Quick Post-It Action

Whipped me up some collage idears in under 5 minutes a pop.

Whitman's Sampler

Here is some stuff that I have been kicking around for most of the month of August. Its more development and tests of a style of collage that I've been working on. Another completed collage is posted at the end.

Another Sketchbook Sampling

Here are a few more recent sketches that I have been meaning to post for a few days now. They are a few more studies of an idea that I have been working on lately. They look alright on paper, but executing them physically is something completely different.

From the Arboretum

Went to a large Arboretum in Arcadia this past weekend. Took a mess of pictures, but the richest ones that I took were in an old barn and horse stable in the middle of the park.

Fuzzy Zoo Pics

This past weekend Jess and I went to the L.A. Zoo for my company's Summer Picnic. Overall, not a bad time... Free drinks, Free food, free animal viewing and I got to whack a giant donkey-shaped pinata which spewed forth tiny liquor bottles and Southwest drink coupons. Also got a little time to walk around the zoo; we didn't go too far into the sweltering heat, and pretty much just stayed in the shaded areas. Here are the top 5 most exciting things we saw that day, in no particular order:

1. Man with Ziplock box for a hat. I'm sure he was telling his kids to "Check out that weird-looking animal!" right when I took this.


2. Special "Spider City" exhibit. Giant-furry-eight-legged-creatures give me the willies. Luckily there was 1/2" thick glass separating me from the freaky little buggers.

3. Dramatically Lit Foliage. The large, fibrous leafy bits were mesmerizing!

4. Giant Pink Birds! This one almost landed on me, then as I was creeping up to it for an amazing close-up, some kid ran up and scared it off. I'm sure she was just jealous at how awesomely close I was.

5. The Fox-on-Stilts. This was some obscure breed of wolf with long legs (really technical terms here). It was the first time I got to see these things active at the zoo. It was almost feeding time and they were pacing hungrily...

And that's about it for Zoo antics this time...

Quasi-Archi-Sketchi

Another train sketch from a few days ago that is somewhat architectural... but mostly just a formal doodle that happens to look like it may be a building, possibly.

Untitled Sketch #1

For some reason Blogger does not seem to allow me to give a title to my post. So, henceforth this will be know as "Untitled Sketch #1".

Edit: finally figured out how to add a title to this thing....

A Silence Broken

Well, I have officially blown off the entire month of June. I wish I could say it was intentional or meaningful, but it really wasn't. But that doesn't mean I sat motionless in an idle for six-odd-weeks. No- it does not! Here's something I have been dabbling with for a few weeks.

The following is an idea I carried through from Post-It sketch to a run through of execution, the formal strokes of which can be followed below. The underlying force behind the momentum, and to an extent the gestures, lies within the choice of material and the meaning inherent to it - of which I am ill-prepared to elaborate on fully at this juncture.

The "final" results shown last are not really final, per say, but more of an exploration of the intended method and the capabilities of the material.

Charcoal!

Another study in the wide wide world of carbon streaks...

A New Medium

This was my first attempt at something resembling a drawing with charcoal. I've had the charcoal kicking around in my stockpile of supplies for well over a decade, but have never really gotten my hands dirty with it, literally and figuratively. I found it to be a unique medium and look forward to exploring it further.

Thursday House Sketches

A few sketches that I drew on the train to and from work last week...

Trip to Iowa

Nuff said...

A Visit to the Hill of Foot

Just before my trip to Iowa, I got the chance to go up to the jobsite for the projects I have been on at work. One of them is nearing completion and I took the opportunity to take a lot of photos around the college campus where they are located. It is always quite an experience seeing architecture in person that I personally had a hand in. One thing i will never get over with this project is the sense of scale. I can look at images, renderings and drawings all day of these structures, but until you are standing right there in the midst of it all you have no idea what the space feels like.

This first composite image here is between two of the buildings that will act as a student center...

The next few are capturing details and elements that I found truly beautiful while standing there. They give you a taste of some of the spaces that have been crafted.

Belated Maui

Seeing as though it has been almost a month since the trip to Hawaii, I figure it best to put some images up from that trip. Definitely click on the first image for a larger view of a panorama of a beach we frequented a few times.

