She was finishing up reading Memoirs of a Geisha. It will be interesting to see how it translates into film. I still haven’t read it yet.
As we ate dinner in the waning evening light on the banks of the Big Sur River, the kids patiently stacked water rocks. They made sixty – sixty – of these little sculptures while we dined.
Here they are looking for more rocks.
They got mostly craw-dads with slices of hot dogs as bait, but Jack did get a small rainbow trout and a couple of mud-suckers. All were dutifully thrown back of course — after being given proper names like “Dragon” and “Son of Dragon” and “Rocky”, etc.
I like the way the kids sit with their knees up to their chins. I wish I were still that flexible!
This is the view from the “front door” of our tent. It’s a very family-friendly campsite, lots of parents having fun with their kids.
Here’s our home-away-from-home, the venerable two-room tent, veteran of at least eight or nine annual family camping trips. We had a beautiful spot right next to the Big Sur river where the kids could raft down it and catch craw-dads in it. I drew a lot while camping, so there’s lots to post…
We went to the Hollywood Bowl the other night, and thanks to some good friends who came with us, we were able to sit right up front just below the stage. We ate dinner my wife prepared and relaxed to listen to an evening of Ravel. It was great, and a great opportunity to sketch.
My son Jack and I made the annual pilgrimage to the San Diego Comic-Con via train from Union Station in LA last weekend. It seemed much bigger and more crowded than last year. Jack tends to look for action figures (this year was all about General Grievous), and game cards, whereas I like to get art books and see some original drawing and painting. The Comic-Con is such a great collection of characters, both in costume and presumably not, that I had to draw something. This sketch is from memory — we were walking along and suddenly the foot traffic came to a complete stop. I craned my neck to see what the hubbub was about and caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman in a white bikini and a man shooting video of her. What the heck?? Actually it’s not surprising, considering the male nerd demographic. Note the guy in the foreground with the giant earrings — he had holes in his earlobes as big as poker chips! (I actually saw him a couple hours earlier in a different part of the hall, but thought it would be good to include him in this sketch for color.) There was no shortage of Light Saber-wielding Jedi either. Most had some kind of new type with a fluorescent tube in it. We stayed for the day and returned in the evening. Quite fun. I picked up some great books, too. More on that later.
Jack (age 11) and I saw the latest Miyazaki film the other night, Howl’s Moving Castle. When we got home he asked me what we should do, and I told him I thought it would be good if he drew his favorite characters from the film. I drew Jack while he did this. Note his left hand covering what he’s drawing so I can’t see it until he’s done. I remember using the exact same technique in elementary school during a test so no one would copy from my paper. I got sort of a mini-flashback there…
Anthony Zierhut 