Anthony Zierhut

At a recent school event.

We scheduled our eye exams together today, took a trip down to our old neighborhood in Hollywood and had lunch afterwards. It was one of those restaurants with the butcher paper “tablecloths”. Our nine-year old came with us and told me to “draw mommy” on the table before the food arrived. Luckily I had the trusty 6b clutch pencil and smudge tool. I had a little trouble focusing because my eyes were still dilated, and messed up a little on her right eye, but it’s a pretty good likeness I think…

I drew him looking a couple years younger than he really is for some reason. It might be the angle, or maybe I foreshortened him too much, hmmm. He’s writing a presidential speech for school. I like his scholarly posture.

I took my old car to the car wash yesterday. There’s a lot of waiting around there and I always feel guilty that I could be spending my time more productively, although the environs don’t inspire much in the way of art. So I thought, why not sketch the people waiting? I had to be fast and furtive here, so I fell back on the trusty 6b pencil and smudge tool. It still is the fastest way for me to get the information down on paper, as much as I do miss the color.

This is a quick sketch of my son Jack from last month when we went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. He was sitting next to his friend and joking around — I only had time to sketch him, but you see a certain conspiratorial mischief in his expression I think. Would have been better with the other kid included, but hey.

I’ve been trying to get the time to do more watercolor. The pencil and the smudge tool are just so much more portable. Although every day I’ve been looking at a watercolor book I bought recently: Pasadena Sketchbook by Joseph Stoddard. I love his incredibly loose linework and washes. Very inspiring — and he’s a local artist painting locales very familiar to me. More of his work can be seen here.

A neighborhood raccoon about the size of a medium-sized dog comes to our front porch a couple times a week. Sometimes we put peanuts out for him/her (not sure, so we’ve named him/her “Pat” — in honor of the Julia Sweeney SNL skit, ha). He/she was moving quite a bit so I had to sketch a bit faster than usual to capture him/her.