DRAWING on OBSERVATIONS

Ball point pen on Italian Newsprint

Ten days in Italy with my family was a trip of a lifetime. Rome, Capri, Florence, food, wine, history and art, Molto Bene! I’m happy, refreshed and champing at the bit.

Ballpoint Reruns

Its been a year since I last took a sabbatical from Drawing On Observations to visit London and Paris. This year we have something special planned. I’ll tell you about it when I return. In the mean time, I’m reposting some of my favorite portraits doodled over the past year

Due to spam issues all comments will be turned off until I return.

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Specter out.

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

I was moved reading about the bravery Russian journalists exhibit in reporting the culture of corruption in Moscow.

Read the story here

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Richard Blumenthal’s resume would be the envy of anyone running for public office, graduating from Harvard College magna cum laude, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson, selected for a Fiske Fellowship to study at Cambridge University, earned his Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, and serving as Connecticut’s Attorney General. Why would a guy with that resume stretch the truth by saying he served in Vietnam when he did not?

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Singer and song writer Ronnie James Dio performed with Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, and his own band Dio. Raised in an Italian American home, Ronnie remembered his grandma making a devil horn hand gesture to ward off the evil eye. It was that same gesture that he would begin making when fronting Black Sabbath, introducing a generation of heavy metal concert goers to the iconic hand gesture.

His on stage persona belies the altruistic Dio who organized Heavy Metal bands to come together in “Hear n’ Aid” to raise funds for famine relief in Africa.

He was 67.

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Ridley Scott, the director of Allien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and American Gangster,  has teamed with Russell Crowe again on Robin Hood, opening tomorrow.

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Cory Booker will continue to serve as mayor of New Jerseys largest city. He received 59 percent of the vote easily defeating his three challengers in yesterdays Newark mayoral election.

Brilliant draftsman, master painter and imaginative composer of pictures, Frank Frazetta passed away yesterday. Frazetta was an illustrator’s illustrator who was as proficient with pen and ink as he was with oil paints. From cartoon strips to movie posters and book covers, Frazetta was a rock star.

A few years back I, like so many illustrators, made the pilgrimage to the Frazetta Museum in Pennsylvania and I was fortunate to meet Mr. Frazetta. As admired as he was for his art, Frazetta was a regular guy who’d rather be playing baseball than working at the easel. In his youth he dreamed of playing professional baseball and even tried out for the New York Giants.

Unfortunately the legal battle for his legacy started before he passed.

Read his Obit in todays NYT

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President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to fill the vacancy on the U.S Supreme Court created by retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. A native New Yorker, Kagan earned her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, summa cum laude, a Master of Philosophy degree from Oxford University and a Juris Doctorate, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. She served as judicial clerk for U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Thurgood Marshall and as Associate White House Counsel to President Clinton. She was the first woman dean of Harvard Law School and the first woman Solicitor General of the U.S.

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Singer, actress, civil rights activist Lena Horn has died. Winner of eight Grammys and a Tony award, she was the first African American singer to be signed by a major Hollywood studio. She was 92.

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Alaska voters embraced the Yin and Yang of Walter J. Hickel by twice electing him Governor. An advocate for big oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and an ardent environmentalist, a member of the Nixon administration and against it’s handling of the Vietnam war, a member of the party of Lincoln and a secessionist. He died Friday of natural causes. He was 90 years old.

interesting obit in todays times

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A trader on Wall Street may have inadvertently caused necks to crane up to the big board yesterday, when trying to place a sell order for 16 million shares and typed billion by mistake sparking a sell off that saw the Dow plunge by a thousand points.

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The Athletic Director at Rutgers University offered to fly Mike Rice to New Jersey in order to introduce him as the new coach of the Rutgers basketball team. He declined the offer and opted to load up the family car and drive with his wife, kids and dog the six and a half hours from western Pennsylvania.

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Todays papers are filled with news signaling the end of an era. First the announced retirement of representative David Obey and then this piece about the 77 year old Newsweek Magazine going on the block. With subscriptions down and advertisers going to the internet the Washington Post Co. is putting the weekly up for sale.

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Yesterday Congressman Obey announced he is retiring. He has been in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1969. At 71 he’s the third most senior member of the house and chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Related doodle

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This guy is too funny.

Related doodles

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Talented British actress Lynn Redgrave died Sunday after a seven year battle with breast cancer. She was 67.

Todays NYT Obit

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

The Greek Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou announced that Greece has reached an agreement on the European Union’s rescue package. The package gives Greece a few years to restructure it’s economy and reign in public spending. Few are optimistic.