january 2026

i found some energy to break out a mix of traditional supplies and play. it was nice to remember i still "know how".

those bottom two there are about 5.5"x7.5". i don't have names for either one of em. they're both acrylic, cheapo colored pencils, ballpoint, paint markers, and probably some other stuff. elmers glue in there for certain.

IV appointments continued to do me good. i'm not able to leave the house much unless it's for appointments, and these are some of the rare kinds i'm able to look forward to. this was drawn over a picture my wife took.

the rest of the month was just doodlin.

february 2026

my hands had that fidgety buzz of needing to draw proper CARTOONS all month long, but it felt uniquely unintuitive. abstract stuff like this kept falling out in their wake instead.

to try and ease myself back into the world of Subjects and Forms, i drew over a kibble sketch by my buddy bruce. it helped a good deal. he's got a knack for translating depth of form over to simplicity of line, and it makes everything i struggle with look like kid's stuff. i'll link her stuff later, it's under construction.

i got some practice in. turned 27, too.

march 2026

march was eventful and strange. there was a lot of fluid in my head, and i was very sick. the buzz just kept getting louder and more demanding, and i had to paint a lot. during a mast cell attack, your histamines go crazy, and it makes you very alert. fatigued, confused, not fully "there", but good luck getting the sleep you need-- you're fucking WIRED, and everything gets coated in this nasty syrupy haze of urgency with no useful target. it's a fever dream. it's miserable.

synesthesia painting provided lots of relief.

this one was a single session. the songs i listened to, in order: this garner version of yesterdays, the loussier version of fugue no. 2, dexter gordon's "where are you?", the live tropicana version of basie's down for double, and finally, ken nordine's confessions of 349-18-5171. piano has a tendency to show up as those green scaffold shapes, and alto sax tends to be BRIGHT indigos and blues. bass is way more colors than you'd think-- it depends on the piece it's in. usually orange, maroon, or DEEP magenta.

i didn't keep a record for what i listened to with this one, unfortunately. i do remember one song in particular that informed the bulk of the piece as i listened to it, though. eternal thursday by aux mages.

we started finding our groove with tooning again, approaching things conservatively and loosely.

then something happened in my neck and head. i had been folding laundry, and i guess i looked down a little too far to the right. painful tear, burst of fluid. some of it leaked out of my ears. we went to the ER, but after an unremarkable CT, they sent me back home.

walking and being upright got much harder again after that. back to bedbound state.

meanwhile, arch percolates and iterates.

things start looking a little different inside. when struggling to make sense of space on my own, i can use pictures.

april 2026

pain kept getting worse after we got home from the hospital, and my mobility was pretty shot. that buzzing from months prior kept getting louder and louder. it didn't feel like creative agitation anymore, just fever. i did what i could to cry and paint it out.

it got too hard to use my right hand, so i switched to left.

a little after that one, i had a seizure. i thought i'd fainted-- it's the most familiar form of lost consciousness to me-- but my wife told me my eyes were wide open, body rigid and jerkin all around. ten seconds, and then i was ok. i'm racking up new experiences very quickly.

i slept for a long time, woke up, sneezed, and puked out just about everything my body couldve. we went to the ER again. they ended up holding us for 4 days this time. my liver enzymes were crazy high. healthy range for ALT is like... what, 20-30? mine was 700. not the first time this has happened, but the highest it's ever been.

they took a bunch of blood, ran a bunch of tests, and everything came up as inconclusive as i'm used to. after my liver gathered herself to a safe extent, they sent me back home. averaging about 6 hours of awake-time a day since then, and mostly in bed.

all of these symptoms line up already with the existing MCAS diagnosis, but i guess i'll have to see if that'll "mean something" to enough doctors in the time necessary for it to amount to the consistent treatment i need. i've gotten close in the past, but there's been some manner of rugpull every time, and i can only afford to get my hopes so high. i'm open to surprise.

but art stays enjoyable. doodled RJ in varying modes.

and JB, on that mabel-to-kibble slider.

i would like the hurt to stop, but i accept the possibility that it never does. now is the time to take some notes from bob flanagan. i am a master of managing pain, but with conditions of this nature, i think there may always be some new, previously inconceivable threshold of pain that i'll be barrelling through between periods of rest.

when i can't stop pain from happening, i can still decide what pain means.

last for the month, an updated arch sheet that we plugged away at when we could.

may 2026

starting the month trying to keep head on straight. waiting on more appts. tired. heres pictures. just painlogging.

mothers day came and went in the way it does.

