Draw

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser." --John W. Gardner

I am not sure why I have always correlated art with philosophy. Perhaps because art like jazz, at its best, is the soul trying to communicate to the world what it wants to say.

Now, how we sometimes fail, is trying to correlate that which we think our soul is saying in a language that the general populous can understand.

When we draw, we do not draw what we see, we draw what we think we see. This is an interesting though to have but I did not say it first, how wise is Mr. Vilppu :)

Now after the philosophy of drawing here are line drawings from my digital sketchbook. I will take my camera to work and try to capture sketches from my pad. I think Pencil and paper make for nicer drawings.

2 mins

2 mins

2 mins

At the airport.

Carry a notebook not a computer.

The Rock

I was at church and when I closed my eyes for one of those pray, mediation or reflection times and I saw this image. What you don't day dream at church ? Alright throw the first stone.

I am not sure if I like my rendering as always I tend to like sketches better.


After thinking about what it meant I started thinking that the robot was me an the rock was all the problems and stress I carry. perhaps it meant nothing but I drew.

Big Idea

"No one goes to Hollywood with the intention of making a bad movie."
Harvey Harrison, a professor in my college, once told the class.

Hollywood wants to make marketable films and they want them to be big, hence the Big Idea concepts were developed. These are stories that can be summarized in a sentence but are massive in scope. My favorite, what if a gun had a heart? Iron Giant.

All this past week I attended a series of lectures that described the concept of the big idea and it got me thinking, what if our ideas where small and we just nurtured them to grow? Brad Bird once said that it is hard to sale a film in Hollywood because most execs evaluate concepts with charts and focus groups, because they want to be safe in their investment, but that honest stories where usually small in concept and huge in heart. Like Ratatouille is about a mouse that Cooks (He said something a long those lines, not the exact quote)

This was inspired by that concept, he is trying to catch the big idea but instead caught a small one, should he let it go or nourish it for growth?

Just a thought.

It has been a long week and it is only Tuesday!!!

Beating the clock, that is all we do sometimes.
I am now working on the next movie and although it is wicked cool, we find ourselves trying to meet deadlines and working over drive only to realize that the fun, the reason we make movies or work on them, has dimmed down. But I guess that happens with all work, and then you sleep a little, wake up refreshed and realize that you are one of the lucky ones that gets to use magic and get payed for it.

So why am I rambling, perhaps because I am tired or perhaps because even though I left work late almost at midnight I still came home and turn on my computer.

In that note I was away this weekend. No responsibilities just me and the road (hypothetically speaking) Here are some sketches from my little adventure in DC.


Sketches around DC

Sketches from museums.

Again thanks for listening oh vast void that is the internet :)

Rain, Lightning and Thunder.

Soccer in the rain

Our company has a soccer team and this week we played against IBM. Not only was this my first game with the team, due to my schedule, but we had to play it in the rain, which was so awesome. Every so often the skies would fire flashes and cheer us on with thunder, too bad I never got to see the pictures :). Can't wait till the next game.

Soccer Rules.

Weird Month

Just the way I been feeling lately

Traveling

I can honestly say i don't enjoy traveling.

I mean the part in the middle to and from the destination.
Going from coast to cast is exhausting and makes my ears hurt :)
Here are some sketches from JFK and LAX.

JFK


LAX


LAX


That is it for today.

The City

Ah the city.

I love everything about it, I wish I could afford it, so I could move in.

But alas these are drawings from the city.

The piano man from Church.

Sketches from Battery Park

This is a long story but lest just say he can't find a cab.

Work Ahead ?

So I love work right?
And the people are great? No? so I decided to draw them :)

I was learning a new technique so in order of appearance.

"If you want to keep your friends, never draw their portraits "
Chuck Jones
Bryan

Tridip

Jake

Me

Ike

Inna

And so no one feels left out, Mel and Gareth.

Hope you enjoyed the show :)

Life is for the birds

I started to paint in photoshop,

I guess mainly because the Big Boys here do it.

It is not very active but I guess I was learning technique :)

I like it.

Learning to Paint

SHHHHHH!!!
This one is a secret :)There was a charm in the fallowing sketch that I lost once I did a water color version of it.

But I believe I learned something.

The sketch on the left is from the laundry mat.

The Confessional (sketchbook)

There is not much to report,
been doing a lot of drawing , here are a few drawings from the train, laundry mat,
Church and park.


I was doing monkey studies from google images, char design inspiration.
I apologize to those that feel drawing from pictures is not pure art.

That is all until next time.

H2O Color

I been trying a new thing,

sketching with pen and then using watercolor to add the hue.
I like the results may people get so I decided to try it.


Second day I ever tryed sketching and watercolor.
Left: Central Park Right: Church and Train

I got stuck in the airport last weekend, for 8 hours in LA.


Still exploring.

Left: Legoland add
Right: More airport and yes there was a teenager on a skateboard.


I guess less is more.

Still working on it but thanks for stopping by.

Portraits

Chuck Jones once said that the easiest way to lose a friend was to draw his/her portrait.
I like my friends and the truth is, I don't want to lose them.

I once heard that a good exercise was to draw a portrait a day and for the reason previously stated and because I don't have time to draw till late at night when I get home, I been doing one self portrait a day all week.

I thought that in honor of self portraits I would revisit all the ones I have done over the years, and I have at my disposal.

Sometime in 2002 for painting class

09-2003 while listening to some Tunes.

10-2003 Mad about X-men (Not really sure)

03-2006 after getting home to my desk from the B-yard.

7-06 Acting out a scene for animation.

05-05-07 After looking at some roman art.

05-12-07 After buying some prismacolor pencils.

It seems that the further you go back in time the more they look like me.
Anyway, if you are reading this, draw, draw draw.

Figure Drawing

Can't tell you how long it has been, but I think a war started and ended since last I sat to draw from the model.

Here are the Scretches that came from last weeks drawing session. I just took picture of them, to lazy to scan.


2 min

5 min
Mistakes are there, I write on my drawings to remember :)


10 min
Oh, I remember the days I use to have a polish drawing in ten minutes, hopefully soon again.

I am looking into the Glenn Vilppu manual.
http://www.vilppustudio.com/
He is an amazing draftsman, should have take more classes with him in california.

Drawings from the street

I have been stuck in my room for 90% of this week going over endless amounts of tutorials, and although I should be animating for the reel, I love the process of leaning something new.

Here are a few sketches from the free world.

I was grabbing lunch, and I had a pad.
Which was given to me by a friend. Thank you Melissa :)

The Illustration

I made this sketch about a year ago when I was working on the book.

Nature facinates me and a child dancing in the middle of a grassy field, enjoying the quite time, is as close to nature one can be.

This is what the first sketch looked like,

and it was about that size.

Then I scaned the drawing and put it into painter and re-sketched the layout.

After that, I made the character to model, and added foreground elements for Dynamics. Making sure not to lose the little girl as the main focus.

After that, I added the midground color.

Then Foreground

Lastly I painted the character and the foreground grass.

I always wanted it to be a peaceful moment but all the foreground leaves started to look menacing, so I removed the big right leaf and blurred the closest ones to us.

This is with what I ended.