Don de Dieu

My 3rd beer painting. Head over to the beer blog to read more.

Rachel reading

I sketched my good friend and co-worker Rachel while she read on our break today. This is in the moleskin. At first I just used a hi-tec C pen (sepia, which turns purple-ish when wet), but tonight I added some acrylic to it. I think I liked it better before the paint, but what are you going to do? That's why this is a sketchbook and not a final illo.

Rachel is an excellent graphic designer, a devout yogi, a generous carpooler, and one of the wisest people I have ever met. I'm very lucky to be 3 feet from her 9 hours a day.

Easles

I am taking an oil painting class at UCLA this fall. My college instructor was an excellent painter and taught me what a good painting is supposed to look like, but he failed to teach me the mechanics of oil painting. One summer he handed me some old brushes and oil paints and said "go." I would slap thick paint down on the canvas and never work on them after one session because I didn't really know what to do. After one quick "sylabus day" I learned about 8 things I have been doing wrong with oil paints so far.

I sketched this view of some easels with an HB pencil in my trusty moleskin.

White Castle mug

My faithful White Castle mug. This mug does several things for me in the morning. First and foremost, it provides me with caffeine that perks me up and makes the morning tolerable (I am a night owl - mornings are rough for me). Second, it allows me a chance to not waste a paper cup when I have said caffeine, thus making my day a bit greener. And finally, it reminds me of my old stomping grounds, Louisville, Ky, where the White Castle on the corner of Chenoweth Lane and Shelbyville Road held so many fond memories of tiny hamburgers and Big Red sodas. That White Castle is no longer with us.... *tear

This is done with a regular old "Pen-I-use-at-work" with the "Lick-Your-FInger-and-Smear-the-ink-around" technique. Patent pending.

Blue Moon

What's this? 2 posts in one night?

Here is the glorious Blue Moon, the 2nd in my series of beer paintings... yeah, I know, it took a while to take off. Patience, grasshoppers. I have a lot of delicious beers in my fridge that I need to paint before i can drink - how's that for incentive? I even started a new blog just for this project because I am so excited about it!

I'm back!

Finally, I got back to my sketchbook. It's easy to get out of the habit. Here is a sketch of David sitting at my computer loading up his Shuffle with some new rockin' music. I sure do love that .25 hi-tec C....

And that chic hanging out at the top is a woman waiting in line at Starbucks yesterday.

Dave Brubeck

I saw Dave Brubeck, jazz pianist extraordinaire, at the Hollywood Bowl last week. It was fantastic. He's this cute little old man who sits down at the piano with his cute little old men quartet friends and they ROCK OUT like they're 20. It was so fun to watch them play.

It's too F*ing hot in Los Angeles to be inside without air conditioning - my apartment is currently 85 degrees inside. Hence, no beer painting yet.