Latest–just completed this morning!^[1] in a series of floral crosshatched doodles that include calligraphic text urging my fellow USians to vote in our November 3rd election. I don't precisely recall who was the inspiration for the portrait, but it's not a likeness—I enjoyed doing the heavy brows from some of my earlier portraits, but this gentleman, I'm pretty sure, was Latinex, not Asian.

ballpoint pen, micron & brush pens on 2020 Japanese appointment diary page, approximately 8.25x5.5" Drawn evening 19th oct & morning 20th oct; photographed & image edited (transform, crop, value & colour curves adj) 20oct20. /LumixDMC-LX100/2020LX100/20201020/P1160150adj.JPG

Environment can have an interesting impact on art, sometimes—in this case, evening light in my office (I'm not actually making these in either of the perfectly good and well lit studios at my disposal) is rather poor, so I couldn't actually see the difference in hue between the blue ball-point and black microns. I just decided to roll with it: I think blending differently coloured inks in this way has some real potential, not that I've explored it much.

The hair calligraphy consisting of the word vote written over and over goes even further back than the plant faery cited earlier this week, to a black and white ink on brown matteboard drawing I made in high school, in which I did something similar. The flower fills in the main callig are to distract from the curliques I was afraid would make the word too hard to read otherwise. Filling in one of the loops (lower left) with 70s style flower-power lettering seemed appropriate, given the iconography & personal connection to art I was making long ago.

Ah well, everyone is doing nostalgia these days. At least the eyes line up, the nose is centered and the lips are reasonably symmetrical...

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.