September 30, 2009
Had a long day, driving into the Beast today. Took along Tommy and we headed for downtown at about ten. Had an appointment with Arizona Republic Editor Ken Western at 11. He wants me to do a Tombstone piece for them on the last week in October. We also talked about me doing a version of True West Moments for the newspaper. Has potential. It would run once a week on the Op Ed page.

On the way out, exchanged insults with fellow cartoonist Steve Benson. He said I looked like Howdy Doody and I said he sure knew a lot for being a dumb, ex-Mormon Bastard. This passes for love and admiration in the cartoonist community.

From there Tomas and I drove over to Ed Mell's studio to see his latest Billy the Kid paintings. He's got some sweet ones for our show on October 15. Ed and his son Taylor joined T. and I for lunch at Adrian's at 44th Street and McDowell. A little pricey ($46 cash, I paid).

We then continued out on McDowell Road to Scottsdale and up 68th St. to Indian School, dropping down to the Overland Art Gallery on Main Street. Met with Trudy and dropped off a dozen of my Billy the Kid paintings for the show and priced them. For instance, I get $1,800 for a gouache of Billy (the cover painting from the October issue) and Ed and Gary Ernest Smith each get $58,000 for the same sized painting. I am definitely the junior partner on this outing! Still, I am proud to even be sharing wall space with them.

Speaking of art and working diligently, after reaching the 10,000 mark on September 1st and filling 55 pages of my next sketchbook in South America, we got home (a week ago today) and I took a break for a day. Then one day turned into two and then into a total drought! I have done maybe six sketches in the last week. Yikes! This is exactly why I started the quest in the first place: so I could get in the habit of drawing every day. How easily I slipped into my old, lazy ways. I did at least six sketches a day for four years. I didn't miss a day for the first year and in fact, one night when I had driven all day to New Mexico and had a late dinner at Lew and Tara's cabin in Mogollon, I went to bed and woke up at one, in terror that I hadn't done my six drawings. I stumbled out to the truck and quickly did them, in the dark. Ha. Now, I've missed five days in a a row. How embarrassing.

Got to get back on the drawing wagon.

Although I haven't been drawing, I did salvage a couple paintings in my discard pile in the studio last weekend. This one, I had given up on last spring, but all it needed was a unifying wash to hide some of the garish edges. Very nice desert storm painting:

"Funny what you can accomplish when you do it everyday."
—BBB