In another installment of my analog design world, I’d like to present these teeny tiny sketches of lamp shades. I am currently working on a lighting project and, as reference, wanted to aggregate all the possible shade shapes that I like onto a few sheets of paper. Now to choose…

I can’t speak for anyone else out there, but, for me, the iterative process of design is where I find true happiness! So, here are a few recent sketches of a butter knife I plan to carve out of wood. Nothing particularly fancy. Totally functional. This is the way I begin: sketch after sketch after sketch. Fast and not at all precious. Almost bordering on messy. Soft HB pencil. (Please don’t ask me what a pencil is.)

This is one of the very few things that I kept from my mother’s house. Most of the photos I have posted from there are just that, photos. This little gouache is one of the exceptions. If ever there were an argument for doing a rendering by hand, this would be it.

I assume that these studies in perspective, drawn by my stepfather, were from his freshman or sophomore year at art school during the early 1930s. My assumption is based on my own first year in art school. I did many of these same types of drawings for a class called “Drawing Perception.” The only difference being that our professor had us using a No. 2 pencil on a kind of drawing vellum, and erasers were absolutely verboten. Even, in some cases, grounds for failure. The pieces here are yet another part of the analog trove of work found at my mother’s house. Note his very stylized signature.

Sid is nine, and amazing. She is all stream of consciousness. Her voice will leave your jaw hanging. She has the “top hat” gene like no other child I have ever met, not to mention a quirky and original sense of humor. Now, to add to her growing list of talents: illustration and anatomy.