Ritual...Coffee

Boy was it a beautiful day! Rode my bike to Ritual Coffee shop here in the mission District of SF, a place that was introduced to me by my wonderful Miss Daisy. Great place, nice people.  I hope that my drawing there becomes sort of a ritual.  Heres one i did while I was there just to loosen up for the drawing Im about to do right now.  Ah yes, San Francisco, The city everyone wants to live in! I cant believe im here!  

Spring Break!!

Spring Break is Finally hear and Im at home all day doing my thing.  It feels really nice to have time to myself to work on my portfolio, animate and also work on my thesis project.  Well technically its Wednesday now, only a few days left. Gotta go Draw!. 

But before I do I have a few pictures for you guys.  

So for everyone who pre-ordered a book I told them I would draw something special for them.  I took a little more time drawing in the pre-orders than in any other books because I feel that these people actually paid 4 dollars more not just in shipping but for a piece of something a little more unique.  

Here a a few of them.  I was really trying to do lots of birds.  I think almost everyone who pre-ordered got a bird.  

At the Very top is a guy I saw on the train.  Apparently he saw me too! This was not drawn in someone's pre-order book.  But instead in my sketchbook.  

 

Wonder Con 2009 is OVER and Done!

So Wondercon in San Francisco was a blast!  I had a great 3 days of meeting new people, drawing, and selling my new book "Sketch or Die", Which I would like to thank everybody who bought a copy.  The Picture above is Everyone who joined in on the Table.  Carlos, Rosie, Julien, and my lovely Daisy, who was a great help! 

These 2 Drawings above were some really quick commissions I did. They were done really fast with a pencil and some markers.  

These 2 sketches are a sample of the heads I was Drawing in peoples books.  I only took pictures of these, but I drew a ton more!.  
This was the Booth Very early Friday Morning before my booth Friends showed up.  Trust me... it didn't stay like this for long.  I also want to say thank you to the 2 people who bought my framed originals shown.  You know who you are... 

Friends, Friends, Friends, at the Booth, showing mad support!

The picture above is of all the books that I got while I was there. One book that I got which is not pictured is Juan Carlos Porras' book "Monster Soup".  He took it home to draw a picture in it for me.

The other reasons why these events are so great is because you can talk it up with great artists and ask them anything you want.  One awesome thing that happened on Sunday was talking to Ben Balistreri.   Ben Balistreri's  "Seaweed" was on the top of my list of books to get and while talking with him I thought to show him my book and see what he thought of my work.  After showing him the book he gladly purchased it!  To me that is a great compliment!  If someone who I admire for their work, would spend their hard earned $15 on my book it means a lot!  Oh boy how sweet! 

ALSO - On the way out of the show Sunday while everyone was packing up we passed by Pascal Campion's booth and I told him I admired his stuff.  We talked for a split second and ended up trading books on the fly.  What a nice Guy! 

Thanks to every body who came out and showed support! 

And lastly one last picture of me at the show having fun doing what I do.  Draw!

Picture taken by Jeff Jackson!

Cleaning out my Closet

First of all I updated my Portfolio on the portfolio page! Check it out with the Link above.  

Secondly while I was doing so I found a couple skeletal studies I could show you guys.  Nothing special but just studies. The t-rex from the Academy of sciences in San Francisco, and the Grey whale from the Monterey bay aquarium.  Both done last semester some time.  

In the style of a great...

I was looking at the works of Al Hirschfeld and am always amazed at his use of line and texture. Every line has a reason; and a beginning and an end.   I decided to do some sort of homage to him last weekend while I was waiting for my laundry.  Sorry its up a little late.  Let me know what you think.  

Mike Mattesi Workshop

AFTER:

Before :
Mike helped me with this one a bit.  (above)


Hey guys, 

I attended a workshop with Mike Mattesi and man did I learn a lot! 

It was so great to finally meet him after months of emailing back and forth to set the thing up.  But it was well worth it.  His theory on Force is something that I truly believe in.  Force is a way of drawing the figure to bring out the movement and essence of the pose.  But while doing this still keeping the structure and shapes of the figure all there.

 Let me show you what I did at the workshop.  Excuse my iPhone pictures.  

There was  a point in his lecture when he told us to close our eyes and picture ourselves ice skating on the body.  Feeling the rhythm of its curves and the speed of the pencil as we drag it across the paper.  

Heres some before the ice skating demo and after the ice skating demo.

Sketch or Die @ Wonder-Con San Francisco

Hey Guys  my new book, Sketch or Die, has just arrived.  They are going to make their first Public appearance at Wonder-con in San Francisco next week!  

So if your in town, stop by and say hello, buy a book, and chat it up with me and my friends.  Ill be in the Artist's Alley Section at table    AA90 with my friends Juan Carlos Porras,Julian Meyer, and Rosie Sullivan 

Facial Expressions!

Here are a few Facial expressions I did for my students at Cogswell.  These were done in pen while looking at the "Facial Expressions" book by Mark Simon. 

  

A couple Quickies -

A friend of mine let me come into his class and draw while he had the model there.  Only stayed for a bit, but still got a couple worth showing.

 Since this Last post in January Ill try and make the first post in February something worth looking at.