Sunday in the Park

Sunday, Jess and I decided to have an impromptu dinner in the park a block away. We decided to grill up a steak and some veggies and have a fast dinner... all before it got dark, cold and filled with vagrants. Why we have to grill in the park and not at our complex is another story entirely...

While waiting for the meat to cook up i did a couple of small pencil sketches, one of a nearby tree and garbage can (there are a TON of garbage cans haphazzardly scattered about), and another of a nearby house facade... if it were plopped on a hill.

Back Inaction

Well, once again I find myself back tracking here to cover a most inactive period. While I can certainly say that life has not been idle, I don't have much imagery to account for that gap... yet!

In addition to the usual bustle that life and work have in store for me I took a full-blown, week-off vacation to Maui, HI. It was really the first true vacation that I have taken in a long time. While I had never been there before, I was in the company of Jess and her family (who are seasoned Hawaii pros), so we steered clear of most of the touristy stuff and hit up the sweet spots. It was great to have just a nice, relaxing time without a care or thought about work or much else for that matter outside of lounging, beaching, snorkeling and drinking.

I am still in the process of compiling and organizing some images from the trip, so as soon as that's done some vacation material will be posted. In the meantime, here are several sketches that were done at various times over the last couple weeks:

Here's a study of some layered planes showing scale and just a hint of volume...


More...
Oooh, gestural...

Backlogged Pt.3: Train Sketchin'

Just a sampling of some sketches from the last couple weeks. This first one is this crazy girl that got onto the train. She had a blinding red hat on and a cat was crawling all over her shoulder... Yeah... A cat. It took a little while for the thing to find a comfortable position, staring me down. I started drawing it, and every time i looked up from my sketchbook, it flinched and got all jittery! After 3 glances, it got a little to antsy for the girl's comfort and she held it for the rest of her ride.

Here's one of an old coot in a trucker hat!

...and a few geometric doodles thrown in to mix it up a little....

Backlogged Pt.2: "I'm Hatin' It"

A phenomenon that has been increasingly occuring over the last couple weeks has been the Ad-ification of the subway system in LA. I am distraught over this. While many of the stations along the red line are notably ugly, I'm not entirely certain that plastering images of giant burgers from corporate sponsors over the tiles and concrete is the best thing for us. We have a clean, usable and active transit system and now its getting mucked up with ads. I can only imagine what comes next.

Day one... giant banners are rolled out at the 7th/Metro station. These are in both english and spanish. Just in case you were unaware of what they were for... a new McDonalds burger being "tested" in the Los Angeles area. Not only do we have giant signs, but we have commercials on the TV and radio depicting rural farmers and country bumpkins, trucker hats and all, jealous that they are not in their area... yet.


The next day... Column Imagery! Burgers the size of VW's! They are so big, they can't even FIT on the column! They are plastered all over the station with globs of mayo the size of a small child. My arteries clogged just looking at them.

As the week went on.... more and more posters of varying sizes and shapes began popping up not only downtown but at the other end, the North Hollywood station as well. They have me pegged in both directions!

After this, new signage slowed for about a week or so. Then yesterday I noticed while on the train that at the Universal station, there are giant posters for the new Shrek movie ("Shrek the Turd" as Jess calls it.). While this is slightly more tolerable than Flintstone-sized slabs of Grade-D meat, it's still an enormous green blob remeniscent of Incredible Hulk excrement.

Rant over, for now.

Backlogged Pt.1: Photos

It sure appears as if I have been neglecting my duties here for at least a couple weeks now. I have not been entirely idle and have some further catching up to do regarding postings. The first of which is another series of photos that I took downtown sometime during my period of AWOL-iness. These were taken in an alley not too far from work. I think a lot can be derived from the texture and manifold of the building and objects present... from the abandoned jacket and liquor sack to the crushed cigarette box and urine stains on the wall. Below that are a couple smaller images of adjacent buildings within view of this spot, both with drastically different textures and features; one very geometric and industrial in nature while the opposing bears an invasive organism rhizomatically spewing across the faux-stonework.

This next one was taken at the downtown train station while waiting for a ride at the end of a long night... a noticeably different experience than a standard rush-hour commute.