Zoroaster boy

boy in Zoroaster Center, ink and watercolor sketch, 15 minutes

I asked the boy for some wisdom of the prayer book from which he was reading and he said "Fire is the sun unwinding itself from the wood." No joke.

Light

guruji, watercolor and ink sketch, 30 minutes

I met my guru in an airport in 2003. I was walking along with a big backpack on, and out of the corner of my eye I saw an old man that looked very strange to me. He had golden brown skin, a mark on his forehead, and what in my naivety I thought was middle eastern dress. As a young man fresh out of Kansas (the naval of ignorance), such were the limitations of my knowledge of the world. He walked up to me with his hands in namaskara and said "Ah, my student!" Of course, I was taken aback. After staring blankly for a moment, I managed to get out "uh...I'm sorry, I'm not-" and the man cut me off with "Yes, but you will be! Soon!" The man did a strange little bow and walked away. I wasn't really sure what to think. Over the next couple of years I was surprised when I began to see the man's face on the covers of magazines and books. A series of strange coincidences finally coalesced into a singularity when, several years later, I found out who the man actually was and discovered that, strangely, I had recently and somewhat absent-mindedly become a student of his tradition and had just began studying under a few of his disciples. Stranger things involving yogis have happened to me since then, but I will certainly never forget this encounter.

meeting minutes

John in tha Meeting, 2 minutes, pen

Naoyuki Tsuji

experimental animator Naoyuki Tsuji, pen and photoshizzle, 30 minutes

Meeting Minutes

Steve and Matt, Gel Pen, less than 1 minute

Brain Droppings

pen, 15 min.

Bad Form

colored pencil, 10-15 min.

This one's pretty heinous. I sketched it out of my head in between loads of laundry. This is a great example of what happens when your drawing skills atrophy. The rendering isn't god awful, for a 10 minute sketch. That kind of "muscle memory" takes a long time to completely go away. But everything else (lighting, composition, etc.) is very weak, and the proportions in particular are WAY OFF. I've always had a weird issue with facial construction, in which the area from the eyebrow ridge down to the bottom lip basically ends up scaled up about 20% and rotated about 15* out away from the main facial plane of the skull. This one suffers from that pretty bad. Not having a model or reference will accentuate these issues. Oh well, I wasn't expecting to get much of anything done this week, and you know what I say about bad drawings vs. no drawings.

Currently listening to Nick Cave (just bought tickets to the Ogden show, woohoo!).

the jawbone of an ass

So...this week I am expecting the first of a month long stream of visitors to my crib. Do to this, I probably won't be able to post many drawings over the next couple of weeks. I'll do my best. For any of my bloggerlovers (pssshhhh - blogger please) that live in Denver, you might be aware that T-Cloud is coming to town:

http://denver.craigslist.org/m4w/755159528.html

Karka Sankranti is passing and tomorrow is the first day of Dakshināyana (दक्षिणायन). It is the time when the kite string pops. A time of going-under. The nighttime of gods. Some things I could have done without during the Uttarāyana (उत्तरायन):

fake buddhists
fake mystics
fake EEE ES PEE
the shallow
the boring
the bored


...mostly the shallow

O, this Kali Yuga. I will spend the next few weeks contemplating this period and the next. The Uttarāyana will no doubt be a time of evaluating personal relationships. Thanks to Jack, Wes and Christine for making me smile every day in 2008 and never bumming me out.

Currently listening to the new Girl Talk album.

A Fort Collins Jazz Experience

jazz fan, pen, 10 min.-ish

This is an old guy enjoying the music at the 1st annual 'A Fort Collins Jazz Experience.' It was drawn on the back of a festival satisfaction survey. Along with Tara, my long time partner in crime and good friend, I was a volunteer 'stage manager' of the Oak Street stage. I decided to sketch this while Tara was busy attracting the attention and conversation of every weird old guy in Northern Colorado. I believe we were more or less reppin' Arts Alive Fort Collins. Arts Alive is executive directeded by Rachel Herrera, who is an awesome painter and a totally cool chick. Speaking of painting, I think I'm going to go home and do some oil studies.

