Las Vegas sketches

Last Friday night I picked up Matt's mom, Karen, at LAX. We found a Kogi truck and had sliders for dinner, and the next day we met up with Jason at the Daily Dose cafe on Industrial St. for their wonderfully yummy Farmer sandwiches. After that, Matt, Karen, and I headed on out for Vegas! On the drive there I sat in the back seat and drew this quick sketch on my iPad:

I'd like to refine my sketching technique for foliage. I'm a huge fan of Christian Schellewald's drawing and painting style, and I think this last week I've been more influenced by his work than anything else.

I won't go into details about my weekend in Vegas with my husband and mother-in-law (we were celebrating her birthday and also treating her to a vacation in thanks for everything she did for us for our wedding back in November), but here are a few more iPad sketches from casinos we went to:

I saw this young lady walking around holding a thick wad of cash:

I wanted to draw this guy mainly for his wild hairstyle (those sideburns! whew!) but I didn't get a good overall drawing of him. I felt rushed because of all the people walking right up to me to watch me and comment as I sketched, and one time a craps/roulette table manager (?) came up to me and chatted with me about the app I was using, and the stylus I drew with. (Matt and his mom think he was asking about the app and stylus for security purposes, not the one he gave me about it being his young artistic son's birthday next week and wanting to find a suitable present for him, haha!)

On the way back to Los Angeles I actually drew and painted one final piece on my iPad, but Sketchbook Pro CRASHED ON ME when I went to save at the end. It was a landscape IN COLOR (I rarely do color!). I was pissed but too tired to complain about it to anyone, so yeah. Hopefully Sketchbook Pro fixes that inconvenient bug.

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Whole Foods People Drawing

Went to Whole Foods in Pasadena last night and drew for an hour.

That woman on the left? That black mass on her head is her hair. It was crazier in real life.

Everyone was on their cell phones, except the one employee I drew.

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Sketchcrawl #34 - Los Angeles

Last Saturday, January 21st, was Sketchcrawl #34, and I finally got to go to one! (I always missed them in the past, a few days late every time I checked the schedule.) We all met up at Union Station, only a few blocks away from where I live in Little Tokyo, so I was able to get a ride there from my husband, and then I walked back after I was done.

Met a lot of really great artists there, was inspired by everyone, made some new friends. I love the Sketchcrawl!!!

Sketches from that day:

I saw this guy sitting in the waiting area and asked him if he wouldn't mind playing his guitar for us. We had him for about 7 minutes before we all had to leave for lunch break, but I got his contact info to send him this sketch. He had a crazily studded black leather jacket that really stood out from the crowd. A really nice singing voice as well.

I also did one more drawing, two cops, one standing and one straddling his bike, but while I was finishing up the last details on the piece the standing cop walked over to me, saw my sketch, and asked if he could buy it. I asked for five bucks, he gave it to me, thanked me, and told me he would hang it up in the (police station?) office. That's the first time I've ever earned money for sketching in public!

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The Drawing Club - Lady Steampunk

Last Thursday night I went to my very first Drawing Club sketchmeet. They had veteran model Stacy E. Walker dressed up in two Steampunk outfits, which were extremely fun to draw because of all the poofiness. Poofs are always fun to draw--the more extravagant, the better!

All of the poses were 5 minutes, which is perfect for me at my current skill level. Need to pare down those seconds though, and capture the gesture in a minute or so. I really want to simplify my line art, I love the minimal look.

Here are my sketches from that night.

Looking forward to tomorrow night's Steampunk II drawing club sketchmeet. :D

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Pink & Blue

Went to Kinokuniya today with my friend Alena. I got a 0.4 Hi-tec-c pen with dark blue ink and a light blue brush pen as well. I wanted to get their pink brush pen but they're out of stock right now, so they put in an order and it'll take anywhere between one and six weeks to get here.

I like the energy between pink and blue. It's really fun. Someday soon I'll get the other colors as well, purple and orange and green....

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James Jean @Gallery Nucleus

Matt and I went to the James Jean signing for his book Rebus last night at the Gallery Nucleus. :) We stopped by the Q-Pop shop in Little Tokyo first to check out their Thailand Flood Relief Fundraiser (my favorite piece was the unicorn costume...), though we didn't bid on anything as we're both low on cash this week.

At the James Jean signing I saw Dan Holland, an artist who I'd been looking for on Facebook but couldn't quite remember his name in the past. I met him during Rad Sechrist's sketchmeet at the Americana a few months back, and remembered being really envious of his drawing skill. He has a very confident drawing style, which is something I need to work on.

