Muddy Waters Portrait Practice

This past summer, on Saturday afternoons, I’ve met with a growing group of artists, musicians and techsters for two coffee-fueled hours of individual teamwork.

Basically, for two hours, most everyone sits around, intensely focused on their laptop screens — providing perfect models for portrait practice.

All for the cost of a coffee!

For the first hour, I sketch as many folks as I can, paying close attention to gesture and light.

I draw fast with scratchy lines, quickly before the critical voice in my head cries out its commands.

I just keep sketching, flawfully fast until I fill the page.

During the second hour, while the models remain motionless, I brush watercolor washes over the pen sketches.

After two hours, we all share our work…

Come join us at Muddy Waters!

Stock Market Smithereens!

If a stopped clock is right twice a day, it may be time to heed the alarm of perpetual stock-market bear Harry Dent.

For decades, Dent has been warning about the “biggest crash of our lifetime.”

That time may be now.

To explain Dent in tsunami-speak, the tide has now completely rolled out, leaving behind schools of shiny flopping fish. The next wave to roll in is the one to destroy the beach.

Based on historical analysis, Dent believes the stock-market tsunami will arrive in three waves, wiping us out in five smooth phases.

The first phase started when the stock markets topped early this year, when the Dow Jones flirted with 37000. That first wave down hit bottom in June, equities dropping 20%.

We are now in phase two, the first relief rally, which Dent predicts will last 1-2 months — meaning the next wave down, phase three, should arrive in the next few weeks, perhaps as late as shortly after Labor Day.

Phase three may start when the Dow taps 34000. From there, it would likely fall like a forty-foot wall of water, crashing past the June lows, washing past 29500.

According to Dent, this second wave down — which could last five-and-a-half months — should be equally steep as the first wave down.

Another 20% drop from 29500 dilutes the Dow to 23600, back to its May 2020 support.

That puts us in February 2023, soon after a new Congress has convened, when new economic policies are most likely introduced.

If we’re lucky, the market will bottom in February and, like a limping bull, begin its slow climb back over the next decade.

But Harry Dent says no such luck.

The crash he’s predicting has two more phases, one more brief relief rally, then one more tsunami drop in mid-2023, one that may swamp us for another 30%.

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How does a Zen Taoist prepare for such calamities?

By going with the flow, of course!

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Time to cash out of equities, to hold cash and metals, to short stocks or invest in inverse ETFs.

Though the view won’t be much to admire at first, those who survive the coming flood will be blessed to fund the reconstruction while dining from their terrace on freshly sliced papaya.

On the Cusp of 2020

Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere; and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself. — Unknown

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Born at the birth of the 1960s, I’ve always viewed a decade change as my own personal milestone.

I remember the end of 1969, pedaling my bike down a tree-lined Van Nuys street.  At the end of 1979, I drove my VW Thing down the Ventura Freeway, twilight closing in on me.

The night the 80s ended, I was up in Tahoe, alone with the flu.  And the night we rang in the new millennium, I stood up for a friend at his surprise L.A. wedding.

Tonight, as neighbors fire gunshots into the San Francisco fog, I’ll remember the start of 2020 as spending the night at home with my son — making some dinner; laughing at some videos; staying up till midnight, talking.

Such a blessing to put in my pocket as bullets rain down from the sky.

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Lotsa Portrait Practice

Despite computer meltdowns in mid-April, some of which weren’t corrected till late-May, I kept myself detached and distracted from all the drama by drawing and painting quick small portraits…

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Sometimes, computer meltdowns will yield surprising results — provided we let go of the drama and discover what’s there to be found.

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Sketching Summer 2018

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Have really enjoyed drawing this past summer.  The more I’ve drawn, the more I  feel I must draw more, to learn more, practice more, expand on what I already know.  It’s hella addicting.

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Still, as much as I’d like to draw every day, I just refuse to force it.  Instead, I wait for wu wei to send some inspiration.

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Sometimes, I draw from life; other times, from photos.  Either way, I wait till something about an image moves me, inspiring me to capture it.

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It’s getting easier to draw people.  Even though my sketches aren’t perfect, the more I do them, the more confident I feel.

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Even so, each time I start, I’m certain that I’ll never quite catch that spark of something special I saw.

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Afterward, when I look at what I’ve drawn, I realize that, if nothing else, what I have captured is that initial inspiration that got me to reach for my sketchbook.

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Nice.

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Happy Birthday, Hank!

Born today, in 1491, King Henry VIII ruled England for 38 years, much like a Chinese ruler.

Early in his reign, he stood for tradition like a proud Confucian, standing up for the Pope against Martin Luther’s thesis for reform.

Later, spurred by his overwhelming Cancerian urge to sire a male heir, Henry, like Lao Tzu, broke from authority — Henry rejecting the Pope — and then followed the Tao within.

Astrologically, as a Cancer, Henry put family at the center of his life.  Wives, of course, were expendable; but children were not since they were incumbent to carry on his grand, majestic legacy.