This little drawing, done while on a backpacking trip with Michael Conti in the Holy Cross Wilderness in Colorado in 2000, is another time that I used a lightweight field setup for sketching. I made a bunch of little paper squares for this trip, each…

I was backpacking with David Teitler in the Raggeds Wilderness when I did this drawing. For this trip, I took a larger sketchbook. Perhaps I was feeling constrained by the small paper from the year before? Regardless, I did a number of drawings on this…

About this time in my life, I was experiencing big changes. After years of bachelorhood, I met my wife Paige Wild and in 2004 we got married, and took a honeymoon to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. This small pen-and-ink was done while visiting a museum.…

I made almost no art during the years of 2006-2012. This time period coincided with the birth of my two children. My wife and I were both working, plus I was often taking care of the kids, since I had an unusual job a the…

Print available at jonathanmachen.art I did this drawing on location, standing outside and sketching above the 29th st. Mall in Boulder for several hours. I used to take my kids to a coffee shop/playground in this area, so I had seen this view and was…

Print available at www.jonathanmachen.art My friend Stephen Shankland led a group of our respective families to this location, a place he described as ‘The most Beautiful Spot in the Universe’, a remote mesa near Los Alamos, a place from which one can both look towards…

We did a family backpacking trip in the summer of 2016 to the Lost Coast in northern California. On this trip I could only bring small pieces of paper – there’s too much stuff to carry when a family is involved– but you can tell…

I have been coming to Santa Fe for years to sketch the interesting architecture. In the past, I have done panoramas by linking individual sheets of paper together to get a bigger drawing. I began using much larger pieces of paper around this time. This…

Mind Eraser Print available on jonathanmachen.art This large drawing of the Elitch Gardens ride ‘Mind Eraser’ is one of three I did on my youngest son’s birthday in October of 2018. We went down to Elitch Gardens in Denver for a family adventure at this…

During spring break of 2019, when the rest of my family was away in California, I decided to travel to New Mexico, stay with my parents, and do artwork in various places. I went skiing at Taos Ski Valley on March 19, and brought with…

I did this chalk pastel drawing in Death Valley while on a family road trip around the western states. At the time, we were settled into our campsite; the kids were happy in the pool, and I was free to do some pleinair art. I…