The American Mall is one of the most bizarre man-made environments there is. It is also testimony to the fact that humans can get used to anything. Where else do you walk past headless, limbless casts of human bodies without blinking an eye? Or stores that look as ominous as halloween stores, but aren’t? I try REALLY hard not to go to a mall, but when my Mac broke down last week, the closest place to fix it was…. The Mall! Here are some sketches from my visit.
The Apple Store. I spent a good amount of time standing outside while a ‘genius’ looked at my Mac.
Is nobody else bothered by the headless, limbless mannequins ??
Or by the positively ghoulish store that sells Raiders Merchandise: an all-black store with creepy halogen-like lighting?
Sketch Away: Travels with my sketchbook 
I’ve been admiring your work. The Mall sketches and painting are a great idea too.
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I’ve recently started to follow your work, which I’m enjoying, and I’m just curious about your process. When sketching in such a very public place with hundreds, if not thousands, of people milling about, do you whip out your watercolours, or do you save that for later? How unobtrusive do you make yourself, or does that matter to you? I don’t frequent malls either, but have thought I’d like to go one of these days for a sketch outing. I’m trying to think of it as not much different from sketching anywhere else that people gather but malls just seem so much more intense, I’m not sure how I’d approach it. Would love to hear more about your experience….
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i try not to stand in the way of anyone walking b, but I don’t go out of my way to be inconspicuous. Infact, I enjoy the interaction that sketching brings. People walk up to me, look at what I’m doing, chat for a bit. It’s a great side benefit to sketching. And yes, I ‘whip out’ my watercolors on the spot. To me color is really about how the light plays on something so doing it at home or from memory or photographs is just not the same as the transient quality of it on site.
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I agree, you are an obsessive-sketcher ! … and I love your art. I am also a sketcher and what I love is to buy those empty sketch books of different size, models and beautiful attractive covers, I buy then because I am an obsessive sketch book buyer and had to find use for them. So now I write and draw stories I make up. But I must say you have waken up that desire in me to start drawing again. You do great work ! I posted a link to your Web pages from my Facebook !
Lionel Frebourg
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Yay Lionel, always happy to add a sketcher to the growing community! I know what you mean about collecting books: I did that for years,and I have a stash of books. But I’ve gotten picky about the sirt fo paper I want now, and so all the gorgeous handmade books I’ve collected lie unused.
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