Adrian C. Sinnott's Traveling Sketches

I was helping frame some art for a fellow cartoonist for her upcoming show (more on this soon) and ended up with a stack of black paper. It’s too large to waste and too small to use for framing, so I thought I’d try sketching from black to white instead of the usual.

This was similar to how some of the Old Masters worked, Rembrandt being one. In a very simplified explanation, they tinted their canvases with Burnt Umber and then picked out the highlights. I was at a lecture by Marshall Arisman, who uses this method to create his paintings which have graced the pages of almost every major magazine.

Why is it so dark in here?

“As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?” In the very last episode of “Blackadder,” Baldrick, Capt. Blackadder’s dogsbody, offers one of his oft mentioned “cunning plans” to save them from having to “go over the top” to almost certain death. Blackadder responds, “Well, I’m afraid it’s too late. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was better than my plan to get out of here by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman round here?”

My grandfather was a “sapper” in the Royal Engineers (long before Ireland gained it’s independence from England and, for some, the only way to get work). He fought in both the Boer War (1899) and then again in WWI and survived both. So he must have known just what that cunning plan was all about.

Hmmm . . . Professor of Cunning? I could do that.

Our house is on a tiny plot, it filled a need at the time we bought it. The main problem with the minuscule yard is that we tend to be downwind. Our neighbor’s barbecue fills the house with the aroma of lighter fluid every evening from March to December. At about 6 p.m., we run around closing all the windows on that side of the house. Just like the Banks’ in Disney’s Mary Poppins when the cannon is fired. I wouldn’t mind so much if they’d invite us over.

I'll bring my own utensils.

Here I am walking quietly into the bedroom trying not to wake the puppy. Moments later my ankle came into contact with an immoveable object — the edge of the platform bed. Now I know why it’s called “hardwood.” A week and a half later, I’m still hobbling.

The pain has registered in the eyes but the brain has yet to find out.