Peaceful

at Manhattan Beach...

Inspiration Friday: Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta

Last summer my parents and I visited the Getty Museum here in L.A. and I bought this beautiful little book of selections from the mira calligraphiae monumenta. Calligrapher Georg Bocskay was commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to create a book of calligraphy which showed different styles and illuminated letters. Instead of drawing 800 alphabets, he showed off his skill with mirror writing and intensely detailed lettering. It is so beautiful.

PDX: Japanese Gardens

(photo by my husband)

Highly recommended: the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon. Visit in July. (Okay, that's the only time I've been, so visit whenever you want...Any other recommendations? It would be gorgeous in the fall, I'm sure of it...) Bring your sketchbook and/or camera. Stay awhile. Take the tour, even if you are anti-tour like me. (I married a tour-taker.) 

This place was so breathtakingly beautiful. It felt like we were in a painting. 

Drawing hands

Another difficult thing to draw...hands. But it is interesting, nonetheless. I'm amused at how my mind wants to draw these as opposed to how they really look. This is really good practice for me. I'm hoping that my little girl drawings will improve even if they are still not meant to look realistic. I think it'll be better for them to have somewhat real hands instead of blobs.

Inspiration Friday: Ron Crabb

Ron Crabb creates incredibly beautiful digital work. I saw a documentary on him on lynda.com last weekend and wanted to clap at the end. A portion of the documentary and a 'start to finish' look at how he does what he does is free here. It's refreshing to see someone who is doing what they love and who has created a life outside of the Hollywood scene (even though his matte paintings are used in movies, he and his family live on an island in Washington...reminds me of Marian Bantjes and her island in Canada. :)) 

Have a beautiful weekend!

Phoebe Sketching

My beloved black phoebe. I love these birds. :) I'm particularly proud of this one because I drew all the negative space first. It really helped with placing everything together properly instead of just eyeing it.

PDX: Rose Garden

(photo by my husband)

The ruffles on these roses reminds me of the square dancing dresses that my sisters and I used to dance around the house in. We would have loved to have a dress with ruffles like these! Gorgeous.

Ponyo Love

This movie makes me so happy. On the Ponyo dvd that we rented, they had all the storyboards so people like me could sketch them. :)

Happiness!!!

Sketchbook Feet

You can giggle. Feet are not as easy to draw as they seem. But they're fun to draw, so I've been practicing. I think this is the first time I've ever sat down and drawn a real, bonafide foot. Usually they are wrapped in cute shoes so I don't have to go there.

Cars aren't easy for me either. Must practice more...

I Miss You, PDX

(photo by my husband...)

Maybe it's the coffee

Maybe it's the green

Maybe it's the people

Maybe it's the treats

Whatever it is, I miss you, Portland.

Love, me 

♥♥♥♥

Inspiration Friday: Marian Bantjes

(flower petals digitally arranged by Marian Bantjes)

A couple of years ago, my boyfriend (now husband) took me to a talk by Marian Bantjes at Art Center College of Design. I didn't know who she was but he assured me I would like her work. Okay. So we went and listened and laughed (she's a great and interesting speaker--not at all boring and/or snotty about how wunderbar her work is, though it is quite wonderful.) One of the things, okay THE thing I Love about her work is the depth of the layers in it. She is great at creating an initial connection where you think, 'oh, what a cool pattern' but then if you look a little closer, there's more and if you look closer, there's even more. And then if you are me, you start having slight heart palpitations. I was in need of oxygen by the end of her talk, mostly because this woman's work has soooo much detail and I couldn't even fathom the amount of time and patience she put into it. She showed us beautiful writing in sugar, patterns made of feathers, patterns made of pasta, and gorgeous valentines day cards that she had had laser cut from christmas cards. wow.  The lynda.com feature on Marian Bantjes is also interesting and so her. Love that. (I realize I'm suddenly talking a LOT about lynda.com but their documentaries are really great, not to mention their online training. And no, I'm not employed by them...:))

Stop by her site for some inspiration this Friday and enjoy the weekend!

Bird Sketches

Sorry in advance for the poor image quality of these (and the forthcoming) sketch photos. These particular little birds were copied from The Boy Who Drew Birds, one of my favorite children's books (about John James Audubon). These were fun to draw--I just took the book out, found a couple of pictures I liked and pulled out the pencil (and then colored pencils) to do the drawings. You learn so much when you copy other drawings like how the artist might have made different decisions. I highly recommend it.

(watercolor squares by me)

Fall tried its best to come to L.A. last week. We had rain and cool breezes and nights where we had to close the window. Oh wait, we always close the window so we won't breath freeway fumes all night. But if we didn't live two blocks from the 134 we would most definitely keep our window open in the summer with the exception of last week.

In many ways, it felt like a break. This summer (and now fall) has been stretching, to say the least. I've been quiet here on the blog, not quite knowing what to say. Its mostly work stuff anyway which is a bit boring to rehash. But it has taken a toll on me and I'm tired. Its a long, drawn-out story, but I'm pretty much positive (love the ambiguity) that I'll be losing my job soon. So I've been looking elsewhere and asking within the company to see if something else might come up when this job is finished. Ironically (maybe) this job is not going down without a bang--whew, it has been BUSY. This is probably good, though, so I'm not sitting alone in an office and weeping. (I'm kidding...I think.)

The busyness at work has made me really tired when I get home so I've been using some of that down time to work on my drawing. I'll post some pictures in the coming days of some of the things I've been attempting. I won't post any of the heads or profiles I've been working on since they all look like a cross between primitive man and C3Pio. For reals, people. They are scary. But hey, we all have to start somewhere, right? Of course right.

Bert Monroy

(image by the amazing Bert Monroy)

Bert Monroy is my hero. I watched a documentary about him on lynda.com (my other hero!) last night and was inspired, encouraged, and just plain happy upon finishing it. He paints his pictures in Photoshop, and they are stunning...super and incredibly detailed down to the tiniest pixel. Go to his website and zoom, zoom, zoom in on his work. You'll be amazed. :) And to top it all off, he seems like a really nice and giving person. Love that.

Something to Think About

A friend posted this quote from Ira Glass the other day, and I have to repost it because it is just so good. I honestly think it can apply to many areas in life.


“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”