The Personal Weblog of Edward W. Farrell   
 
   
Sketches, 1970s
 
   
Snuffed Candle, 1975
Pentel pen and wash. Snuffed candle by my bedside. This candle travelled with me in my many moves as a student--for all its appearance of wear it was rarely used, however.
 
   
Mountain in Wales, After a Photo, 1975
Pentel pen. Sketch of y lliwedd, a mountain in Wales, from a photograph.
 
   
Imaginary Cypress Tree, 1975
Pental pen and wash. An imaginary cypress in an unlikely desert environment. I did many of these sorts of exercises to integrate line textures with the larger shapes in a drawing.
 
   
Levinson's Bookstore, 1976
Pentel pen and wash. Levinson's in downtown Sacramento, California was the last of the old-time bookstores: very genteel, all hardbacks, and no whiff of bohemia. I worked there for a few months after I got out of college. This was the view from the cash register on a quiet morning. The cash register was from the turn of the 20th century and didn't add--it just printed the numbers on paper. I couldn't add worth a damn in my head, but after the bookkeeper trounced me for my atrocious addition a couple of times I got the hang of it and for the rest of my tenure there I never made a mistake.
 
   
Irish Yew, 1976
Pentel pen. A Irish yew in Capitol Park, Sacramento. I worked in Levinsons Bookstore in downtown Sacramento in 1976, and Capitol Park was a few blocks away. I would sometimes walk down to the park after work or on weekends to sketch the trees.
 
   
Potted Plants, 1976
Pentel pen and wash. The were just two of the hundreds of plants in the house of my friend John, who lived on Squalicum Mountain outside of Bellingham, Washington. John invited me up for a visit sometime in the summer or 1976 and guaranteed I'd be taken by the place. Squalicum Mountain was a dark, uncomfortable place but the general landscape around Bellingham was beautiful. Sure enough, a year later I moved to Bellingham.
 
   
Devilish Dog, 1976
Chinese ink brush and india ink pen. This is a curious study of an imaginary dog I did while visiting my freind John on Squallicum mountain near Bellingham, Washington. There was something about the dark, cold forest on that mountain that led one to thoughts of such things.
 
   
Vase of Daisies, 1978
Pentel pen. These daisies were picked from the alleys and back lots of north Bellingham where they grew like weeds.
 
   
Cloth Covered Chair With Pillows, 1978
Pentel pen. Study of a cloth-covered living room chair in its usual disarray, with pillows.
 
   
Tiny Dragon, 1978
Pentel pen. A tiny dragon drawn as a design for an silver ornament that was never cast.
 
   
Back of a House on Lynn Street, 1978
Pentel pen. Back view of the the house I lived in on Lynn Street, Bellingham, Washington, from 1976 to 1979. The dilapidated appearance is only slightly exaggerated; it was a pleasant little dump.
 
   
Three Trees, 1978
Pentel pen. Three fir trees in Corwall Park, Bellingham, Washington.
 
   
Driftwood, Samish Island, 1978
Pentel pen. A piece of driftwood found on a beach on Samish Island, Washington. This is not really a "sketch," but is rather more abstracted and idealized--more an exercise in line.
 
   
Stone, 1978
Chinese ink brush. Stylized stone, drawn from a chunk of feldspar my grandfather gave me when I was small.
 
   
North Cascades, 1979
Pentel pen. Mountains in the clouds, from somewhere high on the North Cascades highway in northern Washington State. This scene probably doesn't exist except in my imagination. It seems to me I tried to recall this scene from memory a few days after the fact and ended up liking the imaginary portions more than what I thought I remembered. So who knows what's real in it and what's not?
 
   
Ferret, 1979
Pentel pen. I had a ferret for a while, and he liked to race around the house shitting in every corner. He was eventually trained to use a single sheet of paper but it required a lot of reverse psychology. He was keenly aware of what you wanted him to do but always did the opposite, while staring you directly in the face and chattering belligerently. This went for posing as well, so this sketch is as much from memory as from life.
 
   
Dead Horse Falls, 1979
Pentel pen. Dead Horse falls is an obscure waterfall in the mountains west of Mt. Baker and difficult to see because of its location deep in a mountain cleft. In this sketch the shape of the waterfall is from nature; the adjacent hills are a fabrication, though the bushy jungle below the cleft is not.
 
   
   
All site contents copyright 2013 Edward W. Farrell This page last updated on 2013-09-30