5.11.26 i am not sleeping well. here are quick paintings from memories.

cervical mri looked clear. some more appointments+tests in coming weeks. think i just get to rest this week. hope so!

think the next one coming up is an angiogram. had a lot of stuff done, but there's one i haven't done yet. i never "look forward" to procedures per se, but i appreciate the extra wordly contexts that they give me.

5.14.26 here's a meditation piece. canvases that start wild and make a habit of wrangling themselves in usually means a lot of talking, and a lot of handshakes happening on the neural front.

5.16.26 i am not "discovering", so much as relearning and becoming more resolute in, my understandings of pain you can't reason with.

it still passes once it's heard. i don't resent it. bodies only send the signals that they think they're supposed to. sometimes you can really guide this stuff by the hand, and sometimes trying to do so makes you look and feel as stupid as someone trying to make rhetorical appeals to a screaming baby. nothing to do but cradle and rock it back to sleep.

05.21.26.

start & stop.

january 2025

some arlow to start the year.

JB doodles. mabel squished up into all that business after all.

irving.

arch and JB wax philosophical on the state of pornography.

a more proper JB ref!

and JB as a pony.

two guys get morning sips in.

some increasingly rare putty sketches. nick shows off.

"a prospective 12 year follow up study on female patient of bilateral thoracic-lumbar fusion, after vikki 'the back' dougan".

february 2025

some clayton doodles.

and clayton again! in a very different bodily state.

a group picture of the crew, as of this month. JB+adelaide, irving, clif, arlow, and archie.

some outfits for JB.

JB and archie discuss the sustaining appeal of whump. i'm sorry, i don't really know if people still use that word. maybe they call it something else now? if you've never heard the word before all you really gotta do is conjure up every image youve ever seen of like, tails and knuckles crying at the side of sonic's hospital bed, and you understand it.

rare breed of body-forward self portrait. i was sore n cranky a lot this month!

march 2025

archie fashions to start the month.

and a more fully realized JB sheet!

then, some jazzpaintin. synesthesia chillout piece with a lot of benny goodman and duke pearson. though, if i remember correctly, those greenish stalks mightve come from the bill evans version of the spartacus love theme?

then skyliner, a fav barnet track...

then, basie and charlie parker! listen to this and tell me you don't get it!! i dare ya! and yeah i hate the album cover too.

this doodle was made as an example to myself-- some kinds of music just take more visual precedent and communicate more strongly than others. bluegrass and old country doesn't fill my whole sphere of cognition with colors and shapes the way jazz does-- instead, it tends to really ground me to the world under my feet. i like doin chores with stuff like this. now, you be careful listening to spade, because youtube will be giving you recommendeds for weeks about how he killed his second wife. total monster. now you know, if you didn't. im sorry.

JB + a growin adelaide.

appointments stayed frustrating...

but we got official diagnoses for EDS, POTS and MCAS this month -- that nasty but highly informative triply whammy. we take the relief of small victories and the resources it opens up.

april 2025

this was a month of takin it easy. i wanted to play with tools more than refine or communicate ideas, and it's a nice treat when the urge takes precedent.

started with a quick JB + clay.

mabel faces left and holds a beer, to the delight and excitement of many.

cif makes a quick appearance...

as does kibble.

this isn't one of ours. this is a trafalmadorian. slaughterhouse just may be my favorite book in the world.

lastly, we downloaded artset this month! knocked me clean on my butt. i didn't have a good grasp on how sophisticated digital versions of traditional mediums had GOTTEN. did a lot of JB portraits to get a feel for all the stuff the program has in it.

a particularly kibble-flavored JB...

a heavy mabel lean...

and gene's turn at the wheel.

