December 9 2024

This is me drawing me waiting for a batch of bread to cool.  I tweaked the recipe and the dough rose beautifully twice, but in the oven it developed a big 'ol bubble in the middle and sort of baked into a sad blob shape.  Oh well...it still was good with a nice smear of butter and splash of balsamic vinegar on top.

November 15 2024

This is me drawing me drawing me. Been on a navel-gazing bent lately with my sketching/journaling. Trying to artistically figure things out...

I used a Zebra Sasara ballpoint, Karin Brushmarker Pro, and a Daiso brush pen.

November 10 2024

I was drawing from Ges Draw Party videos and decided to switch things up and draw the model as Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan, the Sixth Hokage of Konoha. :)

Ges Draw Party #177

I drew* these from Ges Draw Party #177 with a frayed Pigma brush pen that's running out of ink.  I'm on a mission to use up every pen I have so I can justify buying more at ASW's Teacher Appreciation Night later this week. :D

*P.S. I paused the video to draw the figure instead of using the timer.  It feel like I'm cheating when I do so but its hard to draw quickly when I have to pull my reading glasses up to draw and down to look up at reference.  I'm going to bite the big one and get bifocals when I get new glasses next year and hopefully that'll help me out with this drawing stufffffff.  Yay me -_-;

September 1 2024

Spent my day watching lots and lots and lots of online training videos and eating tons and tons of fiber.

August 5 2024

From my sketchbook... It may be because I haven't had cheese in ages, but this lunch utterly hit the spot! So simple but soooooo good!

July 29 2024

From my sketchbook, drawn with a Micron PN...

I spent a day out at Irvine Park breathing fresh air and sitting under trees. Summer weather has been pretty decent this year and I appreciate that as a very pale, somewhat translucent heat-sensitive individual.

July 18 2024

From my sketchbook...been busy working on art for a gallery show I want to enter later on this year. I'm still messing around with the Uniball/Speedball ink combo I mentioned in my last post. I like the method, but I'm waiting now for coupons to drop so I can pick up some waterproof brown ink to experiment with. The colors may be a little more lively if there's a warmth to the values versus pure black.

I was impressed by the organized chaos of my desk post-art frenzy so I took a pic to memorialize it. Things to note...the yellow little pot is a ceramic yogurt container I picked up at Sprouts. That tiny jar of yogurt was three whole American bucks (!) and tasted okay, but I was more interested in using that cute container for watercolor than the probiotics inside. I've also been obsessed watching/listening to Campaign 3 of Critical Role. I started from the beginning earlier this year and am up to episode 60 now. I'm also watching the Thursday livestream each week too. It's sort of weird consuming the story at two different points in time, but the lore is so heavy it helps to watch/rewatch things as they progress.

Experiments with ink

I was browsing through books at Art Supply Warehouse and ran across Everyday Sketching & Drawing by Steven B. Reddy.

The art was really appealing I already owned most of the supplies* so I tried Reddy's process out using reference from Line of Action. I lightly sketched in big shapes with pencil, drew in lines using a Uniball Vision pen (it's waterproof!), painted in values using Speedball Super Black ink (it's waterproof when dry!), glazed watercolors on top of that, and then used a little bit of white gouache to pop in some light. This was a fun study! I also really like the recommendation of the Uniball pens. They aren't too expensive and the ink flows well on rough paper.

*I have enough art supplies at home to open my own art store. Seriously...you should see my pen collection, I got a gabillion of them stored in various mugs and Talenti gelato cups.

Bonus pic! This is also from Line of Action. I didn't want to add color on top of these values. One of the drawbacks of layering on top of black is that bright colors would get muddy with this method. It works for the donkey above because there was a lot of gray in the reference. Not so much with the green grass this kitty is lounging on top of.

April 8 2024

From my sketchbook, drawn with an 05 Micron...

Fun fact: I drew today's eclipse on the same piece of paper I used seven years ago for the August 21, 2017 partial eclipse.  I now have a souvenir for two outer space events!

