Nov 29, 2008

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Sketching in the Winter

During the past couple of months I have been taking my sketch bag whenever I leave the house, so I have materials at hand when I stop to sketch something on the way back home, however as of late… with the time change by the time I get a chance to sketch something (typically after work on weekdays) It is already too dark.

Solution? I decided to place the following in my car’s glove compartment:

Stratmore small sketch notebook 3.5″ x 5″ and a Pigma Micron Pen (Sepia), small set to carry around and also keep in the car, for any opportunity.

The sketch below was done while sitting in a waiting room.

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Nov 28, 2008

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de Young Museum

Back in October of this year, my wife and I visited the de Young Museum in San Francisco during one of my vacation days, it was our first time since the remodeling took place. We truly enjoyed the day and appreciated the visit, although we didn’t stay there for long due to other obligations. I took my sketch bag but didn’t sketch anything, I was simply amazed at the amount of art on display and spend my time just looking.

We must definitely go back and view the exhibits at a more slower pace, specially the New Guinea Art section. We took some photos of some amazing pieces of that section as well as of the Art of Americas section, below is one of them.

When I was a kid I had the opportunity to also visit Museo Nacional de Antropologia located in Mexico City, I never got the chance to fully view everything, I am sure after so many years their collection has grown.

We also want to visit in the near future the Asian Art Museum as well as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art both located in San Francisco, CA.

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Nov 3, 2008

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Asifa SF and APE 2008 Events

This past Sunday was a busy day for me, I got the opportunity to attend two events both in San Francisco, California.

The  first event was held at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco, it was a benefit for ASIFA SF, the Bay Area’s Animation Association. I attended the noon presentation of Richard Williams, author of The Animator’s Survival Kit and animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

He showed various clips from his new DVD set The Animator’s Survival Kit – Animated and answered a couple of questions. It was an informative and entertaining presentation. There were some animation techniques that had not occurred to me that made sense, specially after watching the clip.

The second event was the Alternative Press Expo, an event that I have always wanted to attend, simply because I keep hearing about it and it is always after the event. I figured since I was already in San Francisco, why not, so off I went.

It was pretty interesting, a lot of comics and books of all different types, a bit overwhelming… I am not familiar with most of the artists that were present that day (except a few), simply because this is all new to me. It was entertaining to say the least, but i didn’t spend a lot of time, just walked around the whole place checking stuff out here and there. I also saw Enrico Casarosa, Dice Tsutsumi, Ronnie del Carmen and Scott Morse.

Enrico was kind enough to give me a copy of his new book The Venice Chronicles, very nice book, I like it very much. I had read the story online however it is always better to have the book at hand. Even now when I read it I laugh at one thing or another.

Below is a picture of the promotional DVD copy they gave away at that Richard Williams presentation, he was also kind enough to sign his book, the promo DVD leaflet or sketchbooks to those that asked.. yeah I too got a signature, the picture also includes Enrico’s book (psst… buy it!), and the APE pass.

All in all it was a very positive and different day, it was very empowering to be exposed to the work of various different artists. My respect goes to all of you for taking the time to express yourselves.

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