Commissioned Artwork for the Newly Remodeled Alexis Hotel

Through the Window II
Ball Point Pen on Paper
30 x 50 inches
2007


Through the Window II (in progress)


Through the Window II (in progress)

Through the Window II (in progress)

The Alexis Hotel, a 121-room boutique, luxury hotel in downtown Seattle maintains strong ties to the local art community. Aside from featuring quarterly rotating exhibits in their lobby and Gallery Room, their guest rooms and public spaces incorporate original artwork by local artists.

The Alexis just finished a much anticipated remodel and commissioned me to create a 30 x 50 inch drawing for their art collection. The artwork is being framed and will be hung in the hotel shortly. I snapped a few photos as I worked to post on the blog. The image comes from a series of small drypoint prints that I made a few years back. I still have a couple of the original prints, which are 3.5 x 5.5 inches.

This is a big drawing, 30 x 50 inches. It was done on heavy Arches watercolor paper entirely in Bic Ballpoint Pen. When I was in Rome in 2001 I was working on ideas for some drypoint prints and created some beautiful little studies in the churches near my apartment. They were very intimate little drawings of the side chapels inside Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and a couple other churches. Because I intended to make drypoint prints of my drawing and did not have access to printmaking facilities over in Rome I tried to draw in such a way as to mimic a drypoint print. I choose to use black ball point pen on paper and the effect was great. I still have some of the finished drawings from this series hanging in my home.

The Rome drawings are much smaller (15 x 11 inches) than the recently completed commission. I did not realize how long the large drawing would take me to complete. Because of the big section of heavy shading in the drawing I literally sat for hours and hours building up the marks with my ball point pen. Let's just say I had a heck of a neck kink by the time all was said and done.

I even had three pens give up the ghost along the way.