I’m an avid newspaper reader. Waking up early and perusing the articles and photographs every morning with a cup of coffee and a bowl of chunky oatmeal is bliss to me. I always go through the op/ed pages which include the editorial cartoons. And over time, I’ve discovered that the cartoons that stick out to me the most are those by Ann Telnaes.

What I love about her work is the perfect combination of her style that makes such great use of simple shapes and caricature, matched with her searing portrayal of issues that face our country. I think she’s pretty incredible. Her line quality and draftsmanship are inventive and superb, simple and precise. And her clever scenarios are full of bite, wit, and fiery satire. Indelibly, her cartoons leave a lasting impression on my mind.

Looking at her site, I discovered that I’m not alone. Ann has won the Pulitzer Prize for her work in editorial cartoons. Before cartooning, she worked at Disney as a designer, and is a graduate of Cal Arts.

Got to make it out to Enrico’s and Ronnie’s Sketchcrawl this past Saturday. I hadn’t attended a Sketchcrawl since number 2! Wow, long overdue for me, but it was great to be out there.

This crawl took place in Portsmouth Square in Chinatown of San Francisco, and it was a fantastic spot for characters and architecture. Check out the Sketchcrawl forums to see more work from artists all over the world who were all out sketching on the same day! It’s incredibly inspiring to see other people’s work, and knowing you’re part of a world-wide community of artists! Thanks to Enrico and Ronnie for organizing such a great phenomenon. Join us next time, wherever you are! They take place about every two months or so.

Hrag Vartanian who took the photo above wrote in his blog about the first year anniversary of the assassination of Hrant Dink. Hrag was the last person to interview Hrant before he was killed.

It’s a difficult thing. My background is fully ensconced in what this assassination represents. My Armenian family is from Istanbul, and left the country to flee a kind of persecution that is boiling under a seemingly placid surface, and rears its ugly head in tragic and violent moments like these.

I met Hrant Dink at an Armenian function in San Francisco a year before he was murdered and am outraged that his voice has been silenced. To speak up in Turkey can mean the signing of your own death warrant. But in remaining silent, you die a little each day, allowing the memory of your past to vanish into thin wisps of air.

Some kids waiting with us before a screening of Cloverfield. A PG-13 rating guaranteed having the early-teen set saturate the theater. I have never felt so old…

Good film. Definitely gave me the heebie-jeebies, which I love. Nice effects and full of tension and surprises. My one wish would be that “less is more,” which was lost a bit. But it’s still fun. Check it out.

This lady crossed my path while I was on my morning run a couple days ago. Her pale face caked with makeup and white-blond hair set against her backdrop of dark clothes was rather striking. And it was a grey, cold and foggy morning.

One of my favorite children’s book illustrators is Trina Schart Hyman who sadly passed away in 2004 of breast cancer. She won 4 Caldecott medals for her work in children’s books which is no small feat, and she was the art director of Cricket Magazine during the 70’s. (Cricket was cool!) My introduction to her work was through the gift of a Peter Pan book for Christmas when I was nine years old.

Peter Pan was and still is a huge favorite of mine, but Trina’s illustrations in this particular edition brought the story to life in a whole new way for me. Gone were the cutesy Disney designs from the animated film.

Here was a raw and primal vision of Pan in stark black and white, emoting love, rage, curiosity, bravado and naiveté. I literally fell in love with this romantic vision of Peter Pan, the fierceness of this Tiger Lily, the warmth of this Wendy and the cruelty of this Hook and his pirates. No other Pan can be real for me. No other can compare.

Trina’s astonishing draftsmanship was and still is pure magic to me. But there is warmth and richness to her drawings and compositions that take my breath away.

It’s hard for me to describe. But there is something more than just technical prowess here. Trina captured something archetypal and intangible, and each time I look at these drawings they make me want to cry because of the rawness and vulnerability that is somehow apparent to me.

Or maybe I’m just being sentimental. I was nine after all! And yet, why do I still feel the same way looking at these images now, as I did back then? It’s magic. And that’s the quality I would love to have as I keep doing what I do.

About something.

I’m still figuring her out. She’s lithe and limber, an acrobat, and can balance on the ball quite well. She wears the traditional harlequin’s costume of the Commedia Dell’Arte. In this incarnation anyway!

No one plans on starting the new year off with getting sick and battling a nasty cough and cold. And yet here I am… Ah well. Until I get myself feeling 100%, here are some bears. And a girl. With some marker seeping through.