Instagram & Persimmons

I recently downloaded the Instagram app to my phone (late to the party, I know) and have begun tinkering with it. Thus far, I am a little on the fence about it. While, yes, it DOES put some neat filters on my photos and, yes, I DO love that it squarifies the aspect ratio, I'm still not entirely convinced. I will say that it's incredibly easy to use, accessible, and does yield some appealing results. Time will tell. As a side note: there was a recent article in Wired about the "Instagram Effect" on mobile photography, and it's influence on the average photographic eye.

These shots were taken in my back yard in the middle of a late-autumnal yard work session, where I was clearing the remainder of the overripe persimmons off our tree. As it was our first year harvesting these succulent fruits, there was a bit of a learning curve. I think that next year we'll be better prepared and know when the right time to pick is. Because if you wait too long... KER-SPLOOSH!!!



The below shot was not Instagrammed, because all the filters were diminishing the explosive, gooey feel of overripe persimmons and would have done the shot no justice.

2012: A Return

It has been nearly a year and a half since posting to this blog. I won't make excuses, but I can say, that the pens and pencils were still busy in that time. Maybe I will share some of that, maybe I won't. What's important is that I'm back. I won't be making any unrealistic promises of posting something every day, but I expect the content to flow more frequently than not.

2011 saw a few big changes (License! House!) and so far 2012 is proving to be another eventful year (Dog! Banjo!). My personal challenge continues to be the effort of fitting everything that I am interested in and care about into my days, nights and weekends and still remain coherent and sane - but perhaps a little incoherence and insanity is good for us all.

Sooner or later, the structure of my blogs will be updated to meet the needs of the content that I am planning, but for the moment, I want to just get right back into the thick of it. First up is a formal drawing extrapolated from a gestural scribble. This style of sketch continues to evolve through my personal sketchbooks and is a refinement of graphic expressions that I have been toying with for a long time.

Drink N' Draw

A week ago, Jess and I went to a "Drink & Draw" event in San Diego, in which a giant group of people gets together at a bar and just sketches whatever catches their fancy. I whipped up a few doodles whilst sipping back a freshly tapped Blue Moon. The following were the fruit of my efforts that evening. Ahhhh, drawlicious!

Circle Based Shapes

Took a few minutes today to play around with some shapes. I have an idea of what I want these shapes to become, but I'm not quite ready to share what that is yet. But just you wait!

Beginning Thumbnails

Starting to play with thumbnails as a exploration of layout and composition. Less about content in these, more about getting a feel for the scale and size of them. Thinking its time to look at film and do a series of these.

Getting Back

A quick sketch from today. Some sketches exploring a spacial feature idea. Nothing fancy, but I'm trying to get back in the groove of sketching and posting after a good inspirational weekend. More to come and probably some catching up on material from the last couple months as well.

Abstract Composite 001

6"x6" Ink on Paper

Studies, Revisited

Feels like it has been ages since a new post, so I'm putting something out there! About a week back I was back in "Study Mode" (the thumbnails, not the cram session), revisiting these styles of collage, or what might eventually become collages. Form, texture, shope, composition. Did a whole sheet of them in pencil on the train ride home and I just spent a little time this afternoon refining some of them in ink, making them pop a little more. Time to get back into collage mode!

...Like Tears In Rain

I watched Blade Runner again last night and decided to do a few sketches of characters from the film. I also sketched out the composition/lighting of one of the opening shots. There are so many great lighting shots through the whole movie that I could practically draw those all night. Next time, perhaps. The characters are always more difficult for me. I am working on getting the shape of the faces down and trying to stylise them a bit.

Camping Morro Bay

A few photos from a recent camping trip Jess and I made to Morro Bay, which is a bit up north near San Luis Obispo...

Some interesting formations an Morro Rock. Another in my series of strange landscape perspectives (see Solvang pics from a couple years ago).


A night shot from our site...

Warming hands at the fire pit...

Tiny caterpillar/larvae on the rain fly...

Taking it Elsewhere

Well, it has been fun while it lasted. I am hereby giving up writing about my 52 books project in this blog...

...and started writing about it in a different blog! Whew- Bet you didn't see that coming!

After a few weeks of posting my write-ups , it became clear to me that the artwork here is being drowned out and lost between the words of my writing. While they are not entirely unrelated, I don't want to overrun what is essentially an art blog with large amounts of text. This is not to say that writing should not happen here, but the format of this project itself almost demands that it be a seperate entity.

And thus it came to be that on this day I hereby RE-introduced "Project: 52 In 52" at the link below:

project52in52.blogspot.com

Please feel free to check it out. I'll also put a new link over on the side for easy access.

View From Pershing Square

Another lunchtime sketch in Downtown. This one looking at the corner of 5th and Hill Street. Really only wanted to spend a few minutes sketching today, but the building proved to be more complicated in the form than expected, so it took about 20. It all worked out though, I think.

Lunch Sketching

It really seems like forever since I went out on my lunch break and sketched. I went topside at the 7th+Fig center downtown and drew for a few minutes before heading back to the office.

Actual boring buildings:

Actual big dude:

(Book #5) Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

This post has escaped and gone to a better place.

(Book #4) Ian Fleming - Live and Let Die

I have transferred this post to a new location on another blog dedicated to this project!