This week the DART Summer Invitational, Pimp Your Sketchbooks, resumes temporarily with a few pages of mine, while we await the next round of Q&A's. 

Some years ago while I was writing a 12-book series entitled Looking at Paintings (Hyperion, 1992-1996), I spent many summer afternoons perched on a hill overlooking the lake in Central Park, sketching. This was my summer studio (above).

At the time I was enthralled with the paintings and, especially the drawings, made by Henri Matisse during the time he lived in Nice, from 1916-1930. I sketched using only a Japanese brush pen. The experience was alternately unnerving and exhilarating, and continued over subsequent summers.

This summer I adopted a sketchbook so small it fit into whatever bag I was carrying. I never had an excuse for not drawing. I got into using brushes or markers much too large for the page. This too was alternately unnerving and exhilarating, and something I plan to continue.