the portable city

by definition, not static

by Shel Kahn

reprioritizing / replanning / restructuring

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small posts to be enjoyed en masse

  • magnolia buds in their wooly sweaters

    taken with the fuji x-t50, with the 16-50mm 2.8-4.8 kit lens

    hey y’all know about bokeh?? because damn do I love it it turns out.

  • wood ducks in the pond

    taken with the fuji x-t50, with the 16-50mm 2.8-4.8 kit lens

    they were cautious but once we sat still for a bit they got quite bold!

  • evergreens

    taken with the fuji x-t50, with the 16-50mm 2.8-4.8 kit lens

  • neighbourhood favourite

    taken with the fuji x-t50, with the 16-50mm 2.8-4.8 kit lens

  • moss

    taken with my new and shiny Fuji xt50, with the 16-50 2.8-4.8 kit lens, an absolute dream y to play with!

  • Wrestling with the tree

    Just need to figure out what approach to take to make it feel like the focal point again – this is what happens when you over-render your blueberry bushes, friends.

  • Cafe sketches

    watercolour and white gouache, in my little square royal talens create art sketchbook. one of my favourite london fogs on this side of Toronto.

  • Rendering in the water

    Well, starting to. This is where I realize a little ref would have gone a long way.But we can probably get somewhere pleasing, even if not accurate, if I keep going.

  • Yellow grasses added

    The texture on the paper in this MUJI sketchbook is so pleasing!

  • Added another blueberry bush!

    I love how they start to go red in the end of summer, they are underrated ornamental beauties!

  • Added a blueberry bush

    This palette really holds you accountable to relative colour! But also: you can use every pencil crayon in your possession and it will still feel perfectly harmonious.

  • Willow Tree WIP cont.

  • Willow tree drawing WIP

    Taking this limited palette on the road!

  • playing around with a beautiful limited palette

    these are the Derwent Drawing line of pencil crayons, and I’m having a lot of fun with them in my cheap MUJI sketchbooks!

  • Neocolor carnation

    Drawn without water, on a 6 x 9″ grey blue cardstock, I think Strathmore brand. Drawn from life, from a lovely birthday bouquet.

  • Skeletons (2010)

    Shoutout to Jurie and Andy for sharing this gem with me; deeply british, dry, spooky, sweet, and shows you the tip of the iceberg of a larger occult understanding that is revealed further through rewatchings and the subsequent mulling over you might do at the pub after with a friend.

  • Shing Yin Khor’s “Make Little Guys”

    We’re all getting bombarded, and the fight, flight, freeze response is probably flooding your brain, and I too am feeling paralyzed by the constant internal question “what can I even do about ~everything~?!” —

    — and this piece – manifesto, poem, performance – from Shing Yin Khor’s patreon popped up in my bookmarks-to-revisit and reminded me that zooming in on something like a Little Guy can be a wonderful empowering connecting experience.

    So here, go, enjoy, hold on, challenge the aggressive flood of learned helplessness the world is throwing at us all right now:

  • Aquarium Gouache Study

    4 x 6″ gouache prawn. I decided to try using some drying time extenders – glycerine, watercolour blending medium – to try for more of a wet in wet blend approach, but honestly it was hard to keep the paint thick enough that it wasn’t just running all over the page. Something to retry in future on either more absorbent paper or with more viscous, fresh gouache.

  • Purple Bellflower Study in Oil Pastel

    Drawn on very, very smooth paper, a mistake I will not make again. Photo ref taken from my database of plants that I have grown (intentionally or not!) in my garden over the years.

  • Fountain Pen Sketching

    Drawn from pinterest ref with my FPR ultraflex nib over an undersketch done with a long blade nib and washed into the page with a waterbrush.

  • Sketchbook barbarian

    Haven’t drawn a Conan in a while, so, tried my hand at it. Fountain pen is such a delight to sketch with! This was drawn with an FPR Ultraflex nib, tho I dunno if I was really pushing it to its limits with this one.

  • Neocolor II Boat Sketch

    Painted in my sketchbook with neocolor iis over a fountain pen sketch. Reffed from pinterest. After having my ass kicked learning to draw boats for a game in 2021, I can’t stop thinking about them! Little boats especially I find so incredibly cute.

  • Streetcar Crystal Island Sketch

    Sketchbook page, fountain pen and neocolor iis and a waterbrush, layered and layered and layered.

    I think there’s something here but it’ll take a fair bit more reworking to really see it. An idea for later.

  • Wizard Puberty Zine

    I started thumbnailing out my wizard puberty zine! I think there’s another edit pass on the text ahead of me though; I’m gonna do the first ten or twelve pages, maybe all the way to finish, so I know sort of what my visual language IS, and then go back to the text one more time.

  • Gouache Spaceship Sketch

    Berkey-inspired, done in one of muji’s very cheap and much-nicer-than-expected sketchbooks.