Chestnut Hill Cafe, Sunday morning

My 16 year old son, Gabe, participates in the youth group at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Lancaster, and I had to deliver him there at 8:00 o'clock this morning, because the high school students were presenting the service and he was to usher, play guitar, and share some of his personal reflections with the congregation. I had nearly two hours to occupy. There is a hip little neighborhood cafe in an old brick building just across the street from the church, so I got a cup of coffee and drew what was in front of me, looking down the service aisle towards the front window and entry as people moved about on both sides of the counter on a busy Sunday morning at Chestnut Hill Cafe.

11 1/2 x 8 1/4, Derwent Inktense pencils

Update on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 5:10PM by Scott A. Stultz

I spent the afternoon in the studio working in AutoCAD on the Glasgow series, designing idealized cooking hearths to demonstrate the series to designers. Getting proportions just right. Quiet, intense work. I'd about had it for one day, so I loaded my Talbert billiard (yes I only have one) with an impossible to obtain tobacco blend called Krumble Kake from Smokers Haven and lighted up for what I'd hoped would be a relaxing smoke. But the stuffed crow, usually hanging silently from the arm of one of the sconces over my computer worktable, woke up to have a closer look. It must have been the combination of this diabolical weed and the aura of Trever, some spectral echo of his macabre imagination radiating out of the briar that animated it . . . DAMN, those talons hurt!

9B graphite and Prismascolor pencils

Reiterations

At the beginning of 2009, I pulled out an idea I had worked on a few years earlier and began a complete redesign, using some of the concepts from a first version that I had given up on developing. Over several weeks of intensive research and design, a series of free standing case furniture that I called "Glasgow" took shape. I went as far as to put together a little book of computer generated renderings, and my manufacturing partner, Premier Custom-Built, made a prototype. It had lots of promise and the piece was beautiful, but for complicated reasons, not the least of which was that I simply ran out of steam, I set it aside. I could no longer see where it was going. But last summer, I decided to develop it into a full design system for built in cabinetry. Many versions later, I've finally arrived at a core design that over the next few weeks I will be working feverishly to complete. Much of the journey has been difficult, but working with it and thinking about it even while I've been occupied with other assignments, I've gotten to know the Glasgow system very well, and I'm starting to feel really excited about what it's become and where it's going.

In some ways, the hours I've invested into sharpening my skills as an artist these past months is a similar effort. I sometimes feel discouraged, and see no future in the work. Yet if I give up . . . So I persist with these reiterations, if only to better see where it might go.

self portrait before a Glasgow review with a Rad Davis pipe, 2B graphite and Prismacolor pencils

Turbulence

Dark mood? Mmm . . . why do you ask?  self portrait with notes cropped out, Derwent Inktense pencils, approx. 10 x 7 1/2

Gabe

Practice

A critical element of improvement, if one truly aspires to improve significantly, is frequent practice. Not enough time is only an acceptable excuse if failure to improve is an acceptable outcome. Portrait drawing is more and more intriguing to me lately, partly because doing it well allows very little room for error. It is especially challenging for me, working primarily with myself as a model, with my own image in a mirror. Sometimes I get pretty frustrated with the results, and I feel tempted to do one from a photograph, but I'm sticking to the rule that I've had for a long time against drawing from photos.

self portrait with Talbert Rhodesian, Prismacolor pencils