(Book #1) Stephen King - The Stand

I have taken my write-ups elsewhere. This post has gone to elsewhere too.

Downtowne Oldtowne

As the last post I made in 2009 was of a few photos on a recent trip to Chicago at Thanksgiving, it seemed symmetrically appropriate that the first[ish] post of 2010 be of photos of my recent trip to Sacramento for Christmas. Here are a few shots that I took while roaming around "Old Town" Sacramento with the wife:

Siding at the ol' train depot...


Texture of the boardwalk basking in the winter sun...

Strange ruins nestled in an empty lot between shops...

2010: The Odyssey Continues

Well, it's that time of year again... the first day of the year time! A time when we make outrageous resolutions that could dramatically affect our lives for the better (or worse). This year is no different! While I could resolve to live up to my blog's name, and get back into literally drawing every day, I was drawn more to the blog's motto : "A Haphazard Exploration of Life through Art, Architecture, Photography and Word". Now that last part, since the inception of this blog, has been almost entirely ignored or overseen, but this was never my intent. To stimulate that particular aspect of my productions, in addition to my usual endeavors, I have laid upon myself the task of reading and finishing 52 books in 52 weeks, or a book a week for the year.

This has been an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a little while now, and once New Years rolled around, I simply verbalized it, and it was so. I'm not saying that I am going to be reading a tome a week or even a great piece of literature a week. I expect this to be a cross section of a multitude of topics, genres and length. My bookshelves are filled with a multitude of books that have been sitting there unread for far too long (or are calling to me to be reread), and it is high time to start tackling them!

On top of what I expect to be an increasingly daunting task, I feel obligated to write a few words in response to each of them: essay, review, a one sentence cast-off... something. Its one thing to glance over a piece of writing, but another to understand, absorb, articulate and respond to it.

I hereby accept my own challenge.

Downtowne Chitowne

Over Thanksgiving, Jess and I made a trip to Chicago to visit family. On one day, we went Downtown for some pizza, walking around and some city life. Here are a few shots from our travels that day....

Reliance Building by Burnham and Root, one of my favorites and a staple in Chicago architecture:


Marshall Field's Signage - Now a historical plaque on the corner of the now Macy's store:

Cloud Gate at Millenium Park... fondly referred to as "The Bean":

Belated Dr Sketchy Post

A couple weeks back, Jess and I went to this event called Dr. Sketchy's, which was a travelling sketch studio which was part Live Model drawing class, part burlesque show. Having never taken a live model drawing art class in school or out, I was pretty excited just to be trying out the format (it was also my fist time drawing nudes as well). Started out by doing some one minute exercises then slowly worked up to 20 minute poses.

I have always struggled with drawing people in terms of form and expression, so it was good to break out some pens and really work on that. Truthfully, some of them came out awful, but I was pleased by the end of the night and walked away feeling like I had a good experience.

Here are a couple of my sketches from that night:

Back Again

Well, after another bit of a hiatus, I am back once again at the blog. There is much to post from the last few months of non-posting. The following isn't one of the greatest things, but it is a tease of a bigger project that I did a couple months back. It was a slap-dash idea/sketch/diagram for a competition that I did through work. I had a shape of a site and I just started going at it. It doesn't have a whole lot of meaning behind it, and it doesn't really resemble the project in any way... but I still kind of like it and I needed something to get the ol' blog ball rolling again. Thus, here it resides.

Following Through

Following through on one of my quick collage ideas from a few days ago...

Another Round of...

Been a busy and distracting sort of week. Here's some stuff from a few days ago that I did on the train.

Occasionally someone will stand over me, watching me sketch. A guy this particular day gave me the usual ,"What the heck are you drawing?"

"Some layouts of abstract shapes and..."

He interrupts, "So you just draw whatever you feel like. OK." and put his headphones on.

Sketch for Layered Painting?

Another sketched out idea for a painting... or perhaps a collage...

Sketched Screen Idea

Quick sketch done to develop an idea for an architectural screen or surface. Made of wood slats and cable.

Freeform Composite Collage

This collage was made on 6x6 matte board and was a trial run of a collage style I have been wanting to attempt. In addition to composition and balance, the illusion of form and space was also an intended goal.

Retro Week 2009 - Day 7

From a book that was made for a Studio Class in the Spring of 2003. By this point in school, I was getting really tired of making books, but the teachers just loved to work them in to the curriculum. This particular image out of the aforementioned book was a representation of a range of colors that I thought reflected me. The glare is intentional to show the varied textures and finishes of the pages.

...and so Retroactive Week Aught Nine comes to a close. Looking forward to looking through my dusty old work again next Labor Day. Tune in tomorrow when new content will return in full force.

Retro Week 2009 - Day 6

A random page taken from a 2003 notebook. Clearly my mind was wandering from something very exciting.

Retro Week 2009 - Day 5

This drawing was done in 1999 back when I was attending my first design courses at College of DuPage, or as we called it, "COD State". It was a composite drawing of multiple other drawings which was then color coded and acted as a map to derive extrusions of many little shapes and pieces which were then assembled into a model, or "construct". All in all I went through about 8 Prismacolor pencils to render this drawing.

Retro Week 2009 - Day 4

This was a model for a project I worked on during my intern years at Perkins + Will. It was made during the schematic design phase for the W Hotel in Hollywood. In the end we were not awarded the project and the client decided to go with "someone else".


Normally, I wouldn't post my professional work on here, for various reasons, one of which being the potential of creative plagiarism, but as that already happened with this design I don't see the harm. Below, be sure to check out a rendering of what will actually be built (and is currently under construction) for this project. You be the judge: