Saturday, December 30, 2006

In the Water desk shot

Here's a quick and dirty shot of my desk of In the Water. There's one more page and then it's time for speech bubbles. I'll have an announcement about it later in January 2007, when the details are settled.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Insomania Workshop drawings

I don't know if I would go to another Concerptart.org workshop. The party-like atmosphere of the first night was distracting from the digital painting demos plastered on huge projection screens. The rest of the workshop was punctuated by some talking demos, most were artists doing their thing on the screen without explaining much, unannounced schedule changes, and traditional painting/drawing free space. I did learn a lot from Dan Milligan's Storyboarding 101 and John Mueller's pointers on MMO/video game concept art portfolio. I also made some new acquaintances, which is always nice.

Here are sketches I did in the traditional free draw area. The models had on the strangest outfits.




Thursday, December 21, 2006

Women's Work debut!


Women's Work

Because a woman's work is never done, we are pleased to announce: Women's Work - a brand-new website for a brand-new collective of women who work in and around the visual and literary industries.

Leigh Dragoon
Shaenon Garrity
Rachel Hartman
Lea Hernandez
Lisa Jonté
Karen Krajenbrink
Layla Lawlor
Karen Luk
Carla Speed McNeil
Rachel Nabors
Leia Weathington
Stevie Wilson

We are creators and storytellers. We've banded together and built ourselves a fort in our internet back yard and we invite you to come see. We have a database in which all creative types might take part, and a forum in which anyone might join the conversation. Art before housework. In a hundred years, no one's going to care how clean your floors were.

http://www.never-done.com/

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Sketchcrawl 12 SF Zoo

Here are the drawings (a bit of watercolor, ink, and graphite) from that day.





Thursday, December 14, 2006

Insomania Workshop by ConceptArt.org

I'm going to the Insomania Workshop this weekend, so I'll post about that and share the Sketchcrawl 12 sketches later next week.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Sketchcrawl 12

The 12th Sketchcrawl is on December 9th! The San Francisco group will be meeting up at the SF Zoo at 11 am. Here’s a handy flyer for the SF group. For more details and sketchcrawling groups around the world, check out the forums for more info.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Shanghai Theater Academy Dancers

On November 17th, I went to a performance of the Shanghai Theater Academy Dancers. The whorls of color and movement were stunning. Lots of traditional costumes and dancing stories from China were showcased. I scribbled down gestures in the dark. The last two drawings feature a set of girls with long feathers for a headdress.



Thursday, November 16, 2006

Joann Sfar in Berkeley

Last night, I went to see Joann Sfar at Comic Relief in Berkeley. It was delightful hearing him speak about making comics. He really emphased to "forget beautiful drawings and focus on proper storytelling." He believes the drawing itself is nothing. He wants answers to: What is the voice? What is the character? and What occurs next? in his stories.

The profile portrait looks like him the most.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

In the Water, page 1

Here's the first of six pages of In the Water, sans dialogue.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Monday, October 16, 2006

100 gestures plus 17

Conceptart.org posted a challenge of doing 100 gesture drawings in a week. (Emma first brought it to my attention. Thanks!) The most current one is 200 gestures in a week. Because I missed out on the first round, I did over 100 during the 200 run period. These came really quickly, once I found willing subjects at the local park and a couple animals. It was a nice loosening up exercise. I did the 117 gestures in 3 days' time.






Wednesday, October 11, 2006

brush pen heads

I did some quick portraits on BART using the Faber-Castell brush pen. It isn't as fine as the sumi brush pen, but it's waterproof.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Neil Gaiman in Berkeley

Neil Gaiman did a performance from his new book of short stories, Fragile Things, on October 2nd at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. I sat in the third row, stage right, scribbling in the semi-darkness doing his portrait as he read stories and poems and zipped through a stack of questions. It was a very entertaining evening.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Sketchcrawl 11 in Sausalito

Over 80 people participated in the San Francisco to Sausalito Sketchcrawl! I think it was the biggest one yet.

I drew people on BART, en route to the Ferry Building.


A musician on the docks and a couple people on the windy ferry to Sausalito were good warm ups too.


There were two elephant pillars at the Plaza Viña del Mar on Bridgeway in Sausalito.


My small group stopped at Lappert's Ice Cream for lunch.


On Bridgeway, this all wooden bus stop intrigued me by the shape of it.


Late afternoon, everyone gathered at Dunphy Park before heading back to the ferry. The small, pebbled shore had this interesting piece of driftwood or fallen rotting tree (hard to tell).

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

In the Water, inks

Here are the inked pages of In the Water - a short story. The empty spaces will be done in watercolors, as will the backgrounds for the figures. Page three isn't inked yet. Once that's done, it's time for color comps.




Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Japanese Tea Garden, SF

I visited the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It never fails to be full of people, milling about and clamoring over the highly arced bridge.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

skateboarding

There's a skate park in Scotts Valley, so I stopped to watch.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

pencil heads

It's been a while since I've done a round of quick pencil portraits.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Claude Monet in San Francisco

I visited the Monet in Normandy exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Simply stunnning water lilies, haystacks, and a full range of his paintings were shown. I enjoyed looking at the ships and sea shores he painted, as I hadn't seen many of those kind. Here's my rendition of Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Sketchcrawl Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Here are drawings from my trip to Puerto Vallarta.

Underside of the palm leaf umbrella.

Busy streets were bustling with one lane for buses, three lanes for cars, trucks, etc. and then repeat going the other way.

These are a couple streets along the Malécon boardwalk, alongside downtown Puerto Vallarta. The mountains were covered in dense rainforest and dotted with houses peeking out.


The full name of the cathedral is Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Church of Our Lady Guadalupe) and it sits just outside the main downtown square.

I didn't actually witness a bull fight - I was watching it on Mexican television.




Los Arcos was where I snorkeled. The little dots next to the boat represent people's heads bobbing on the surface.