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.

Back Ordered Work

Here are a few images of some things I have done since posting last week. Rather than back-posting them individually, I plop them here in one lump. Enjoy.

The first couple here are lights and fixtures that are in my apartment.




This is a digitally tweaked sketch of a shading structure. It may someday evolve into the third dimension. Someday....

A study of massing, texture and obscure shapes, none of which can actually be studied completely with a rough sketch such as this but its a start.

Just After Midnight

It is a rare occurrence when I catch a glimpse of one small thing out of the corner of my eye that leads to a chain reaction which opens a portal into some other fantastic realm that I have yet to explore. In the wee hours of the morning, just after Midnight, I had just such an experience...

Bedroom

More Guardrails

This is an old guardrail design sketch that I dug up today so that I could re-adapt it once more into yet another guardrail scheme. The saga continues...

Weekend

A few sketches that I made on my train rides on Friday and Sunday. I'll leave them open to interpretation.

Work Doodle

This is something that leaked out of my hand onto a gridded note pad that I keep at my desk.

Egg Crate

Another voluminous sketch, with unsubstantiated usage of the egg-crate technique... the one semi-worthy nugget etched on the morning train ride.

Desk Scraps

This is a collage made from a lot of random scraps and bits that were on my desk at work. When cleaning, I am often confronted with the choice between throwing something away or saving it to put to another use. This was the result of the latter option.

"Won't You Please Buy My Painting?"

This one started as a doodle and literally took on a life of its own.

Sunday Night Post-It

Thursday Photography

This first photo I took of The Stillwell Hotel (Downtown, on Grand) while going for a walk on my lunch break. I was standing in the middle of a littered and totally desolate concrete parking lot.

This next one I took on my walk home from the train station this evening. Its a little driveway around the corner from my apartment. I've always wanted to take a picture of it and now I have. This, of course, was right before I was chased away by the rabid dogs on the corner.

Another Train Doodle

Sometimes you can start with a handful of shapes and the rest just unfolds around them...