Don't Drink and Draw

no comment

Ugh. Awful. I did this one after a pitcher of margaritas at El Noa Noa and a few beers with friends. Don't drink and draw. I drew this around 1am. After finishing, I immediately stood up, realized I was too drunk to drive home, and crashed on my friend's couch. Then I got up at 5am to go to work. Blah. However, I do think it says something that I was able to keep my commitment to drawing every day AND posting a sketch instead of completely slouching it off to go get hammered with my friends. I'd rather post a crappy drawing than no drawing at all.

Tha Boss

colored pencil, 30 min-ish

This dude definitely had the parking lot on smash.

Book Store Girl

random girl in the bookstore, 5 min., pen.

I happen to live in the South Broadway artsy-trendy-indie district in Denver. While the scene can certainly be pretentious, I try to take advantage of the good things that it has to offer. Like the many cafe patios, where you can sit for hours and watch the cute indie girls in their skirts and print tees, and the hipster dudes who walk by in hot pink shoes and Big Business and No Age shirts, pretending they are hanging out at the Smell in L.A. (a couple of years ago...when it was cool...when I was there).

One of my favorite spots is the Denver Book Mall. It's not a normal used book store, but rather a co-op of over 20 book sellers all under one roof. They also have decent coffee and a small art gallery. Last night I was sitting in the magazine section flipping through a LIFE magazine from 1972 and decided to do a quick sketch of the girl across the room as she was staring out the window. As usual, I could only stand it for so long before I had nightmare hell ride images of turning into an urban hipster myself, like some kind of god damned latte werewolf.

As for the sketch...this is why you shouldn't let your drawing muscles atrophy for a year and a half. I remember a time when a life drawing of such low quality from my own hand would have triggered cascades of vomit. Oh well, that's the point of this whole "sketch a day" thing, PRACTICE!!! I have a feeling that, after drawing every day for a month, my skillz will be back up there somewhat. We shall see.

South Central Colorado @ 80 mph

When cruising south on U.S. 285, somewhere past Fairplay you are hit with the realization that you've escaped the Denver Doldrums and you are in the presence of the Real Colorado. A light rain had just tapered off, so we rolled down the windows and were immediately hit with the scent of Ponderosa Pine, Lodgepole Pine, moist Alder Fruit and Colorado Blue Spruce. Keeler and I both leaned back in our seats and filled our lungs. In this part of Colorado, every switchback reveals a unique and picturesque panorama. It can be a bit overwhelming; every 90 seconds or so your entire field of vision is filled with a new and amazing landscape. It's enough to temporarily wipe the cynical gunk off of your pineal body.



I decided to take advantage of the situation by attempting to capture some of the landscapes in my sketchbook. As you can see, sketching in the passenger seat of a car doing 70-80 mph over mountain switchbacks poses some unique challenges. Aside from the bumps and g-forces generated by this kind of driving, there is also the previously mentioned constant changing of scenery. I only had about a minute and a half to capture each image, so I decided to do a series of thumbnail drawings. A started somewhere past Johnson Village and continued as we approached Wolf Creek Pass. These are about 1" squares, more or less the same size as they appear on your monitor (unless you have the same screen resolution as my grandma).

Not the best drawings I've ever done, but I get credit for coming back from a road trip with sketches to post, right?

Thanks very much to Robin for the new moon Cleansing Ritual, and to Rollin for taking care of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Currently listening to the Chemirani Trio:

Em sketch

I felt a little cheap after yesterday's post, so I thought I'd post something a little more authentic. This one is actually mine. The art and the subject.

I think I may try to turn this into a "sketch of the day" type of deal. I've started drawing every day again in order to get my chops back up for a new batch of paintings, so the obligation to post things would probably be a welcome pressure. Iyengar says "Pressure bursts pipes and also makes diamonds." Perhaps I will start after I get back from kicking the Animas River's ass this weekend.