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SketchCrawl #20

Saturday October 25th was SketchCrawl #20, I decided to stay local a few days prior to the big event.

Since I was staying local I figured it would be a great time for my little dog to spend extra time outside, and perhaps sketch a few things that have caught my attention when I take him for a walk.

I used a micron pen for the first sketch, it is always a little ‘scary’ using a pen because you cannot erase if you make a mistake. I figure by using a pen I would force myself to just sketch and not pay attention to perfection.

After the sketch was completed, i figured I should also add color, I was also curious to see how this sketchbook would handle water. Below is the result.

 

Where shall we go next?

 

The second sketch I did was that of an oak tree, but I didnt finish because my little dog was just too impatient, hehe his idea of going out was not one of staying in only one place.

Below are links of some of the materials i used, my portable watercolor (student grade) is a different model.

Clicking on the images will take you to  They got great prices, I buy most of my materials here.

micron pen

Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolors

Niji waterpen (love these)

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Getting ready for Sketchcrawl

For the past month or so, I have spent my evening/night time dealing with website duties,  so I have hardly dedicated any time to sketching.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in front of some trees with no materials and an urge to sketch them. I had read a couple of days prior to that day of a technique for drawing/sketching trees, so I decided to give it a try.

I don’t remember the name of the book but it was mentioning that one should first use dots or little lines to define the outline and work our way into the tree, by drawing more and more lines. Not having had the time to take any art courses (last class I took was back in High School days), I was eager to give this a try.

The image below is the result… I also sketched the trunk of a pine tree, at the beginning it appeared to be a difficult task but as I continued it seemed to take shape and now when I look at the sketch It seems I was able to capture what I was looking at (definitely an improvement I think).

Materials: regular ball point pen and the back/inside of a mailing envelope. (I will scan this later, here is a picture in the mean time).

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Battlestar Galactica Viper

In addition to sketching and learning techniques to improve what I do, I have also started to follow a tutorial to create a 3D model of one of my favorite spaceships, a Battlestar Galactica Viper.

Below is my work in progress.

There is still a bit more to do, but at least it is starting to take shape.

If you have not had a chance to watch this show I recommend it. We started by renting the series via Netflix and eventually moved to watch it online, we also purchased a couple episodes via amazon.com Unbox service.

One of these days we will add the DVD sets to our collection.

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Don’t give up!

Yesterday I was at the store shopping for a chocolate bar (the local market must have about 40 different choices, seriously lol), and overheard a conversation between two employees. They were talking about art appreciation, and the initiation of an artist.

One of the individuals said that people can be attracted to a piece of art, have great taste for art but when they start to produce art, what they produce and what they like and appreciate is so different, and that sometimes it takes years to achieve the level where what the person appreciates and draws and/or produces is at the same level, he also said that people at some point give up the process and quit due to frustration, instead of continuing to try.

I thought I would post this here just in case you the reader happen to be in this situation, which I am guessing happens to all of us at various different times.

On a related note, I found a copy of this book at a local used book store “The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” book by Betty Edwards, along with her workbook. Hmm, it turns out you can get a new book at Amazon.com for about the same price as what I paid for the used book (in the United States).

We already had an older release of the book (not the workbook) so my wife and I are both eager to see what else we can learn from the newer revisions. I can tell you this however, I did an exercise a couple of years ago from this book, in my case I had the opportunity to draw Woody from Toy Story by looking at a drawing that was upside down, I did pretty good actually… pretty close to the original.

If you get a chance check them out, either at your local store or by clicking on the images above.

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Totoro Forest Project

What is the Totoro Forest Project?

It is an international fundraising exhibition/auction event to support the non-profit Totoro no Furusato Foundation (Home of Totoro) established by Hayao Miyazaki.

What is exactly the Totoro no Furusato Foundation?

Well, it is a non-profit foundation as mentioned above created with the purpose to preserve the beautiful natural habitat of Sayama Hills which is located about 24 miles from the Tokyo Japan metropolitan area. Sayama Hills is the location that inspired Hayao Miyazaki to write/create “Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro)” in 1988. If you have not seen this movie, you must see it.

The Auction / Exhibition

Over 200 top international artists that work in different mediums have donated work specially created for this event.

The benefit auction will be held at Pixar Animation Studios on September 6th, 2008, a book will be available at this event as well that contains all the work that was donated. There will also be a special exhibition of selected artwork from the auction at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, California from September 20th to December 7th 2008.

I already spotted a couple of pieces that would be nice to have in my room, who knows maybe I will get to own a piece of artwork, or maybe I wont be so lucky and will have to just donate some money to the cause.

Please share this info with everyone you know, and if you live locally maybe we will run into each other at one of these events.

More information found at: Totoro Forest Project and Enrico Casarosa’s blog announcement.

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SketchCrawl #19

Last Saturday, June 21st was SketchCrawl #19

This time the location was decided to be Fort Point, San Francisco CA. (right under the Golden Gate bridge).

It was great as always, really a time to remove oneself from the rush of every day life, and instead just enjoy the experience of being alive, an appreciation of everything around ourselves.

I got to the location around noon and was surprised to find a parking spot close to the fort (where I typically park) and off I went.. venture into the Fort itself.  Once I got in I saw Enrico Casarosa and a few seconds later Ronnie del Carmen. Finally got to meet Enrico in person we have been communicating via email/chat for quite some time even though we both live and work close by.

Since It was the first time I had the opportunity to go inside the Fort, off I went to explore. I was surprised about the weather, just some 20mins before I was sweating in Novato, CA. and now I was enjoying the cool weather in this other location.

Made it to the top of the Fort and decided to get started. Below are the results:

Quick watercolor of the outer bay

This time in addition to using the Niji watercolor brushes, I also brought with me a little water spray bottle, so I could get the watercolor to flow more freely. Quite a change between the way the water looks in this sketch as opposed to the previous one I did last SketchCrawl.

While still standing in the same location, just turning around towards the right the next subject was found.

This is actually a minuature cannon that was inside of a case display within the Fort, all of the cannons apparently had the ability to be rotated in various different ways, something that never occurred to me. I wonder how many people took to move one of those around from side to side.

Then I got hungry, time to visit the Warming Hut, I thought that maybe this location would also be somewhat cold but it was the opposite, it was actually a lot warmer (quite frankly it felt nice after freezing at the Fort). They were quite a lot of groups engaged in their individual picnic’s and even a wedding was about to start or had already taken place.

I actually spent time going back and forth between the Warming Hut and the Fort, and while moving back and forth noticed a trail that went from the Warming Hut to the parking found next to the toll booths above. This sketch was done midway of that trail. There were a lot more trees visible but I didnt include them.

The top portion of the Golden Gate was actually all I could see from where I was standing (still midway on that trail). There were a lot of plants (possibly rose bushes) on the side of the hill and on the background was the bridge.

The second sketch on this page, was my last trip to the Fort rooftop, this time wearing a jacket. I wanted to do a quick sketch of San Francisco from that location.

As mentioned before this was a lot of fun, I actually lined up my vacation with SketchCrawl and it was very nice way to launch it

I expect to do more sketches here and there as I move thru the week. I also cannot wait (well I can actually) for Friday to come so we can go see Pixar’s new animation film WALL-E

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