you can just get money from a machine?!?!"

"Yah," I said not really thinking about it.

"Then why don't homeless people do that!!!" he asked in astonishment.

I started to answer him and then I remembered that thats basically what the government does....

I stopped walking and looked up into the sky.

Waiting for an answer that didn't come.

Calbayog City 2024

She comes in colors - Love

Cigarettes after sex - Apocalypse

colored pencil and sharpie

Calbayog City 2024

The Tao is an image that has no form - Lao Tsu

There is danger on either side of pink - Anon

My 5 yo daughter asked for a drawing with pink in it so I drew this. She says she likes it but I think she likes her Legos more which is reasonable.

My brother, on the other hand, said he liked it more when it was unfinished and still had some white areas.

Maybe..

Luckily I took an in progress photo.

Time for coffee.

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The Band - The Weight

ballpoint pen and alcohol

Calbayog City 2024

I was fortunate enough to see The Band's farewell concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1976. My friend's mother was a reporter for the LA Times and she had guest tickets but she couldn't go so she gave the tickets to us. It turned out the tickets were for the VIP section! What a great show. There we were, three crazy young hippies, high on peyote, sitting in front row center seats, along side a bevy of Hollywood dignitaries, digging The Band and all their guest artists.

Fond memory.

What a trip.

E ticket.

The Band

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Esparanza

colored pencil, calbayog city, 2025

A new one. This time red, lavender and pink.

The pink bleeds off yellow when I rub it with alcohol. Strange. Another mystery for me to ponder.

I wake up early each morning and draw to the sounds of roosters crowing.

I draw, in solitude, drunk on colors and black coffee.

It's summertime here so the kids are on break. After everyone wakes up we go down to the beach and hang out.

Hermanos Gutierez - Esparanza

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Nature & Humanity

pencil on watercolor paper

Calbayog City 2024

In the Philippines, the real law of the land is the law of nature. With no safty net.

In the Philippines, everywhere women are suckling babies. The streets are filled with children laughing and dancing in play. But there are no old people.

Smiles and machetes.

I exist here as if in a dream. As if in a bubble. Looking out but never touching.

Calbayog City 2024

Cigarettes after sex

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Like a Stone

AUDIOSLAVE

The past and the future don't exist. They literally don't exist.

What does exist is this thin sliver of a moment that we call now. Just now, wedged between a past and a future that aren't even real. I know this. I know this..

But tell me, why is the past so real in my dreams?

I woke up. Outside in the distance I heard roosters crowin̈g, and I remembered where I was. I felt my dreams vanishing into nowhere. Kind mercy.

Dim morning light gently poured in through the curtains casting gray shadows across our bed. I stretched out my legs and gave my entire body a deep stretch, squeezing out the last of the demons. I looked up at the clock. 5 am.

We sleep together on a huge bed. My wife and myself with our two young kids nestled in between us. Piled together. Filipino style.

I quietly made my way over to my wife's side of the bed and climbed in with her.

Early morning is our time.

Time is real. I know it is. But it plays with me.

Time is something that happens on the outside but on the inside. inside our minds, there is no time. On the inside there is only now.

Now, is eternity.

It's all we know.

Wedged in between a past and a future that aren't even real.

Calbayog City 2024

pencil drawing in my moleskine

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going home

colored pencil and pen on paper

Los Angeles 2018

"The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everyone rushes around in a great panic as if it is necessary to achieve something beyond themselves."

-- Alan Watts

colored pencil and ballpoint pen

Los Angeles 2018

black sharpie

Hollywood 2018

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