may 2025

had a lot of fun with artset on the ipad this month. tried to eschew procreate as much as possible to get comfortable with all the tools.

to start, irving.

then clarice. i don't hate this one, but it's way too yellow! or just yellow enough. it was a really yellow-orange type of may.

arch, cece, JB and clay havin a nap. lackluster final piece by my own account, but wholly satisfactory for all the experimentation it brought on.

then insurance. i don't even remember what denial this was. i stayed true to jar jar's challenge, and that's all i care about.

more artset playing.

a rare gene picture.

and: conrad returns! turtleneck and lucky in tow.

reliably as ever: irving also returns.

finally, a kibble sheet.

june 2025

the air quality was bad, the way it has been the past few summers. this was the year i learned to accept it as the new normal, i think.

when inflammation and the buildup of mast cell nonsense starts attacking my spine and brain in particular, everything in me folds a bit inward. this can look like a lot of things, but often it looks like certain parts becoming small.

some irving notes.

i don't do fanart much-- there just aren't many things that spark the urge in me-- but i still get a kick out of trying to make sly char designs fit my own sensibilities. here's the contessa from sly 2 because no one else ever knows a fine woman when they see one, APPARENTLY. theres like, negative six pieces of fanart for this nasty bug

some expression goofs with cece...

some really LOUD stomach-acid-triangles...

a display of mindful respect...

and objects.

july 2025

the air started catching up with me. lots of oscillation-- i was able to keep up with physical therapy, even through flareup territory, as long as i was real careful.

irv is a great coach.

this is actually a gaggle of doodles both recent and old, all slapped onto one canvas. i like doin that. i try not to chuck too many sketches that don't entice me right away, because theres always a chance theyll be the perfect little roof-tile to balance a composition. love the way you can scrapbook cohesive sequences of elements together. it's a fun puzzle to look for parallels in the negative spaces between subjects when i put em beside each other.

got a portrait of arlow in.

doodle of clay and cece.

a very JB-leaning gene. or gene-leaning JB?

on the whole, more oscillation. fainting, fevers. the smallsaga continues.

lastly, here's this thing for you.

august 2025

fevers continued. despite it all, i drew a crazy amount this month. sometimes sickness means i can't pick up a pencil for shit, and sometimes it's the only thing i'm capable of doing. consistency of symptoms is REALLY not the name of the game where the neurospinal and immunological are concerned.

i started with this. i still can't tell you much about it.

joybot's new game.

play therapy.

space, and lots of JB+clay.

clayton divulges hidden proficiencies as a moe scholar.

a rare look of cece on the outside.

arch and JB do what you're supposed to do with a sunbeam.

arlow and JB do what you're supposed to do with the rest.

and, one of the last doodles i'd do of a putty character before i realized my relationship with stories in the current sociopolitical climate was souring too deeply and too quickly to have interest in making one.

wrapped up the month with more sick-in-bed drawing.

september 2025

i remember very little about this month except the medicaid scares! slept a lot. lots of orange in these ones.

arch, as clayton sees him.

JB and conrad have a chat.

october 2025

good lord! this mightve been the busiest month of the year, art-wise.

to start, baby joybot learns ants. supplemental listening material for image.

this year the gang goes trick or treating in free country USA. as a matter of cultural awareness and in honor of their forefathers, they assume the typical stand-in-field position.

clayton and JB (+grilchease)

and JB with nobody.

then, an attempt at stylizing spinal brace in a way i like. mixed results.

a sitting portrait of clarice.

a jumble of abstract pieces, too.

another larval JB (sorry vonnegut!)

and hey, that looks like otto! i think...?

oh! whoops

the only naivety i fell victim to was thinkin we would be "done with this". i AM "this"!

november 2025

dizzy, sludgy month. got some nice pieces in though.

and irving!

december 2025

it was a wonderful month for PICTURES. i've got relatively little to say about these-- i think they say what they need to on their own. they're presented below in chronological order.

this last one was a sketch from 2023, but finished.

january 2024

arlow rings in the new year in a very comfortable fashion.

and a ref for arch, coming back into his own after all these fellas split offa him.

and RJ!

and some putty stuff.

february 2024

clif experiences nuance and adjusts accordingly.

archie helps.

a more comprehensive sheet of arlow! this was before the species for Putty had a proper name. "human analagous" is still certainly true.

