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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

I need an assistant!


So where can I get one of these bright eyed, smiley faced, straight out of Harvard, peppery sort of assistants these executives have? I sure am busy!

Monday, April 24, 2006

Unearthed sketch page


Sometimes our offices seem like layers of earth. Excavate and see what under those stacks.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Jim's Alive!

Jim Hull has come out of hybernation! Actually he's been extremely busy, but it looks like seward street is going to fire it up again! Whoo-hooo! {sewardstreet.com]

Thursday, April 20, 2006

My impression

I saw this woman on the train this morning and drew these at work. Impressions last, don't they?


Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Monday, April 17, 2006

A small lesson

Here we have a small correction i did in the class. The drawing on top was done by the student and mine on the bottom. It's really tuff sometimes when you doing a sketch and all of the drawing principles are trying to crash down into one little sketch. The idea I was trying to stress here was "keep it focused on what's happening". Meaning, the girl was sitting and smelling her steaming cup of coffee. The top drawing was struggling with the clarity and sillohuette of that goal. It's always nice to look for a point of interest or story in the pose of a gesture model or someone your sketching out on the street.

Gesture Class notes 08-" Have Fun"

In teaching gesture class one of the many things that become repititous in my vocabulary is "Have Fun". We have been bleesed with the opportunity of working in a field where we get to draw all day. I don't know about you but, I am completely excited about that, all the time. I understand we have to work for others and draw what they need us to draw but it beats digging ditches. Unless you've been blessed with a digging ditches passion.

Once a few years back my brother wanted to save a couple of bucks by laying his own cement in his back yard. He asked me if I wanted to help him out and of couse I said yes. So there we where with a huge cement truck in his front yard and the driver wanted to charge to pour it in the back yard. As you can imagine my brother wanted to save a bit more he decided that we were going to wheel barrel it back barrel by barrel. That was a lot of cement and NOT FUN! I almost died that day and I told him, "This is why I'm going to stay in school and draw for the rest of my life"

It's tuff sometines to consider this having fun attitude becuase we have tons of drawing theory and lessons in our heads trying to come out into one sketch. My opinion is to try and let go of these theories while in the moment and let them become second nature. Relax and consider the challenges given to us. If we drudge on through our work and miss moments of inspiration along the way I think we might be going down pesimistic roads. In the class we play music that the model may bring or whatever is on the radio. Everyone chats as well as the model sometimes, and I constantly try to encourage a fun and free atmosphere becuase who wants to make what we love to do, a Chore and a Bore! So loosen up,"Have Fun" and enjoy these nice pieces of art.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Giddy-up!

Im going out to Jenny Lerew's ranch today to draw some cowboys and horses. Yee-haw!

Space Discovery

It's funny, the things you find while cleaning up your workSPACE.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Happy Tuesday!

It's a good day for Iced Tea or your choice of any tasty beverage.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Carwash and Coffee

When I go to get my car washed and then hop on over to the coffee shop, these are the people I see. I think the coffee kid wasn't to happy to be there.


Friday, April 07, 2006

Three different ladies.




These three lead very different days. The first was at Starbucks and she was completely into the moment, as she puffed away. The second was working at the perfume counter at the local Macy's and all she could think of was spraying you with perfume you didn't want on you. And finally the last was very bubbly and just wanted to continually refill my soda at a restuarant in Pasadena.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

a little late on LOTR

I know I'm a little late with this one! But I didn't have a blog back when I was geeked out over Gandolf and Frodo.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Caricatures

A great animator by the name of Tony Fucile once told me that every animator should be able to do good caricatures. Ever since that day I was obsessed with doing caricatures. Sometimes I don't always get the drawing to look exactly like the person on the first shot, it usually takes a few cracks, especially if I'm not familiar with the person. The caricature may not be perfect, but I usually hope for their essence to come through. Caricatures usually help me to get something interesting out of the drawing, that isn't just another "animated drawing" version of the person.
Either way, these two sketches were done of Charlize Theron and Rachel Wiesz. They don't look exactly like them but again, something interesting...


Saturday, April 01, 2006

Gesture class notes 07 - "Get it down quick"

In the gesture class we do drawigs at the rate of two minutes per pose for the first hour then five minutes for the second hour. That's quick! We dont have time to fiddle around with details. This timing was done by Walt Stanchield when he taught at Disney's. I believe this concept is an amazing learning tool becuase it allows for many mistakes to be made but through those mistakes we're learning from each one.

Imagine doing only one drawing for two hours, and only learning from just one pose. For us in animation, learning how to pose our characters with the best acting and clarity is all too important and doing a ton of drawings allows us to excercise our brain with a ton of poses. It's also a great fun challenge! When I say "get it down quick" Im talking about the over all shape and rhythm of the pose. Especially when you're out sketching people or animals, they won't sit still for too long. Unless you're drawing a sleeping animal, but we've seen enough of those.

Here are some pieces from one of my students in my gesture class. His name is Ennio Torresan{enniotorresan.com}. He is very prolific and it was a joy to watch him draw these. If a student is struggling, which we all have at some point, I like to encourage a continuous line drawing. This means doing the drawing with out picking up the pen off the paper as much as you can. It's something different and allows us to break out of the funk. The other thing about it is it trains your eye to concentrate on the whole pose and not just an arm, then a leg, then the face. Working disjointed like that doesn't allow for the over all gesture to be captured as a whole. I like to tell everyone to get the whole gesture down quickly and then come back around with details later. either way Ennio heard me and took it a step further and drew with a water color pen on big paper you can actually see some ink dripping on one of the drawings.