Happy New Years!

The coordinator of my life drawing session arrives to the studio on a cool motor-bike and awesome looking helmet. This was a quick sketch done during one of the a breaks. Next time, the motor-bike...

"Happy New Year's to everyone!"

My life drawing session ended a little early the other night, so I headed to CCA to wait for Olive's typography class to end. CCA has this dinky waiting area behind the front desk, where 4 Corbousier chairs face each other. Luckily, no one was sitting across from me.

I didn't think the colors would work since everyone already knows what a black leather Corbousier chair looks like, but I really had fun with this water color/brush pen sketch.

"Happy Holidays to everyone...everywhere!"

Bookstore doodles

Here's another doodle page during a visit to Border's Bookstore. I started with a few head sketches and just continued til' I found something I liked.

It started raining yesterday and parking has been horrible. The regular lot and valet spaces were filled. Customers were parking on the dirt areas and red zoned sidewalks. It was so bad I decided to risk parking in the back of the building. I just made sure I didn't block the loading dock for either of the stores.

Flute Master

Still exploring acrylics in my life drawing sessions, but I've been practicing some painting techniques from home as well. Trying to stay loose in my approach to the canvas because it's so easy to tense up and work too close to one area.

I did struggle with the flute placement while working with photo references....I probably ended up re-painting the flute and hands 3 times. But I think I'm happy with the end result. Still thinking of adding a more interesting background, but for now I will leave the painting as is.

Harijuku

Morning warm-up pencil sketch.

Inspirations comes from the strangest moments. My life drawing session was canceled for the night. Since I carpool into the city, I drove back to CCA to wait for Olive's typography class to end. I was looking forward to all the art on the wall, but unfortunately they were in the process of cleaning/setting up for a show. I ended finding a nice chill spot to wait and had these stacks of folding chairs smack-dab in my face. I was planning to just sketch a couple chairs but ended up going for the whole fixture?!

Fore!

Spent some time sketching at the practice area of the McIness Park Golf Center in Marin. This was a great place to get some quick gestures. The top sketch was my first sketch on the page and was very spontaneous. I sort of regret dropping colors on it...I really enjoyed the loose lines.

Sketching on the side made several golfers pack up and move on, but I was luckily left with one golfer to stay on the green and continued his putting practice.

Portrait

I started working on portrait paintings in my life drawing class.
I'll be sure to upload more. Acrylic on canvas 14" x 18" (1.5 hrs)

Here's a sketch I included in a greeting card to my grandmother. The inspiration was from my visit to Lourdes, France. The building in the background was inspired from the main church in the center plaza of Lourdes. The warrior was inspired by a 12 foot statue (St. Michael defeating the Devil) that could be scene outside of the cafeteria.

Lunch break

Sometimes it's just nice to get some fresh air during
lunch, rather than the normal routine lunch in the
cafeteria. So I decided to head to the park the other
day and came across this interesting guy and his dog.

Life Drawing

Morning warm-up.

A quick sketch while waiting
for some bubble tea.

Another warm-up sketch.

Berkeley, Ca.

Here's an older doodle from Sketchcrawl 14 in Berkeley, Ca.

Morning Warm-up's

(top) Amidala sketch from Star Wars art book. (left) Took a random person from a magazine and tried to make him look like a Jedi. (right) Fairly new villain from Star Wars: Legacy comics.

IF: open

"Are the ski slopes open yet?"

I didn't get to do much snowboarding last season due to my hectic work schedule. It seemed like an eternity for this season to come around, but I hope to snowboard at least twice this year. Here's a collaboration with Olivia. The corner where her snowboard lays to rest, looked a little lonely. So she designed her idea in Illustrator and threw it my way. It's a great reminder that snow is shortly on its' way.

Sketchcrawl #14

Wow, it's been quite some time since my last post! Hopefully this will get me back into the groove of things.

Sketchcrawl #14 had about 80+ participants again. Had a chance to hang out with some familiar faces and met a couple new people at the end.

Here's the first batch of sketches.

(From behind the Embarcadero Ferry Building)

(Coit Tower Statue)

(Chinatown Park)

How bout some cappuccino?

That's right...I think Laundry Sucks. How many hours spent washing, drying, hanging, folding and then putting them away? Some days it just feels like a bottomless pit of clothes.

And yes....I knocked out quite a few loads of laundry while stenciling and waiting for the paint to dry. Have a great weekend and hope to catch some of you at Wonder-con in San Francisco, Ca.

"That sucks." We've all said this phrase before. Well, I'm currently working on a large canvas painting related to the stencil you see below. It's something that I've been itching to hang on my wall for quite some time.

Since it's not yet complete, I thought it'd be fun for visitors visiting my blog to fill in the blank.

______ Sucks.

Is it Mondays that suck? Does someone at work suck? Does final projects in school suck? Be creative or just vent.

I'll post the completed painting March 1st so you'll know what I think sucks!

The Presidio, San Francisco Ca.

Sketches done at Pershing Square on the Presidio's main post. A flagpole currently resides here, marking the former site of General John "Black Jack" Pershing's house, which was consumed by a deadly fire in 1915.

Cannon just west of the Pershing Square.

Cannon balls next to one of two Spanish cannons at Pershing Square. These two bronze cannons at this site were originally mounted at Castillo de San Joaquin, a Spanish fort built to guard the Golden Gate. Forged in Peru in the 1600's, they are among six Spanish cannons at the Presidio and some of the oldest pieces of artillery in North America.

I gave a co-worker a ride to the good ol' Social Security office to get his social security card. It was quite a wait, but glad I packed a sketchbook. Still experimenting with this brush pen and digg'in the textures I'm getting. Still hard to believe we were just blocks away from the Moscowne Center where the ever so popular "Macworld" was happening. So tempting to stop by, but had to get back to work.

It's been a long time since I had some really good BBQ ribs. I tried a place near home and had a bad experience with some extremely dry ribs. I recently visited "Roadside BBQ". It's a cool little corner place off Geary and 2nd St. in San Francisco. The cole slaw was a bit spicy but the baby back ribs and corn bread were pretty good. I'll have to try their other brisket and ribs next time. Any recommendations for some good BBQ?

Above is a sketch of some old memorabilia on the back wall of "Roadside BBQ".

Just trying to get back into the groove of posting. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to check on recent posts. I appreciate all of your comments.