Sketchcrawl 12

The 12th Sketchcrawl is on December 9th! The San Francisco group will be meeting up at the SF Zoo at 11 am. Here’s a handy flyer for the SF group. For more details and sketchcrawling groups around the world, check out the forums for more info.

Shanghai Theater Academy Dancers

On November 17th, I went to a performance of the Shanghai Theater Academy Dancers. The whorls of color and movement were stunning. Lots of traditional costumes and dancing stories from China were showcased. I scribbled down gestures in the dark. The last two drawings feature a set of girls with long feathers for a headdress.

Joann Sfar in Berkeley

Last night, I went to see Joann Sfar at Comic Relief in Berkeley. It was delightful hearing him speak about making comics. He really emphased to "forget beautiful drawings and focus on proper storytelling." He believes the drawing itself is nothing. He wants answers to: What is the voice? What is the character? and What occurs next? in his stories.

The profile portrait looks like him the most.

late Halloween illo

I had the most fun doing the foreground tree.

In the Water, page 1

Here's the first of six pages of In the Water, sans dialogue.

Halloween illos

I did a couple ink drawings for Halloween.

100 gestures plus 17

Conceptart.org posted a challenge of doing 100 gesture drawings in a week. (Emma first brought it to my attention. Thanks!) The most current one is 200 gestures in a week. Because I missed out on the first round, I did over 100 during the 200 run period. These came really quickly, once I found willing subjects at the local park and a couple animals. It was a nice loosening up exercise. I did the 117 gestures in 3 days' time.

brush pen heads

I did some quick portraits on BART using the Faber-Castell brush pen. It isn't as fine as the sumi brush pen, but it's waterproof.

Neil Gaiman in Berkeley

Neil Gaiman did a performance from his new book of short stories, Fragile Things, on October 2nd at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. I sat in the third row, stage right, scribbling in the semi-darkness doing his portrait as he read stories and poems and zipped through a stack of questions. It was a very entertaining evening.

Sketchcrawl 11 in Sausalito

Over 80 people participated in the San Francisco to Sausalito Sketchcrawl! I think it was the biggest one yet.

I drew people on BART, en route to the Ferry Building.


A musician on the docks and a couple people on the windy ferry to Sausalito were good warm ups too.


There were two elephant pillars at the Plaza Viña del Mar on Bridgeway in Sausalito.


My small group stopped at Lappert's Ice Cream for lunch.


On Bridgeway, this all wooden bus stop intrigued me by the shape of it.


Late afternoon, everyone gathered at Dunphy Park before heading back to the ferry. The small, pebbled shore had this interesting piece of driftwood or fallen rotting tree (hard to tell).

In the Water, inks

Here are the inked pages of In the Water - a short story. The empty spaces will be done in watercolors, as will the backgrounds for the figures. Page three isn't inked yet. Once that's done, it's time for color comps.

Japanese Tea Garden, SF

I visited the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It never fails to be full of people, milling about and clamoring over the highly arced bridge.

skateboarding

There's a skate park in Scotts Valley, so I stopped to watch.

pencil heads

It's been a while since I've done a round of quick pencil portraits.

Claude Monet in San Francisco

I visited the Monet in Normandy exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Simply stunnning water lilies, haystacks, and a full range of his paintings were shown. I enjoyed looking at the ships and sea shores he painted, as I hadn't seen many of those kind. Here's my rendition of Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen.

Sketchcrawl Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Here are drawings from my trip to Puerto Vallarta.

Underside of the palm leaf umbrella.

Busy streets were bustling with one lane for buses, three lanes for cars, trucks, etc. and then repeat going the other way.

These are a couple streets along the Malécon boardwalk, alongside downtown Puerto Vallarta. The mountains were covered in dense rainforest and dotted with houses peeking out.


The full name of the cathedral is Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Church of Our Lady Guadalupe) and it sits just outside the main downtown square.

I didn't actually witness a bull fight - I was watching it on Mexican television.




Los Arcos was where I snorkeled. The little dots next to the boat represent people's heads bobbing on the surface.

war fan

At the local park, there's morning martial arts by various groups - tai chi, Chinese long sword, etc. I did some quick gestures of the group practicing war fan.

music

Here are a couple mariachi players.

Atmos Trio is a groove jazz band with a 6-string bass player.

SD Red Star colors

Here's the final colors of the SD Red Star strip. I'll be posting the finished strip with dialogue on my site next week. The Red Star and characters are © 2006 Chris Gossett.