Sketchcrawl 9 - San Francisco

The first sketch of the afternoon took place down the hill on Fillmore. The view was perfect but there was just so much to sketch. I wish I could've included the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, but the weathered whale compass on the roof and the tangled wires on the telephone poles really caught my attention.

So we crossed Lombard and headed over to the Palace of Fine Arts, where the architecture is absolutely amazing! (Refer to older sketch in previous entry).

I stumbled across a couple of swans towards the entrance of the Museum. This swan was gathering twigs and branches while the other guarded the newly developed nest from all spectators. I've always heard stories of swans being very territorial and will attack when provoked. So staying on the opposite side of those pillars was quite comforting.

Ronnie's group gathered and decided to walk onto Chestnut for lunch break. Most of the sketchcrawlers stopped at the Grove to eat, but Emil and I chose to grab a slice at one of the pizza parlors. The price was right and the portions were generous. When they say "Monster Slice", they mean it!

I gave Enrico a call to see where his group was located. Come to find out, his group did the complete opposite...ate first then headed to the Palace of Fine Arts. So his group just started sketching by the Museum. Emil and I decided to head back to the Palace of Fine Arts to crank out a few more sketches of people.

Here's a father preparing some cheese and crackers for his daughter.

Here's Amelia.

Here's Larry.

We decided to pack up and meet at the final gathering spot in Japantown. Thanks to Ronnie's navigation, we avoided some of the steepest parts of the hill and made it around 4:30pm. We exchanged sketchbooks, contact info, and visited the popular Kinokuniya Bookstore.

I had a chance to chat with Ronnie afterwards and asked him about some tips on appoaching a sketch with watercolor. He used his Fabriano sketchbook to explain steps and examples (this particular sketchbook was filled with fantastic illustrations from his previous trip to Japan). Thanks Ronnie!

That's a wrap for SC#9. I has some great conversations with Amelia, Kevin, John, and Emil. It was good to see Alex Woo make it out today, Congrats on your new job!!! It was also good to finally meet BigA, you were a sketching machine!


Just before heading home, I headed back up Fillmore and sketched one more building before it got dark. I tried to apply everything Ronnie pointed out and I noticed that I'll need to work with a smaller brush and with a lot more patience. Hoping to improve on better control, better details and for many more experimentations in the months to come.

(an older sketch done back on May 31, 2005)
A view of the Palace of Fine Arts from Lyon Streets Steps.

Easter Sunday

Wow, it's been awhile since my last sketch journal entry. With the constant rain here in Nor-Cal, it's just not the same traveling, exploring and sketching. I've been staying busy with projects from work and customizing figures...just trying to keep the creative mojo going.

Missing the feel of the good ol' pencil and paper, I made sure to bring my supplies to mass on Easter Sunday. I've seen church sketches done before from other artist, especially my AIS classmate Rachel, and they're great! It felt quite uncomfortable at the start, but soon became a mini-sketchcrawl.

Not sure if I'll have time to participate in this weeks Illustration Friday topic "monster". But here's a sketch of someone far from being a monster. Her name is "Patches". Yes, she looks just like Lassie...and she's just as bright as the famous dog-star. One of the friendliest pups I've ever met. I'm hoping to do a series of "Patches" in the next couple of weeks. Sort of a request from one of my colleagues at work...how could I say no?

Here's that mystery sketch that I mentioned in last week's post. It was successfully delivered to my younger cousin as a belated birthday gift. It's a sketch of her 2 favorite goldfishes...actually her 2 only goldfishes.

Here's a snap shot of it framed before I wrapped it up for delivery.

(previously posted 3-21-06)
A special birthday sketch for a special someone...sorry, can't post just yet. Gotta wait til' Fed-Ex completes delivery. For now, I better work on some "feet" sketches for this weeks Illustration Friday.

Illustration Friday - "Feet"

Experimenting with shapes, lines and curves during my late lunch break. It was close to the end of the day at work so I figured no one would mind if I doodled on the newspaper.

Stopped by Japan Town to pick up some brush pens and a new water brush...Grabbed some lunch and headed to the bookstore.

I browsed through a couple of magazines and books for inspiration but ended up finding inpiration from this bully of a brother. He demanded his younger sister to hand over the laptop and to "get the stepp'in".

