A lot of what I’m concerned with lately has to do with the sea. I’m illustrating a very famous novel about a hopeless voyage and preparing to paint a mural full of fish and other flora and fauna on the side of a house in Lawndale, California.

The thing is, I don’t even eat seafood.

I’ll talk about the book at a later date but the aquarium on the wall isn’t my idea. It’s for a baby girl whose mother works with sea creatures. The house belongs to the girl’s grandparents and she lives nearby.

Strangely enough, the only mural I’ve painted was an underwater scene on the wall of a daycare center in an elementary school in Brookline, Massachusetts over thirty years ago. I’m sure it’s long gone. I don’t even have a photo. In my memory, it’s not very good.

I’ve been making sketches with markers and doing research about what paint to use. I sent a few of the sketches to the grandparents and there was concern that they were too bright. I assured them that in paint they’d likely be more muted and would fade and become sunbleached in no time in southern California.

It’s not my custom to prep or plan too much before making a picture. I like to react to the situation at hand in real time. I may use some of these scribbles for reference and then again I may not. I’m using video and stills from the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium to draw from. That’s where the girl’s mother works. I’m hoping that what I come up with will connect with the girl in some personal way.

There’s no guarantee that will happen. That’s not usually how art works. It’s an oblique communication rather than an if/then action/consequence. I don’t even truly know what the thing will look like till I’ve made it.