Drawing San Francisco

Sketchin' around town . . .

 Mission Dolores cemetary

16th street

 Japantown

18th Street diner

Shoeshine booth on Market St.

Drawing in a Mission dive bar with JSG, Melodie & Matt Cruickshank. Crookie did a finger drawing of an artist painting outside the window.

Storyboarding

Zero Friends Movie Night!

San Francisco artist Ben Walker organizes unique drawing events all over the city-the last one I attended was the 'Bizarro: Drawing with the WRONG hand' event.  Last Friday Ben invited a bunch of us to Haight Ashbury artspace & clothing store Zero Friends to spend an evening drawing from a movie.  We all brought a dvd of our choice and put them together in a bag, then one was chosen at random to play and inspire our sketching.  You have to move fast when drawing from a 'live' movie!  It helped that I did a little bit of work storyboarding on this film so I was familiar with the character designs.

Sketch Dailies

I can't keep up with Sketch Dailies but couldn't resist some of the themes.  A lot of the work being done for that site is very impressive-keep it up folks!

Alameda

Sketching trip to the ex naval base in the East Bay with fellow Brit explorer J.P. Vine.  There are some MONUMENTAL subjects to draw over there!

The USS Hornet is now a naval museum. I went to a Google Christmas on board-it's HUGE inside!

See Mr Vine paint!

Framing the Future

BAICFF

I helped out Pixar Storyman Jim Capobianco with the poster art for his annual Bay Area International Children's Film Festival.  I'll be doing a drawing workshop for kids that weekend exploring the space center and sketching.  I hope to see some of the great animated shorts Jim has lined up too.  Click this link to see the line up

Drawing with FORCE!

Late last year we had a guest drawing instructor come into Pixar- Mike Mattesi-who specializes in dynamic drawing and did a 10 week course.  I only caught the last 2 sessions but it was refreshing to pause the Walt Stanchfield 'story' driven gesture class and let loose with some more muscular sketches.  I haven't worked this big and bold in several years- dirty charcoal & thick markers on newsprint!

Around the same time Glen Keane visited the studio to deliver an inspirational lecture on tapping into creativity by thinking like a child and ensuring 'play' is present in the work environment.  His impassioned and sincere speech was extremely motivating, and seeing him animate 'live' is magical!
He flipped through a sketchbook he had kept while visiting France last summer and found a sketch of a young girl carrying a baby while walking across a playground.  Glen took this as his jumping off point and animated her across the page- straight ahead-dealing with the weight distribution as he went.  He said viewers won't SEE the weight changes but they'll FEEL it.  The point of focus will be in the eyes-we look for the connection between the girl and the baby and how their gaze meets at that close distance.

Merry Christmas!

'Santacon' is a curious American tradition- one weekend in early December thousands of drunkards dress up as Santa (and elves, Christmas trees, reindeer etc. ) gathering on the streets of  San Francisco, generally outside bars or fast food outlets. The festivities begin around 11am and every Santa appears to be blind drunk by 3pm!

Gesture Book-last copies available

If you're looking for a last minute gift for the animation artist in your life I still have a few copies of my 'Gesture Drawing' book left for sale.  $20 each + shipping&handling.  Enquiries please email me at the address in my Blogger profile.

Dinorama

Macabre

The spooks, freaks and ghouls were out in force early November for my favorite celebration of the Fall season -the Mexican Day of the Dead. Matt Cruickshank and I steeled our nerves, girded our loins, sharpened our pencils and unsheathed our Tombows to spend the evening sketching amongst the living dead.  

Halloween

An evening with the Tiger Lillies- haven't seen them since 'Shockheaded Peter' played London-early 2000s. They played legendary San Francisco nightspot Bimbo's. Sketches & lyrics. . .

I saw Iggy Pop play a small gig in San Jose in October- still full of beans!

Happy Halloween!

Here's a preview of an image I've working based on Tim Burton's version of 'Dark Shadows' .  I skipped the film in theatres because of its lacklustre reviews but recently picked it up on blu-ray.  It features all of Burton's usual tropes but it's beautifully photographed by Bruno Delbonnel and the production design is INSANELY good.  I became quite obsessed with it and watched it several times, sketching the characters to capture their likeness (a LOT of bee-stung pouty lips in this film).  The film is completely over the top and caricatured but hangs together better than Burton's recent output.

I still have to add two more figures but the triangular composition works well right now.

Venice

My old chum Matt Cruickshank and I made a geek pilgrimage to L.A. recently  to see master animator Richard Williams lecture at the Academy.  We stayed close to the ocean at Venice Beach and I was able to get out early and sketch before it became too crowded.

Below is the reverse angle of the street above

Somehow I've missed 'Muscle Beach' every time I've visited Venice- this time I was determined to draw the famous landmark. At Santa Monica Monica Pier I found the original site - below

Santa Monica

The Google office at Venice- enter through the binocs!

Cliff's Edge, Silverlake 

2013 Gesture Drawing Class

I've  realized I haven't posted any sketches from Gesture Class since last year when I put out a book collecting my first 2 years of class sketches.  This year I've filmed some of the other artists gesture sketching and posted them to Vine.

Terry Song

Domee Shi

Stanley Moore

Here's a selection of some of my own efforts