the burds

 

pelican from Stearns Wharf,

Santa Barbara

 

he was quite a poser

but I believe he likes

to annoy people fishing on the pier 

 

So then there was this...

other bird.

I called him "brown seagull"

I am not a bird expert

baby james

Don't panic....

It's my brother's baby!

I haven't gone off

to have a child

This is his 2-month old face

 This was him as a newborn

(at 3 days old)

it's cold outside!

 

Milk

y u no bigger inside?

This banana n peanut malt was fab

but my arse was cold

and so was my throat

y I no buy something warm?

like um...

a fire?

the view from the goodfellas booth

 

There was no space in that Italian restaurant

for two pandas!

Except this one booth in the back, facing the kitchen

We felt like Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro

in Goodfellas...

 

I was Joe Pesci of course

(on account of my height)

but the panna cotta

was very smooth

and I was happy.

sketchcrawl january 2012 - union station, olvera street

 

Drew and Ian inspecting a portfolio

And yes... an Asian man with epic hair. Epic metal hair.

 

Union Station view toward the entrance

 

Union Station tower from the garden courtyard

Statue of Carlos III, King of Spain at Olvera Street

she was so fluffy

Oh honey, you can take my chair any day.

It helps that I was eating the most amazing egg salad sandwich when she asked me this question.

pub people

In an effort to loosen up, I tried drawing while having a pint.

First she was alone... She was so nervous, I thought she was waiting for a date.

Then her friends showed up. And more beer showed up.

Some people, however, seem slightly tense. Is it the sports on TV? Or the topic of discussion?

But overall, everyone else seemed to be having a reasonably good time. As was I, although I had to witness Barca slaughtering some random Russian team. Boo.

sketching: zoo

Langur from the zoo. Very exciting fauxhawk to draw, and execrable habits. Licking his own toes, eewww.

How does this tree look like a ballet dancer, I don't know. It's not from the zoo though.

bored. nothing to do

A patch of a color test I did for an illustration. I'll post the whole thing after I'm done with it. This cute little boy was watching me when I was painting this. I silently sent good thoughts his way: "You will grow up to be an artist! You will go to art school. Your Asian parents will ask you why!"

I did most of these in Starbucks today when I had to download something via ftp client. It took 2.5 hrs to download, which is nearly untenable enough. There were at least 3 more people in the group above but they got up so fast! Oh well. 

The next two were done while watching Escape to River Cottage, which is a British TV show about organic farming and cooking. The English farmers on the show could be shoved willy-nilly into a movie adaptation of some Dickens novel and they'll still fit right in. The host, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (the guy holding the dead bunny) has been known to eat roadkill for lunch and participates in such shenanigans as racing a wheelbarrow while dressed in a lobster costume. He's awesome. Now I wanna be a lobster for Halloween.

Well that ate a quarter of my day. The end.

milk & early may sketch dump

Milk is a cafe in Los Angeles and it's got MACARON ice cream sandwiches, in addition to a bunch of other crazy products like chocolate hazelnut madeleines and Nutella ice cream bars. The cool high-ceilinged interior smells like chilly desserts; judging from the Art Deco details on the building it was probably built in the 1920s. I saw a dude eating a Caesar salad when I was leaving and felt a slight pang of envy, it looked so delicious.

This very serious boy was reading a huge book in front of a dim sum restaurant. He burst out to his grandparents mid-read: "OMG grandma and grandpa this is the best book ever!" etc etc. I thought it was a Harry Potter novel but he lifted it up and I saw that it was The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose. The kid can't be more than 12. I would actually clock him as a 10 year old. 

Once upon a time, I was that kid. I tried to read Jane Eyre at age 11. I read Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi and started on the novels of Agatha Christie at around the same time. Um. Asian nerds unite?

sketching: trees

be BOLD.
be resolute.
be cheerful.
be happy.
be confident.
smile!

I think he has no idea, how grateful I was to hear his words.