Anyway, here're the photos Matt and I took last night of our meeting with the one and only James Jean! It was a little nerve-wracking to meet him, as we realized in the waiting line that he was actually taking the time to sign everyone's book with a personal drawing and everything. As we didn't want to just sit there silently staring at him in awe while he was drawing the whole time, we tried to think up smart questions so that he wouldn't think we were unintelligent fans or something (lol). I think I ended up sounding silly anyway when I asked him my question, which was "Do you ever draw something bad? I always feel like I have to get through 20 bad drawings before I finally get to something that's just OK." His answer: "Oh, I come up with bad drawings all the time, I just hide them and never show them to anyone." I mean, I know that's how everyone works (there's that photographer's saying that for every one good photo you get, you have to shoot 100 bad ones as well), but still it was liberating to hear James Jean say that he actually draws things he wants to hide from people as well.

Matt says we could be long lost cousins. Hah, I wish.

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Stephen Silver sketch meet

I went to Stephen Silver's sketch meet last night, and John Tucker came to model as a pirate. I hear he's one of the top figure models in Los Angeles, and I can see why. Some of the poses he held looked painful to be holding for so long, and from a few years' experience in martial arts I know that he must have great balance to be able to not fall over after holding still for minutes at a time, pose after pose after pose... he's a great actor as well. He really gets into the feeling of the pose, really leans and falls into the role, as though we artists watch him in a movie, and at a key moment hit 'pause'....

Anyway, here are my sketches from last night. :) The first round was one-minute sketches, the next round was 5 minutes, and in the last we had to observe Mr. Tucker in a pose for thirty seconds, after which he got to relax and we artists sweated and bled onto our sketchbooks, trying to remember all the angles and curves and eventually just making things up in order to finish the drawing... we all groaned at the end of that round, but it also got the most smiles out of the group.

One-minute sketches:

You can see that the first two sketches I didn't really finish, but by the third sketch I was getting the timing down and getting everything from head to toe in.

Some of these are good and some not so good. I think next time I go to one of these (this was a first for me) I'll be using my big sketchbook. Also I didn't choose the best seat, and had Mr. Tucker's back to me for most of the sketches. :(

Five-minute sketches:

These were the most fun for me. I actually got to draw the model's expressions!

Thirty-second observation and then drawing from memory:

I did much better the second time around, but then again I chose a pose that didn't involve drawing his face (in order to not get distracted!). Next time I'll choose a harder angle to memorize.

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'Family Guy' gesture drawings

I took the Family Guy storyboard test a month ago in December, and I'm still waiting to hear back from the production coordinator... but for now I'd like to post the gesture drawings I did of Peter and Stewie here. :) I won't be posting the test until I know if it's OK to do so or not (I mean, I've seen other FG board tests online, but I'm not sure Fox approves of that kind of thing...).

So here you go! :)

It seems pretty appropriate to have Peter running with scissors...

I drew both of these pages in 20 minutes, right before turning in my test.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

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Angel and Demon WIP

Angel and demon WIP, commissioned characters from an online friend. I'm trying to simplify my style and keep all the proportions right. It's not easy, because up to now I've been drawing based on half-assed observation. I hope my understanding of the human form changes and I really get it after I take the Figure Invention class at Concept Design Academy this coming term.

I know I'm being hard on myself today, but that's just the way the wind blew I guess. :(

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Aaaand we're ready to go!!

Found a great template that instantly clicked for me. THIS IS THE ONE!! Extreme Georgia template, I will be loyal to you forever. There is nothing about you that I don't like. Your three column minimalist layout, your stylish font style and size, and your cool gray and orange colors, all inspire me to make you and your maker proud.

Thank you for existing and being, well, you. :)

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Still not done?!

Okay, I didn't really think it'd take this long for me to get comfortable with Blogger's features. I feel like I'm wandering around in a maze, and not the fun kind.

Also, this Oulipo template is not as pretty in Blogger as it is in WordPress. Just sayin'.

Let's test putting in images for now.

Maybe I should just stick with WordPress. OTL;;

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Committing to Blogger

I've played around with Blogger and WordPress as options for keeping a blog, and I've finally decided to commit to Blogger. :) However I'm having trouble getting this template to look like it did in the example, haha... it'll probably take me a few days to learn my way around here. But I really like how all the artists I admire have blogs here that are suitably customized to their style, and they can follow each other within this community. I'm jumping on the bandwagon!!

Hopefully I'll have actual content and more interesting things to say in the near future. I'll be talking mainly about my struggles with story art and trying to break into the business, and also the classes I'm taking at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Concept Design Academy, and Red Engine Studios. (Maybe more.) I hope to share everything I learn, because in reiterating what I read or experience, I'll be re-educating myself in a deeper, more permanent way.

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