RJ plushes out.

march 2024

more arch feeling himself out.

then this thing! just stream of consciousness whatsit. now i think it looks like a cavern in metroid zero mission or somethin. do you see it too? something about that particular shade of blue for me.

more archie goofs.

irving floorsittin.

clay and cece! the two halves that make up clif. sort of thing that happens to a guy that got stuck in a compy. his body no longer exists, and has been dead for a hot minute. he and cece still interact with each other in the abstract space of their noggin.

ouch!

and then clarice wakes up.

april 2024

study of an ugly little lamp we've got in the corner. it does its job, that's all it needs to do! (if you can afford to buy another lamp go fuck yourself)

may 2024

not much this month! just two ref sheets. first mabel...

then Joybot.

june 2024

a fun experiment in building screentones organically in procreate (using C+M+Y tone brushes). i don't tend to find those more vore-tinted micro/macro aspects very interesting, but my wife asked for "something tongue-centric", and this made the most sense to me. every time i look at it, though, i think about this.

a second screentone experiment. featuring a cameo from a favorite 1950 LP by hoffman. guy knew his way around a theremin!

gene, featuring unseen chair furgonomics. you work it out, i did my part.

irving.

i got my tonsils out this month! it sucked. it hurt bad. improved my life a good deal though.

tiny acrylic RJ. it's still on my desk as of 2026.

clay comforts arch.

meanwhile, something that is like adelaide, but is not adelaide.

finally, JB and arlow discuss state of the world. more appropriately, JB theorizes re: inevitable balkanization, and arlow listens.

july 2024

clay and cece.

some kibbles.

and it looks like cece+clay arent so alone in that abstract space after all!

lastly, some irving.

august 2024

lab partners. clif sets up shop downstairs.

and adelaide's big day!

this was a quick cover made for mabel's personal playlist.

quick one-layer arch for funsies.

arch+clif getting along.

irv patches up JB.

gene and kibby chew on some stuff.

september 2024

clif holds JB.

irving's daughter, riley. that shit isn't hereditary. they just had the same stuff happen to them.

nerve and spinal damage began to manifest in new and demoralizing ways.

some stuff for putty. main antagonists. maybe ill say more about all this later, but christ, did allegory lose all meaning in record time or what? no wonder i gotta put this stuff away.

theyre very fun designs though, and i do love em. quick palette exploration of main crew + supporting for that project.

irene explorations.

arlow doodlin.

october 2024

more putty explorations.

happy halloween! this year irving goes as harry mason. arlow goes as james. he does have an ex-wife, but don't read into it.

following in their stead the rest of the crew gets festooned appropriately.

and, some spidery JB explorations for fun. i guess that's what all of this is for though. yay! 😀💖

november 2024

clif gets cunty!!!!!!!!!

and then i get couvid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😄

JB bonds with conrad.

mabel shows solidarity with JB.

december 2024

some miscellaneous martians.

clay and JB take a nap.

some mabes and 1 clif.

laffy taffy huggin it out. this ended up being a precursor to somethin.

some miscellaneous maleon notes.

january 2023

species swap. arch as spider, kibby as martian.

and a robosona exploration that was a lot of fun, but didnt stick.

arch as a wasp.

february 2023

a picture for my wife's birthday! ive been a bad wife since then and need to draw her again.

and a doodle for passing 2 years on T. (it's been more than double that since then! this is being written in 2026-- 5 years now. wahoo!)

and some rare fanart again. it's usually sly or psychonauts. this time it's sly. well it's dimitri actually

march 2023

irving shows up. he doesn't want to impose.

it doesn't take him too long to start chilling out, though.

april 2023

arch doodle. this was a test to see if i'd find ibispaint on android agreeable. verdict: ouch! jesus, ouch! oww!!!! phones need to be a doodle-only affair for me. much too small.

arlow shows up.

may 2023

and then mabel!

