Recent Sketch: Model Appreciation Day

I was going through old project files and came across some great (but unused) photo reference. This is a friend of mine who turned out to be a fantastic model. A great big, and much belated, "Thank You!" goes out to family, friends and tenuous acquaintances who have been kind enough to model for me over the years!

Recent Sketch

These have been hanging around in my sketchbook as pencil drawings for a while now.
Decided to hit them up with a little watercolor last night and play with color.

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch: Allen Say

Illustrator and author Allen Say was doing a talk / book signing at A Children's Place bookstore this weekend to promote his recent book  "The Boy in the Garden". I headed down to listen and check out all the new titles and couldn't resist doing a drawing while the talk was going on.

Recent Sketch

These are some recent watercolor doodles. I really want to get the negative shapes to be as interesting and informative as the positive shapes.

Recent Sketch

Travel Sketch: Caribbean

Just got back from a little trip to the Caribbean. Did some swimmin', saw some great sites and had tons o' fun drawing the people as they walked by.

Recent Sketch

Havin' some fun with characters.

Portrait: Einstien

Start of a new term and a new version of Einstein.

Author Visit: David Shannon in PDX

Headed down to "A Children's Place" bookstore today to catch David Shannon reading "It's Christmas David!"from the latest in his "No, David!" series. Really good presentation and he did a "How To" drawing demo; to which, I dutifully followed along (although I noticed that none of the 4 and 5 year olds in the audience bothered to -- slackers)

Recent Sketch

Same room (from last post) different POV.

Recent Sketch

Continuing to refine the curriculum for the Background and Layout course.
I hope to get the students to develop their ability to draw a space from any point of view. To that end I'm trying out a little exercise I came across in "Creative Illustration" by Andrew Loomis. I know I'm a little late to the party in recommending that book but if you don't yet have it -- get it!

Understanding Cast Shadows

By way of something completely different -- I'll be teaching a background and layout class this term and one of the technical issues I discuss is drawing cast shadows accurately. I've been setting up a lot of these little still-lifes and then diagramming on top of them.

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch

This is possibly the most beautiful door I've ever seen.
I've noticed that doors show up pretty frequently in my sketchbook. I'm sure there's some deep seated psychological reason for this -- security, portals of entry, potential mystery -- but since I tend to draw them in the fall I'm pretty sure it all comes back to trick-er-treating.

Recent Sketch

Playing with more panoramic pictures. (Alliteration is sorta fun!)

Recent Sketch: Panning Background

Giving a 360 pan layout a try. Little too heavy on the wall/corner distortion, but I think that's fixable.

Recent Sketch

Another little iso study. A little more technical than the last one (you can see that I ticked off the base layer into units)

Recent Sketch

Playing with isometric perspective layouts.
Not something I typically use for my projects, but kinda cool.

On another note -- where did the last couple weeks go?! I've been working away on a series of YA novel covers (and interiors), and apparently have completely neglected this blog. I'll work to correct that.

Travel Sketches: Air and Space Museum

Travel Sketches: Air and Space Museum

Travel Sketches: Air and Space Museum

Headed out to the Air and Space Museum in McMinville this weekend. Never been before. If you're a fan of machines that hurtle people through the air at wildly inappropriate speeds you should definitely take time for a visit.
I'll be posting some pages over the next couple days.

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch

Looking to do some work on my house and had to head down to the planning and zoning department.
Always a good time (ø_ø) plus I was able to get some sketching while I waited and waited and  . . .

Recent Sketch

I have a great book of Fantastic and Mythological Creatures. These are just some of my interpretations.

Recent Sketch

Stepped out for lunch yesterday at my favorite Thai place and did a sketch while waiting. It isn't much too look at from the outside but sooooo tasty.

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch

A sketch based on drawings done at the Natural History Museum in London.
I might have romanticized it a bit -- but not much -- such a cool building!

Recent Sketch

I can never spend too much time drawing hands and feet -- or children.

Travel Sketch: London

While I definitely liked the V&A museum, what I REALLY liked was the Natural History Museum right next door. Call it the 8-year-old in me, but big skeletons of dead animals are just cool to look at.

Travel Sketch: London

Did this one evening while wandering through Kensington Gardens / Hyde Park.
For anyone who hasn't yet read the first incarnation of Peter Pan, I definitely recommend "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" (and not just 'cause it's illustrated by the amazing Arthur Rackham)

Travel Sketch: London

Spent an afternoon (okay, a couple afternoons) in the Victoria and Albert museum.
Loooooved it!! While I drew both these sculptures the same size in my sketchbook, the "fleshy" figure was lifesized while the skeleton "Death" was only 8" tall and an amazingly delicate woodcarving.

Travel Sketches: London

Back in the Kensington district. Had some particularly good "Bangers and Mash" here one evening.

Recent Sketch: Einstein

Beginning of a new term at AiPD and as usual I give my students a 20 min. do-whatever-you-want portrait of Einstein to start the class. I often get some pretty cool interpretations. Here's mine for this term.

Recent Sketch

Thought it was time to take a break from the travel sketches, and mention that I really like the pens that have water soluble ink. This was done with a Pilot G-Tec-C4 (and some gaouche). Pretty fun.

Travel Sketches: Scotland

Did this sketch while touring Edinburg Castle in Scotland.Had a great time in Edinburg. That city just suits me somehow.

Travel Sketches: England

Stopped here for lunch one day. It was an elevated park with absolutely no grass. Just a lot of marble and granite. Very pretty and -- since it was sunny that day -- very squinty.

Travel Sketches: England

Did a quick sketch of the Tower Bridge one day. I kept looking around for Parliment since I had recently watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie and in it the two structures were right next to each other . . .  turns out you can't really trust Hollywood.

Travel Sketches: England

Spent some time in the Kensington area. Had a very nice small neighborhood sort of feel.

Travel Sketches: England

For all those who follow this blog (and you know who you are) sorry for not posting for a while. I'm gonna' blame it on being out of the country for the last two weeks.
Just got back from an inspiration trip to England. Saw a lot of great sites, hung out in some great museums and did more than a bit of sketching. It's the latter that I'll be posting for a while.

This first is from the Camden Town locks. I've never seen one of these actually working before so it's pretty cool to watch boats as they "step" up and down the river.
Plus there's a ton of fairly odd shopping in that district.

Recent Sketch

Recent observations on paper. The location I did this page in was so dark these almost qualify as blind contour drawings. I would like to note that the faux-hawk girl and the guitar guy are rendered from careful observation -- you can't make this stuff up.

Recent Sketch

If you haven't yet come across James Gurney's (of Dinotopia fame) blog it's worth checking out.
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com

Recently he's been posting some discussions on lighting that are concise and informative.

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch