Prolific iPhone sketcher and six-time 20x200 edition-maker Jorge Colombo has posted an interesting look into the process behind his drawings called "Night Lights". The New Yorker, for whom Jorge does one iSketch a week, has also covered the process, but here we hear from the artist himself.

On capturing the likeness of a city, Jorge writes,

My Finger Paintings series, running in thenewyorker.com since last June, or published as prints by 20x200.com, has been a road map to plunder icons from the city I've lived in for the past eleven years. They're a bit of likeness portraits: stripped of recognizable indicators, what makes a landscape feel like New York and not like somewhere else? I don't shy away from famous buildings or vistas, but I'm happy when a non-descript stretch of street bears the details, proportions, light, and feel, that clearly brand it as Manhattan. A series I started last summer in San Francisco worked the same way: what's the shorthand to best convey this city? What does it really look like here?

On how drawing on a iPhone has changed his work, he writes,

It has been widely reported that my drawings are now made on an iPhone... Considering all the sketches and watercolors and photographs I have done in the USA for the past twenty years, my output in the Brushes app since I bought a G3 last February is still rather small...In the process, something has changed in my drawings. I discovered a brushstroke looseness I could have embraced ages ago, were I not busy with my precise watercolors. It all came from tailoring one's approach to better suit the tool. Sharp line work and controlled coloring are not that easy when you're drawing with your finger on a surface smaller than a credit card. But loose smudges, and bright layered colors, are naturals. So I simply embraced the language suggested by the equipment.

To read the rest of the piece, head over to Drawger and then stop by 20x200 to grab your very own iSketches.

Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! The crisp air and colors of the season have me walking about in a haze of cinematic nostalgia. And while I have memories specific to my own history—a certain flower-patterned corduroy* jumper and the woolly tights that went with it, a full harvest moon that hung improbably low in the sky on Halloween night when I was 6 or so—it's the nostalgia of movies that capture this time of year in eras and places that have little or nothing to do with my own experiences that have me most captivated. Today's edition hits that cinematic sweetspot similarly. (And not to mention alliteratively!)

Untitled #6 is our second edition from talented photographic tale-teller Jessica Bruah. When we last visited our heroine in Stories #46, she'd ransacked the supply closet and gone a bit overboard with the Post-it Notes. In today's edition we find her in a considerably more explosive situation.

The tableau Jessica's created in Untitled #6 brings to mind two of my favorite yesteryear fixes: Todd Haynes' gorgeous Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven, and the series that's been the toast of basic cable for a few seasons now, Mad Men. Our circle-skirted protagonist looks like she's hitting the road with her Samsonite in tow, and burning down the house she's leaving behind to ensure that there's no turning back. And who could blame her, really? Life in the bell jar sure wasn't the fairy tale it was made out to be—just ask Betty or Cathy Whitaker!

*Today is Corduroy Appreciation Day, afterall!

20x200 artist Mike Monteiro is the head of a Mule, a design studio in California. In addition to creating exemplary design solutions, the studio also has a small store, Feed, that sells t-shirts designed by the staff of Mule. Feed's most recent t-shirt offering, El Vética, is described thusly:

Celebrating the career of Mexico’s only typographer/luchador. El Vética, also known as El Kernudo, fought out of the small town of San Serif. He held the Mexican Inter-Continental belt for an unprecedented 7 years, from 1977–84.

Visit the Feed Store to see more of Mike's funny and clever offerings.

Thursday greetings, collector friends! Unlikely as it may seem, I've genuinely missed you all. I consider it a privilege to write about art and artists, and it's an even greater one to do so knowing that at least a few people are going to actually read this newsletter. Even better still? Some lucky few of you will be living with the art I write about!

Today's edition—New York (Peony)—is a special one indeed. Its elegance, beauty and melancholy are so evocative of its creator, Gregory Krum, that I've come to see it as a self-portrait of sorts.

You might be wondering why you would want a self-portrait of one of my dearest friends hanging on your walls. Or how on earth I see a self-portrait in a vase of dying flowers. And maybe you're even thinking that Gregory's going to be mighty peeved that I've likened him to a subject so sad. (Fortunately, when I mentioned this to Greg on the phone the other day, he was actually quite pleased.)

The ability to feel an ache all the way to your core—to have that openness to emotion at all—it unlocks all the beauty in the world. Sometimes it's too much. If you're someone like my dear Mr. Krum, this too much-ness will cause you to knit up your eyebrows and sigh in the most heartfelt of ways. When he does this, I think of my most beloved short stories, tragic heroines, classical paintings in the dusty halls of museums and of my favorite poet, Frank O'Hara.

This photograph reminds me of him when he's like that, which reminds me that to feel anything at all, and to feel it deeply, is to be alive.

Minneapolis-based panoramic photographer, Stuart Klipper, has published a book with The Press at Colorado College, A City as Once Seen, of images he made while on multiple visits to the city of New Orleans. The book features twenty-seven, new panoramic photographs.

From the press release:

This book, with its images and texts, stands as a reminder of the importance of a city that has long quickened the pulse of America’s heartbeat and added spice to the American soul.

Five of the photographs are paired with texts. Stuart enlisted five of his friends, all New Orleans-based writers to involve themselves in the project that preceded and prompted this book. Each was asked to select and in turn respond in writing to one of the 27 images. The book is structured so that each of these outstanding original vignettes counterpoint the photographs that inspired them.

A City as Once Seen: Photographs by Stuart Klipper has been printed in an edition of 40, and is expected to sell out soon, so if you are interested please call or email The Press at Colorado College to claim your copy today.

Image from A City as Once Seen

A portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to relief and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans.

Stuart's editions Icebreaker, Emperor penguin, Southern O., Antarctica and Swell, Southern Ocean near 50 S, Antarctica are still available in all three print sizes.

Visit Stuart's gallery to see more images.

20x200 darling (and Summer '06 Hot Shot) Kate Bingaman-Burt has been documenting her daily consumption for close to a decade. Now, she wants our help with a new side project.

Kate clarifies:

I want to draw your mixtapes. I want your sad songs, you love jams, your sing at the top of your lungs car tunes, your break-up tape, your make-up tape and your BFF-4evah cassette.

I am only drawing the tape. If you want to participate, please snap a picture of the best side of your favorite tape and email it to me (see my profile) or upload it to your flickrstream and let me know.

If only I still had that mixtape that Ryan Butler made me in 6th grade! I am happy to think that it changed my life. Kate seems to deeply understand the nostalgic power of the nearly outmoded mixtape, so if you still have a mixtape collection, be sure to help Kate out!

See more of Kate on her site, Obsessive Consumption. Her editions, I Bought All of These, Drawings from July 2009 and Plattsmouth, Nebraska, Carts #1 are also both still available on 20x200. Kate is also featured in the recently released documentary, Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design. Then, last but certainly not least, you can also see Kate's mixtapes in our upcoming show at Jen Bekman Gallery opening at the end of November!