"To-go" box after dinner at BJ's Restaraunt. Great service and food selection...but the wait is ridiculous (similar to Cheescake Factory or Elephant Bar). We reserved a table for 7 with a wait time of 65-75 minutes. WOW! Might as well drive across the street and check out the Nike, Adidas, and Puma stores....so we did.

Thanks Paintmonster!

Just arrived in the mail today...from the ever so kind and talented Marty aka: Paintmonster. I love how his packaging envelopes are personalized with his very own character.

If you have the time, check out his website with numerous links, forums, and wonderful galleries. Or go straight to his online store to purchase your very own 2006 Paintmonster calendar, sketchbook, and framed artwork.

Came across a blog named "Retro Robot Boy" the other day and was truly inspired to draw a couple of robots during lunch. Our company has tons of gadgets and mechanical parts to draw from. Not to mention the gobs of reference material in the library.

So what the heck is its' purpose? Not yet sure...I just like robots...but if I had to choose, I could probably picture this particular robot to be used for observing and capturing data in various terrrains (I lost count of how many seperate parts I was looking at?) Maybe something for NASA's next trip to Mars...great IMAX documentary by the way! The surround sounds was nice & LOUD and the 3D graphics blend in very well with the live footage.

The World-Wide Sketchcrawl has been around for over a year and now it has its' very own BLOG. (Started by Pixar story artist, Enrico Casarosa , creator of the comic titles: MIA and Haiku 5-7-5) .

It's a great inspirational place with excellent photos and random sketches posted by contributors from all parts of the world. Artist like Paintmonster (Japan) and Ronnie de Carmen (US) are just a few.

I'm very excited to have the opportunity to share a couple of my sketches from my recent Tahoe trip...Hey, that trolly looks familiar?!

"P" is for...

IF - "Tea"

Here's a throwback from a local dim-sum restaurant. So far I've been recommended to check out one restaurant in Alemeda, San Francisco, and Toronto (thanks Terry). Any additional recommendations are welcomed.

Sketchcrawl 8 (part 2 of 2)

It was 20 degrees this morning and still snowing....which meant fresh powder for snowboarders, but not sure how this would affect my sketchcrawl? No choice but to wait until our arrival at the slopes.

We were graced with the sun for a moment, but the snow began to fall again. After the lesson, I headed over to a bench to lay down some colors...the snow actually added a cool effect on my thumbnail sketch (similar to adding salt).

After 4 hours on the slope, we were beat and ready to call it a day. Everyone took a 30 minute break for a dose of Motrin and to re-hydrate before we headed back home.

Since the Okuda's couldn't make the trip with us, they were so kind to have dinner ready for us when we returned. Agatha and her mom were way too kind in preparing all those delicious dishes. Thank you!

I wish we could have hung out a bit longer, but we were all exhausted...so one more game of Donkey Kong Congo then I definitely need to get back home.

I was hoping to end the night watching "Lady Vengence", but decided to take care of my pile of laundry.

Good night, and hope everyone had a nice, long President's Day weekend!

Sketchcrawl 8 (part 1 of 2)

February 19th was Sketchcrawl 8. However, plans were already made to snowboard with some friends. But I ended up doing a sketchcrawl anyways, on our way up to snowy South Lake Tahoe, NV.

Pitt Stop: While my friends bought some snacks, I walked across the gas station to doodle this restaurant. I couldn't resist the 30 foot sign and older yellow car parked in front.

Traffic is at a hault again because of all the people pulling over to add chains to thier tires. Just enough time to doodle this hotel.

We've always passed by this local Mexican Restaurant and decided to finally try it last night. They definitely had fast service and were not shy about piling on the guacamole & salsa, but the atmosphere was a bit dismal. I ordered small nachos and a burrito, thinking the nachos were just a basket of chips and cheese...but for $3.00, it was so huge, I ended up taking my burrito "to-go". However, I did enjoy the lime soda.

IF - Just a "Simple" morning

Discovered a coffee house near by, called Marin Coffee Roaster's. Such a great atmosphere to sketch...I'll have to start a napkin sketch pile from this place. I've only visited on the weekends, but they have great latte's, pastries, breakfast burritos, croissant sandwiches and oatmeal....I highly recommend the "Irish Oatmeal", I can't go back to Quaker Oats - it's that good! (live music on Satuday & Sunday mornings).

