Journal Entry January 5 and 6, 2012

Yesterday I was watching an old black and white movie so I decided to draw a character I thought would be reminiscent of that time, just random drawing. Today I went down to Old Town San Diego to get out of the inland empire of southern california and actually go somewhere with culture. I love my town of Redlands, but sometimes I feel like I just want to leave. I had a great time drawing in Old Town. I did a couple buildings and some random stuff around the place. Today I filled up 3 pages in my journal. Not an overload of drawing, but enough that I thought was productive. I absorbed the culture and had some fun. Afterward I met up with a good friend who is a life and career coach. I want to make some goals this year so talking to her helped me to lay out a plan in the next week that I want to accomplish. It seems realistic and doable, so it's easier to get it done instead of just dreaming about it. I want this year to be more goal oriented so doing these plans every week will help me a lot. I gotta keep this momentum going. Here's to a new and productive year.

Journal Entry January 4, 2012

This is a new sketch for the day. Since I did animals yesterday I thought I would do another one today but interacting with a person. Falconry seems like such a fun sport. Since doing these journal entries it seems to me that making a goal to do one of these a day is getting easier, and it is something that I want to do. One of my friends is a career coach and I listened into her tele-seminar today, where she was talking about setting goals and getting to the career you want. I feel that this is a good step to get in the habit of making small goals and accomplishing them, even if it is in a day. I have more long term goals, I just have to now make a game plan to accomplish those goals. I guess when I'm doing these my plan is to warm up with small drawings, read, relax, research and then delve into the page and sketch. I'm gonna have to approach those small steps first to build up to one of my long term goals. Thanks for reading.

Sketch Journal: Jan.3, 2012

Here's my entry for the day in my journal. The subject matter of the day is animals because I haven't drawn them in a while. I wish there was a zoo near me so I can draw them live. The nearest one is San Diego, which is over a 2 hour drive away. I guess that's not too bad, but I'd make it a day trip if I go. I got these reference pics from a great site that have great drawing tools and picture resources. The website is here: http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php. Check it out if you want great practice.

Sketch Journal 2012

Alright, so here's my first post for 2012. I've decided to keep a sketch journal for the year that (hopefully) I'll add to every day. I say that because lately I've been lacking discipline to do anything. Here's my first sketch for Jan. 1st and today! The first one starts off with a bang, the second one is just something that popped into my head after taking a look at a reference photo. Kinda weird, but intriguing.

Revisiting the Masters

Man it's been a while since I posted anything! Last week I went to the Laguna Arts Festival with some friends and checked out all the great art by local residents of Laguna. The art was very inspiring and I enjoyed it all. One artist I thought was very cool was John Taylor. He made some incredible sculptures of submarines, ships and paddleboats. He used trash and computer chips to make them, it was so awesome! You can check out his work at www.folkartships.com . Later on that night I went to go see a live show called Pageant of the Masters. Now this is an incredible show where props and people are placed on a stage and in movable frames. They showed how it was done and at first it looks like people and props on a stage, and then the lights go off. When they come back on the lights are different, and the figures and props become the painting. Everything looks completely flat. They also did this with sculptures and they actually looked like sculptures. It was crazy to think how these actors could stay completely still while the audience stares in awe of what they are seeing. They hold their pose for around 90 seconds. Master paintings are recreated in a very surrealistic way that seemed almost impossible to me. This got me thinking upon looking at all these master paintings about how can I revisit the masters of Illustration. I studied them at school, but it's always a smart thing to go back and take a good look at how illustrators like Dean Cornwell, Howard Pyle, Harvey Dunn, J.C. Leyendecker and N.C. Wyeth worked and study their drawings. Here are a few drawings of Dean Cornwell and a J.C. Leyendecker. Dean Cornwell is called the dean of illustration and rightly so. His knowledge of anatomy is incredible. His figures are drawn with such authority, they jump out of they page with so much personality it's crazy. J.C. Leyendecker is a master of design in his figures, he edits out all the busy parts and puts in what matters in the drawing. I learned a lot by doing these yesterday and today. I look forward to doing more each day.

More Sketches

Here are some more doodles I've done in my sketchbook. Nothing really major but just fun drawings. I haven't really tackled any major paintings as of late. Opportunities for upcoming classes are flooding in and it's kind of overwhelming. It's hard to find time to just sit down and paint without putting a whole lot of thought to it. Most of my stuff requires a lot of involvement. It's finding the time to get fully involved in my illustrations that's hard. Sometimes I just want to do stuff that's easy and fast. We'll see how that goes.

Some sketches

Here are some sketches I thought I would share. I did these just messing around in my sketchbook, seeing what could come out of some doodles. I know it's been a while since I posted. I'm going to post soon a pic of the marquee I've designed and painted in downtown historical Redlands. It was something different, but still a challenge for me to do.