Saturday, September 24, 2011

Seed Pod 1


Seed Pod 1


Its Fall, a season of new beginnings.

I've been itching to do some new work, but not sure what. I decided to sit at my board and just start doodling. I started sketching a kind of pea pod, and thought "I don't want to draw peas, why am I drawing a pea pod?" But I finally gave in to it, sketched out a pod shape on a piece of Stonehenge and started coloring.

As I got into it, I realized the symbolism of a seed pod - its a dried or drying-up husk, and contains the seeds of new life. Creativity, new life, new work, new ideas, straining to come forth. How perfect an image is that? 

This piece is 5 x 7. I started with Coloursofts, then switched to Lyra Rembrandt Polycolors and Polychromos. There are a lot of layers of pencil on this. A lot

I loved just making this up out of my head. I'm kind of tired of taking reference photos and trying to slavishly copy things. Don't get me wrong - I love realistic art (obviously). And I love drawings of food or botanical subjects drawn from life. I'm just saying it was refreshing to invent something for a change.

I called it Seed Pod 1 because I have a feeling this may be a series.


I'm not sure where this will lead, but I'm hoping that whatever I've tapped into here will yield some good things all across the board (pun intended) - this 'fine art' side as well as the illustrator side of myself.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

9/11, 10 years later



Ten years ago on 9/11 I was in my flat in San Francisco, drinking coffee and reading the Chronicle, oblivious to what was happening until my mom called to say "isn't it awful?" and I had no idea what she was talking about. Then of course I was glued to the television (with no cable back then) for it seemed like days. I'd been to New York a couple of times, but never the World Trade Center. By the time I tuned in, the first tower had already fallen. It was just surreal.

A couple of months later I did a piece of art for the Wall Street Journal about how Christmas was going to 'feel' that year. Sadly, the jpg I have of the art is now corrupted, and the original art is buried in some flat file. It was black and white, and showed some Christmasy icons (nutcracker, Santa, etc.) looking rather somber.

The horse above is an SFPD horse that was 'parked' out in front of my house one day while his rider was having a coffee or something nearby. Its the closest I have to anything sort of 'tribute-like', and even though its an SF horse and not a NY one, we'll use our imaginations. The fact that its riderless seems fitting.

I remember vividly that on the night before (the 10th) I was supposed to go to dinner with my neighbors, but they forgot, and I was annoyed with them. They apologized and said they'd had something unexpected happen, and we re-scheduled for two nights later. And I remember calling them that night to say that I didn't think it was a very good night to go out. I just couldn't imagine eating pizza and drinking wine (we were going to go to Gaspare's, out local pizza joint), it seemed wrong. We never did go.

Most of what I remember though is just being in shock, and also feeling very helpless being so far away. A lot of people felt that way. Everyone was just kind of going about their business in a sort of daze. People were buying flags like crazy, hanging them in windows, flying them from car antennae, plastering them onto anything and everything.

I didn't know anyone personally who lost their life that day. My piano tuner at the time had a friend who saw someone jump from the towers and said he wasn't right in the head anymore, that he just couldn't process it, it was too much. I can imagine how many others there are who have similar stories.

My heart goes out to all who lost their lives that day, and all those who lost someone they loved.

Monday, September 05, 2011

cat disguises & new pencils

Last week's Illustration Friday prompt was "Disguise", but I was working on other 'work' things and didn't manage to get this done until now. So here it is.

Every cat needs a few good disguises, am I right?

Here our Cat is looking very 'up to something' after studying his trusty Cat Disguises book.


"International Spy" is a classic disguise. Its good for evading people as well as dogs, and can get a cat into places he might not otherwise have access to, or out of a tight spot.


"Nice little old lady who feeds the birds" is also a must have disguise. Dressed like this, sitting on a park bench, throwing out birdseed - well, you can imagine.


There will be more. I'm thinking paper dolls. Yes? Stay tuned.


I did these with my new Soho colored pencils. I like them! I would put them somewhere between Prismacolors and Luminance in "feel". Probably a lot closer to Luminance. They're a little fatter than some other brands, and have a faceted barrel (not round). They held up very well in my sharpener (my Prismacolors have been breaking like crazy - not sure if its them, or the sharpener - an Xacto School Pro). So I was happy about that.
I didn't use all the colors, but liked what I did use.
Here's an article about them.
I do have the set of 72, so even though the article says they're not available yet, they are.






I'm so happy that its September! Fall always feels like the beginning of a new year to me. I'm looking forward to sweaters and crisp leaves and soups and woolies and all that good stuff. And Halloween candy. Its in the stores already!! I've been good. So far.

Back to the drawing board ...