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Showing posts from 2011

Moleskine Update

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Crockett St Bridge. A standing sketch. Immediately to the right, out of frame, was a Coca-Cola delivery truck, engine idling. I'd been sketching for a while before I realized two delivery guys were watching me from the cab. When I noticed them staring I thought they'd ask to see the sketch, but instead they turned away somewhat self-consciously and rather abruptly drove away. I kind of screwed up Linda's sketch, but I'm fond of the self-portrait. It's one of the few where I'm clean-shaven. Sheep skull. I find it difficult to elaborate on that description. La Tuna is an indoor/outdoor gathering spot/watering hole in San Antonio. The kitchen/indoor dining area burned down days after this sketch. That's I think four places I've sketched that were later destroyed, though I've heard it's already rebuilt. The beer is not mine, BTW. I'm not some kind of zealot or anything, just boring. I prefer Dr Pepper to Shiner Bock.

Obligatory dinosaur post

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I worry about this becoming a dinosaur art blog. While I have been working the last few months, much of the artwork I've made has been dinosaur-related, and not the urban-sketching stuff I usually offer up. Hence the apprehension about posts like these. Oh well, if you don't like dinos, get over it. Here are some recent dinos I done. Some are digital, some pencil, some ink, some done in pencil or ink and colored digitally, etc. Digital Gallimimus, painted in photoshop. Originally gave it pennaceous arm feathers until it was pointed out to me Gallimimus was unlikely to have had them. I've never gotten any feedback on this Camarasaurus from anyone. Not sure if it's good or crappy. I changed this Styracosaurus's head a bit from the drawing to the color version. Guess I didn't like the angle. Ain't computers awesome? Allosaurus fragilis. There's something I like about these foreshortened poses. Will color these eventually. I worr

Back to the grind

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With as many lapses as there have been in this blog I'd never missed an entire month before, until July.  Factors contributing to my delinquency: Too hot to draw, so no work to post. Worked two jobs for a while, seven days a week.  This situation has been remedied. Was out of town for 11 days, with limited interwebs access. Lazy We all know which of those factors should be weighed most heavily, don't we. Consider this post the turning over of a new leaf.  Not only do I intend to post more (famous last words and a dangerous utterance in any blog), but I want to post more about what I'm thinking, as well as what I'm doing. In the meantime, what am I doing? I did these drawings whilst in Elgin, North Dakota: More soon!

A belated DFW sketch-chronicling

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So on a weekend back in April (?!) I accompanied my sweetie to the Dallas Fiber Arts Festival, where she taught some classes and had a book signing, etc.  Because I knew she'd be busy I was able to find some time to drive into both Dallas and Fort Worth (we stayed in Grapevine, about midway betwixt the two) for some sketcherating.    I still wish I'd done more, but we were also museuming it up, taking in the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, the Modern, and the Kimbell twice.   Without further ado, here are the results of a couple days' sketching. The Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas.  I was inspired to tackle this one after seeing a fantastic Richard Haas litho of this building.  Of course, Richard had access to a higher point of view (and he works from photos). In progress: The gorgeous Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth, right up there with Bexar and Victoria County courthouses.  A police officer approached me while I was taking pictures, before I bega

Dinosaurs of the recent past

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I suppose some of you who have been following this blog for some time and who aren't interested in dinosaurs probably find these posts excruciating.  Sorry, guys; there will be plenty more urban sketching posts, including some very soon. Meanwhile, I've been spending the last three months or so re-learning how to draw dinosaurs, and rediscovering the world of dinosaurs-- the research, the art, and the fans, thanks to the dinosaur blogosphere. Why do I say "rediscovering?"  Because, about 17 years ago, I was nuts about dinosaurs.  Just completely bonkers.  This post is about how that all started and ended, and started again. As a pre-teen, I was certainly a fan of dinosaurs, but I was never the kind of serious devotee that many of my friends were at that age.  It was my final year in middle school when I stayed up all night reading Jurassic Park for the the first time on my bottom bunk that I became truly hooked.   Mind you, this was a few months before the movi

Moleskine Update

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At long last, another moleskine update, to show that I have not been completely idle these past few weeks and months.  Just idle in a blog-writing capacity.  Which is odd, since I don't really write much of anything; I just post images. And here are some now.  Look at the dates for the proper order-- I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to the order in which I'm posting these. These last three are from the collection of Dinosaur-Quest.  We have quite a few cool modern mammal skulls in addition to our fossil collection, so when it's slow I'll sketch them.  It's great because I can come back to them whenever I have time and keep myself occupied and drawing.

I guess this is what I do now...

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Sorry for the seeming redundancy, but these dinosaurs are in color, unlike the last ones.  I suppose that makes them even better. Thanks to Bill's Wacom tablet and a lot of practice, I've almost gotten comfortable adding digital color to my scanned pencil drawings.  Almost. Hey, that reminds me!  If you want me to draw something for you (I think it's called illustration or something), contact me and I will gladly for draw it for the appropriate amount of compensation.  Dinosaurs or otherwise!

The best dinosaur ever

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Not much to say here.  This is Tyrannosaurus rex.

The Pearl Brewery

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The once-shuttered Pearl Brewery is now home to a bunch of cool restaurants, offices and shops, as well as a campus of the Culinary Institute of America and apartments and condos.  But the best part of the area is still the part-gothic, part-industrial brewery building itself, and until now I hadn't given it the proper attention in a drawing.  There are plans to turn it into a hotel, and while I'm sure they'll retain all the 19th-century architecture, I doubt they'll keep all the cool pipes and fixtures sticking out of the sides.  So in the interest of documenting that side of the building I finally sat down the other day (in the shade) and tackled it.