April 2 2024

From my sketchbook...details in the sketch. :)

Fun fact: my coffee mug makes an appearance in a comic I illustrated, Book 2 of Camp Epic: Villains.

Character Design WIP

Here's some work-in-progress for a character I'm currently developing.

The top two images are stylistic experimentations.  I first drew the character using a ball-point pen, and then cleaned up that lineart in Procreate before adding color and value.  My lines are usually sharper and much cleaner when I'm working on finished illustrations, but for this I want to go sketchier.  I colored the top image with this in mind using the dry ink brush in Procreate to try and replicate what I normally do in traditional sketches.  The second image is a pass in black-and-white using the screentone filter to produce texture.  I like how this looks but I don't know if this is the final look I'll go with.  Nothing is set in stone at this point.

The bottom image is the gestures I've been doing for this character in my sketchbook to figure out their personality and acting.  The repetitious drawings also help me to develop a muscle memory for their unique shapes, sizes, proportions, and details.  I do use model sheets to help keep me consistent when working on longer projects, but I also want to have the big stuff memorized so things run smoothly as possible as I'm quickly sketching out thumbnails and tinkering with compositions.

January 1 2024

Happy New Year!  Time to get back on the bandwagon and blog!

Last year I went down the rabbit hole of plant-based eating after reading Gut by Giulia Enders.  This book talks about the importance of the gut microbiome and the relationship between it and our overall health.  I'm focusing now on eating tons of fiber and a wide variety of plants to make the tiny creatures inside of my gut happy.  Happy bacteria = happier and healthier me!

Cooking for me is essentially throwing a bunch of veggies together in different combinations and seeing what tastes edible.  I've been tracking my culinary experimentations by drawing meals in my sketchbook.  Above is what I ate in the evening of the first.  I don't like how I drew my breakfast sketch so it's MIA, but I had banana carrot bread, a scramble of egg, spinach, bell pepper, and onion with a massive cup of coffee and almond/coconut creamer-hooray!

Hello blog, it's been a while...

It's been 7 years since I've posted here!!!

This site was my main online hangout back in the day, but I gravitated away from Blogger when I started my Instagram account back in 2015.  With all the turmoil on social media this quiet spot is now an oasis I want to spend some time in again.  I have some catching up to do talking about what I've been up to these past years, but in the meantime, here's a sketch of me drawing me and my yummy lunch from the other day...

Dragon Pattern

From my sketchbook... I drew this while finishing up theRadBrad's Watch Dogs walkthrough.  I think I'm going through Call of Duty Infinite Warfare next.

Pens: Zebra pen-fine point, Stabilo markers, plus some color revision in PS

Tower Tarot Card

From my sketchbook...  I drew this while watching theRadBrad's Watch Dogs walkthrough on YouTube.

Pens: Zebra pen-fine point, Tombo marker, Stabilo marker, Stabilo fine-point pens

Lunch Break Doodles

From my sketchbook...
Pens: Zebra pen-fine point and Stabilo marker

Canson Life Drawing Sketchbook p.136-139

On the left are the sketches I drew waiting in line at California Adventure (very top) and at Disneyland (bottom) during the afternoon parade.  On the right are gestures from a model and my LCAD Life Drawing students (morning class).

Both of these pages were drawn from models at LCAD.

All pages: Zebra pen-fine point

Canson Life Drawing Sketchbook p.134-135

Both of these pages were drawn at the LA Natural History Museum with my CSUF Animal Drawing students.

L&R: Zebra pen-fine point

Canson Life Drawing Sketchbook p.132-133

I drew these at the San Diego Gulls vs Ontario Reign game played at the Pond in Anaheim.  This is the first time I've drawn at a game (usually I draw while watching TV) and I loved meeting the folks that watched me sketch the action.  I had a ton of fun at this game, hockey is seriously the bestest!

L&R: Zebra pen-fine point