OK, one more

As for art related stuff, I've been mostly making books and my personal stationary. I made a book for my best friend, it's pretty cheesy but it was a lot of fun.



I didn't make up the names of the drinks
I did do a bunch of two-minute illustrations for the book.

These I did for my self-promo class. They're collecting dust in my studio.





I plan on doing a lot of drawrin's in the Greece. I made a watercolor sketchbook and I'm bringing my w/c and gouache. I can't wait. I'll post in 3 weeks when I get back!

Hu woo-ee-uh oh: Why you so obsessed with me

This reminds me of livejournal:
The night before
Around 9:30 I decide to hit the sack early because I have to leave at 7ish to make the trek up to see Jon and Amy. I feel asleep after nervous excitement and real nerves at calling in "sick" to work the next day. After finally falling asleep I get a text from Amy asking when I'm going to get there. I respond and remain awake for the next three or so hours, passing the time by indulging in my most rec
ent Netflix, Hannah and Her Sisters. Awesome. For some reason when I was younger I had qualms about watching Woody Allen films, but I really love them now.

The morning of:
I wake up grumbling as usual after hitting the snooze for almost an hour. Thanks to a certain someone that has become routine. The coffee pot is the only thing fully functional morning until both my parents wake up. Then I'm on my way. It's smooth sailing of course until I have to drive the short stretch through the city. 19th Ave about 2 miles long that is bookended by two freeways and is the only part of SF that I see in my trip. The fog hangs just over San Francisco it seems and begins to burn off as soon as I hit the Golden Gate Bridge.

Entrance to Golden Gate park


Fog clearing
The drive was beautiful of course. I took the long way on accident through the mountains and got some glimpses of vineyards. It was so good to visit with Jon and Amy. They showed me around the place, showed me what they'd been up to. They made lunches and we headed off for a hike down to a creek.






New pictures courtesy of Jon and Amy:





I have proof now that I did it. I'm also very surprise that there's a picture of me smiling and being normal

We hiked back and then went to Gualala for some pizza and ice cream. It was a very colorful one-road town where the only bar and good source of entertainment, "Bones" had recently burned to the ground. The irony is the side of the building was painted in bad-to-the-bone style flames.

We said goodbye and I headed back down highway 1 this time, the beginning was beautiful:





the rest was terrifying. Sheer cliffs that would lead to a watery grave were on my right, on-coming traffic to my left and windy roads forever. Never again at night, but all in all a good adventure.

Day dreamin' and I'm thinking of you

There were some pretty cool oldies playing on my 4-1/2 hour drive back from visiting Jon and Amy. It was a really good day. Bad drive back to find my toilet isn't hooked up. I'll do a photo-story of the trip tomorrow after work. It's time to night-dream.

Greetings and good readings

The best part about looking at other artists' work is that it motivates me to do my own stuff. unfortunately today though, I have work right in the middle of the day. Hopefully I'll have enough lingering inspiration to carry me over until later in the evening. So here's another little installation of examples of work I really enjoy.

This first one might look a bit familiar because one of the activities in my life drawing sketchbook was to look at him as an example of how to evoke certain emotions through close-color harmonies. Apparently he's from the bay area too and does some really cool figurative work. Ladies and gents: Nathan Oliveira


I forgot to get the titles for all of these, oops.


These next ones are from Richard Diebenkorn, another Bay Area artist. If you compare the first one here to the first example I gave from Shaun Tan in one of my earlier blogs, you can see the striking similarities and make a good guess on Tan's influences. I really love Diebenkorn now which is strange because my freshman year of high school we did a project emulating some of his architectural work and I've known his name since then, but really haven't appreciated him until 8 years later.



This guy is one of my favorite illustrators. He came to speak at SCAD as part of an alumni panel earlier in the year and I've been following him ever since. He works constantly and maintains a good balance of both an illustration and fine art career which is so amazing and something I wish I could do! Keep your eye open for Steven Tabbutt, he really knows his stuff.


His website is http://www.steventabbutt.com.

Another artist I look at who does really beautiful figurative art is Burt Silverman. I learned about him in my watercolor class because he does some really awesome gouache paintings, but all my examples of him are oil. I'll post those later as well.



In other news, I finally get paid this Friday and I think a good chunk will go towards art supplies, or a scanner. . .or a moped. I have trouble saving money.
Also I'm finally starting on my website. It should be up and running somewhat soon?

Summaaahh

My next door neighbors have a son who's around ten years old. Every day he and his friend set up two chairs, a blue canopy that looks like it's about to fall down at any second, a folding table, a pitcher full of lemonade, some mismatched disposable cups and a crumpled piece of computer paper that tells you that you can get a cup of lemonade for 25 cents. I'm sure they haven't made very much money, our street hardly gets any traffic, but there's something about summer that stirs up the entrepreneurial spirit in kids. When I was younger every day brought a new opportunity to make money. And we sure did the damn thing: garage sales, pulling weeds, lemonade stands, collecting cans and bottles to recycle, car washes, selling candy, etc. We even tried making our own clothes one year, soap in water bottles another with neither venture bringing in much money. I don't know what I'll do if my parents ever move and I couldn't revisit and stay in the place I spent my childhood.

Fuck microns, bics are the shit

So I went boating the other day and the rope got caught around the prop and got all fucked up and twisty. I was helping my friend get it back in working order and he was taking the task just a lit-tle too seriously. Then the thought struck me: I've never had to make a life or death decision and I don't really no anyone who has. Especially in my generation some of the hardest decisions we've had to make are whether are shoes match our belts. OK, that's an exaggeration, but besides from a few people who've had to go through great trials, most people my age and younger act like entitled, spoiled pricks. Even those who aren't spoiled, can anyone imagine making a decision where the outcome is you live or you die?

Recently

So I haven't been up to much lately. I'm looking to get photoshop from a friend so I can start scanning some stuff I've been working on. They're just some sketches and not really any personal work. I think today I'll go out on my bike and do some drawin's and shiz to post. It's gorgeous today and I haven't ridden my bike in a while unfortunately. I'll probably only be able to update whenever I go to the library, so they'll be sparse. Not like anyone cares, I don't even know who I'm addressing right now. I think I'll go to LG. Piece.