Float

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If I get out early enough, I can float my monster without everybody looking at me. 

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Volantes Libro

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These things will take you places. 

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Conquistador

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     There are some things about this one that I would love to do over.

      How often do I post something that is full of flaws and that I want to do over again? Only EVERY SINGLE TIME! Ha ha ha.

     But then I remember: These are sketches, not finished pieces. That's why they call it a sketchbook. 

     And at any rate, there will be plenty of time later to go in an fix the parts that need fixing. And at this point in my life, I do actually know what needs fixing, which is something to celebrate. Even better, I have the skills to fix it. This is a good thing.

     (The 16 year old version of myself loved to draw, but when he botched a drawing he didn't have any clue about what had gone so wrong, and wouldn't have been able to do anything about it if he did!)

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Whirlpool

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     More silliness with ships, planes, cars, boats and submarines. All stuff that's fun to draw and usually looks pretty good. 

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     This is my crunch week at work. The week before the crew pitch. I can pitch pretty smoothly (getting up in front of a room full of people and "talking through" the show. It's a form of public speaking which has been known to unnerve a lot of people). But the week leading up to it always kind of stresses me out. Lots to draw, lots to puzzle out, lots of notes to address. It's where we really earn our money.

     That's why I try to have a bunch of these daily drawings done, scanned, and ready to go. One less thing I have to fret over. 

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Ball Cat

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Too skinny with the legs? 

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Bike Freeway

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    Two things about this one:

     #1) I got a new bike recently. I LOVE it, and I ride it everywhere, so I'm kind of bike obsessed at the moment. It shows up in my drawings. 

     #2) It has been scaldingly hot out recently. Triple digits, which always plays havoc with the "brown" part of my black-and-brown ink. It partially dries out while I'm working with it, then I add water and it gets a little less like gooey tar. This happens several times. 

     But on the drawing too, it lays there kind of gooey and "never quite dry". And a smart boy would remember to stick a piece of blotter paper between the sheets before he closed his Moleskine book and clamped it shut with a bunch of spring clips*. But in this case I didn't, and the gooey ink kind of blobbed onto the opposite page, especially where it was folded over against some white Cel Vinyl. 

     Oops.

     But fortunately for you and I, I made my big book-folding mess AFTER I had scanned this piece. So it still looks okay here. 

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    *I clamp my book shut with clips for the sake of the pieces that I paste in. They are usually kind of wrinkly from the watercolor washes, and my Moleskine too is kind of round and wavy after a few months of wear and tear. So nothing really wants to lie down in it. But, if you clamp a bunch of spring clips around the edge (three on each side, one on the top, and one on the bottom), it really forces every bit of the wrinkly wash drawing down upon the paper of the Moleskine. Then when the paste dries after ten minutes or so, one can remove the spring clips. 

     JUST REMEMBER TO PUT SOME BLOTTER PAPER BETWEEN YOUR MOST RECENT DRAWINGS SO THAT SOME OF THE GOOEY INK DOESN'T BOND TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PAGE!   …like I just did. 

Palm Star

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     I had too much to do this last hot weekend. But all I really wanted to do was  to draw and ride my new bike until the wheels fell off. 

     Summer lasts too long here in LA. We won't really be into the cooler weather until we get on the other side of Halloween. 

     For example, today, the very first day of October 2012….it's supposed to be 106 F. 

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