Hailing from Long Beach by way of Michoacan, Abel Alenjandre, is the cross hatching monster. He is a murderer of pencils.

Each of his drawings consume hundreds of blue Staedtlers. A feat that I imagine can only be accomplished by creating a calmness deep within. It takes thousands of tiny graphite scratches on a piece of paper to create this: innumerable hours hunched over an easel: knowing where to set the tip down and where to pick it up intuitively, again and again.

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“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.” --Eckhart Tolle
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Abel is responsible for the drawing of me that will be included in a series of panels for the Metro Westwood Station that will open later this year. See more panels by clicking here.

On my way to house-sit in Huntington Beach I stopped by his home studio for a quick portrait session.

He was in the process of a maiden run of his self-made printing press. See more of his work at www.AbelAlenjandre.com.

Click on all images to enlarge them.