she ends up being a huge hit with everyone.

irving continues to get comfortable. so does arlow. they like each other.

june 2023

think this actually marks the first appearance of both gordon AND rj...? theres arlow too. yay

arlow gets to the kickin-his-feet-up stage.

july 2023

a grey shows up. his name is francis.

first appearance of clif. found on a drive, but then he got to be a martian. yay!

misc journal doodles, pt 1. it doesn't take long for francis to chill out.

misc journal doodles, pt 2. clif starts learning to shape himself, rj takes a ride on francis, and irving + kib demonstrate sitting techniques.

mabel tries chilling in a martian style.

clif develops further...

and irving showcases how hard hes maxxed out his "just fucking relax already" skill tree.

august 2023

the appearance of a new grey. sporting a shiner, AND no hairpiece to speak of. i guess as long as there's only 2 of them, we wont know which one is the more "normal" guy

an array of guys.

adelaide is born.

september 2023

tantrum in green.

arlow picture. reffed from a pic of tom selleck that drives me fuckin nuts

let he who would not blend seamlessly into the funkotron populace cast the first stone. bitch

doodle sheet. now just who is that over on the left anyway...

clif, in a decidedly more tubular/hosey getup. cute of him to do.

and some work for a project i shelved until/if health improves. its working title is putty, but i never intended to keep that name.

october 2023

clif and rj.

and that bald grey again. his name is conrad.

some info on clif.

arch in repose.

putty stuff.

november 2023

adelaide asks for Up.

fishing.

clarice gets introduced to everyone proper.

RJ's trick!

bing crosby. (sidenote: i dont know what the fuck i was thinking with that slanted dialogue to the LEFT, jesus! fucking illegible. guess it was easier for my wrist that way at the time, but oh my god. sorry for how hard you'll have to zoom in on that one. that is UNJUSTIFIABLE.) (sidenote 2: it's this picture.)

and, mabel!

december 2023

misc doodles...

a very gene-style RJ...

and one last pic to cap off the year. that roster grew HUGE in record time. it's not too shocking, in retrospect. not dying does that to you! wahoo!!!! 🥂🥂🥂🫂🫂🫂💖💖💖

undated 2022 pieces

february 2022

this was the year of archie and dottie. be ready

march 2022

this snake is named reed. he would become some other stuff.

this one was an enoch bolles study.

arch+dot+our lovely wife.

this last one is reffed from a picture of marlene dietrich we love. something about the idea of trying to fit all those hugeass octopus arms into a pantsuit... like... i know youre not getting around like that. dont fuck with me.

april 2022

may 2022

oops! all arch+dot.

june-july 2022

august 2022

psychonauts 2 mighta let me the hell down but i know a fine woman when i see one.

september-october 2022

my body really started slowin down. i finished coloring a few pieces i started in months prior.

the essence of this guppydog, aggie, would later be channeled into a different guy.

i don't remember much from here. my body stopped processing food, and i guess i stopped eating and drinking water much. this last one was done over several weeks, where i could chip away a few minutes at a time. i stopped drawing after that. i had my surgery in late november.

december 2022

first painting after getting home from the hospital, after my spinal-metal-yoink-out procedure. it means a lot to me.

while i was waiting out the rest of my stay, i could overhear the nurses in the hall say "he" to refer to me in a manner so consistent and seemingly effortless that i felt something new. i'd never experienced it before. i loved it! it was an incredible feeling. so many puzzle pieces clicked into place.

i'd been on T for a minute, but i suppose i'd still read as "female" to people up until that point. when i got home, i remember the process of thinking out loud to my wife. i really had to choke the words out. "christ, i think i might be a man!" it didn't sting as bad as i thought it would. i guess i didn't realize i thought anything about it at all! it's crazy how deep we can bury stuff.

so, naturally, it was time to keep transitioning. i chose the name Roy. this has always been an instruction and a prerequisite to hanging out, after all.

this pink spider, the reborn Dottie, would later become named Kibble. you can still call him roy though, it's not technically wrong-- roy just looks like a lot of other stuff, too.

GALLERY

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022