A fun-filled Saturday with tons of food, games, and....face painting. (Justin & Joni's daughter just turned 2 yrs. old). The face painting clown showed up around 4:00pm & happened to set up next to our table. The kids were soooo excited, they jumped out of the huge inflatable super-slide and lined up immediately. So while the kids were requesting butterflies, lady-bugs, and flowers...I decided to make a quick thumbnail on a napkin (below) so that I could sketch it again when I get home.

The blue pencil sketch was tough to capture on the camera...

...Ah, that's better (I ended up changing the hand completely due to the scale issue).
Here's the final watercolored version with a digital gradient background. Went back and forth with the background colors, but settled with the purple/lavendar.

Illustration Friday - "Chair"

It was Super Bowl Sunday, but we decided to work on a couple projects in the apartment instead. Our project list included: assembling 2 book shelves, 1 bathroom shelf, and painting our entertainment center...not in that order of course. It was more like...add the first coat of paint, start building the first book shelf, grab some coffee, add the second coat, build the second book shelf, etc. We did encounter a few paint problems, so that set us back in drying time. Thank goodness the sun was out in Marin County, a steady mid-70's all afternoon. We finished up around 9:00pm...we were sooo "pooped". The night ended by relaxing on our comfy couch and watching some TV..."Elf" to be more specific. That Will Farrel kills me.

Because I missed Sketchcrawl #7 on Saturday, I just had to sketch something before going to bed...I had to open up 3 heavily taped boxes just to find my watercolor brush but I managed sqeeze this quick little sketch before going to sleep.

Illustration Friday - "Chair 2"

Had dinner last night with our close graphic design friend, Ari. He was in the Bay Area for a spec artist meeting, so we met up for some dinner afterwards. Here's a kid who was way into his coloring instead of eating.

Illustration Friday - "Chair 3"

A couple of co-workers wrapping it up towards the end of the day.

Illustration Friday - "E is for..."

...empty.

(Prisma markers and colored pencils)

Illustration Friday - "E is for..."

...elevation.

(created using Photoshop)

Illustration Friday - "E is for..."

...elephant. I've been working with acrylics lately, painting a couple of vinyl figures. Since the paint tubes were out, I took a stab at putting something down on canvas for this week's IF. Planning to redo this and hopefully to a larger scale, but I've just been playing with colors and searching for a pallette that works. There was a pattern with hills intended for the background, but peach over orange did not turn out too well...I lost the whole thing.

Illustration Friday - "Sea" part4

You guessed it, another napkin sketch, lunch time at Rubio's. Thought I'd sqeeze in one more post for Illustration Friday.

Another thing I missed about Seattle was the aquarium...just blocks from the Art Institute. I ended up visiting so much, it only made sense to purchase a membership. I recall sitting in the atrium one day and and sketching for hours....not realizing it was already 6:00pm? The workers were making thier last round before locking up and just barely saw me sitting there. I still recall the worker saying, "Sir, we've been closed for the past hour..." All I could reply was, "Oops...see ya tomorrow".

Illustration Friday - "Sea" part3

Here's a napkin sketch that was wedged in the pages of an older sketch book. How I miss walking 2-3 blocks from AIS and heading over to Anthony's Seafood Restaurant for some for some lunch and some sketching.

Illustration Friday - "Sea" part2

Just grabbed some tacos at Rubio's this afternoon. Not too busy considering it's "$ 1.00 Taco Tuesday", but managed to find a small table next to thier fish tank of tropical fish. Threw down a quick napkin sketch while waiting for my order. Attempted some colors in Photoshop.

Illustration Friday - "Sea"

Tiburon, Ca. - great place for small shops, boutiques, restaurants and Independent Films...not to mention the view of San Francisco off into the distance.

The sun is out, the parking lot is dry and there's a nice cool breeze outside of our building at work. Grabbed the first drawing supplies in front of me and took a 15 minute break to sketch a guard shack. Cardboard, Sharpie and good old fashion white out.

Sitting in the car while the rain continues to poor and flood Marin county. Messing with the good ol' Tombo brush pen. Hoping to throw some color on this digitally (not any time soon).

Came across these while rumaging through some old sketch books. The top left and bottom right were done back in March 05' while watching the news. The top right and bottom left were from a memory sketch of a waiter at IHOP in downtown San Rafael, Ca.