Matt Jones: BART

Sunday, April 19, 2015

The Christians

In San Francisco while waiting on the cable car at Market & California I would kill time by sketching the locals. There would be police standing around directing traffic or a construction worker in an orange vest stopping pedestrians from getting crushed by the cable car. Amid the chaos, standing quietly and patiently were the Christian representatives with their leaflet stands and bibles. They would be there in all weather. The masses scampering to or from work never engaged with them. About the only souls to interact with them were aggressive drunks who would hurl abuse but the Christians would remain stoic or smile politely.

Monday, July 30, 2012

30 day sketchbook challenge

Those of us in the Pixar Story Dept. recently initiated an unofficial assignment to fill a sketchbook in a month. It was an attempt to get us to draw more outside of work commitments- in the event only 4 of us kept up with our books. We're used to meeting crazy deadlines here but this one was a push to hit, even for those of us who maintain a sketchbook regularly.
I kept the book in hand constantly rather than in my bag-it makes you more willing to open it and jot down observations (sage advice from ex-Bournemouth Animation tutor Peter Parr)

I usually avoid 'commuter' drawings -I did hundreds of these on the Tube in London and the Paris Metro but usually you just end up with a sketchbook full of floating heads! But with the pressure on to fill this book I would inevitably spend my time on BART trying to capture some of the locals.

Walking home through the Mission District after work I made a habit of stopping to draw anything that caught my eye, from old Victorian style houses to the roadworks on Cesar Chavez.