Today, my day off, blasted by. The kids had lots of fun playing practical jokes on each other for April Fool’s Day.

My good friend Dave Lowery just this week got his new blog up and going — he’s already got some beautiful sketches up there. That prompted me to update the links on my site, changing or deleting the dead links, etc., which led to me once again enjoying the great drawing related links on Josh Sheppard’s wonderful links page. There I found this blog entry concerning the legendary illustrator Noel Sickles. Scroll down and behold the mind-blowing simplicity and genius of those Civil War sketches of his. Looks like pencil and wash. Just humbling to see that kind of ability, in my opinion. Then, going back to Josh’s page, I found this fantastic collection of self-published artist sketchbooks that can be purchased at Stuart Ng’s bookstore in Torrance, CA. There you go: inspiration — at least for me.