Emma reading a magazine at the orthodontist’s…
Jack reading Calvin & Hobbes.
She’s waiting, filling out forms.
Now I’m waiting, this is what I see. Thank goodness for the sketch book.
Today we got a special invitation from some good friends to see the third Pirates Of The Caribbean movie at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. It’s an ancient theater, renovated to better than it was in the 1920s, no doubt, which is now owned by Disney so they art direct the heck out of it for the movies they show. Many of the original props from the movie decorate the lobby and several original costumes of many of the characters are on display for viewing after the show in a museum area downstairs. Before the show began an organist on stage dressed as a pirate played several Disney movie scores, ending with the Pirates score. It’s a fabulous sounding organ that was all dressed up for the occasion too. I knew I had a limited time to sketch him after we were seated, because once he’s done the entire organ and organist mechanically drop down below the stage as the lights dim. I just finished the sketch when this happened, which amused my son quite a bit. We went with a large group of friends and their kids. It was a lot of fun.
My son had a music recital recently at his middle school, along with the rest of the students in his music class. It took a little while for things to start so I sketched, naturally. The top two are men in front of us — each had a radically different profile. I liked the swirly hair of the kid sitting right in front of me, and the girl is Lily sitting next to me. She said, “Draw me like this,” and she made a semi-sad, bored face and held the pose. I think she was protesting the pre-recital wait. As with everything she does it was brimming with humor, despite the attempted pathos.
Just a quick sketch. I took Lily to work today. A friend instant-messaged her, so the two nine-year-olds had a very slow, funny conversation on-line. This is Lily waiting for the response from her friend. She didn’t hold still for too much of this and was quickly off doing something else, leaving me only about a minute and a half to sketch her.
Jack came to work this Saturday. We ate in the same Thai restaurant that I took Jane last weekend. In fact we were sitting at the very same table, right next to the salt water fish tank (a popular table with the kids). We talked about futuristic vehicles, so he drew this police anti-gravity motorcycle while I drew him drawing. I filled out the environment a little more than in the Jane sketch, since we were taking a little more time.
Jack was explaining to me how the anti-gravity engine works on this thing. Very cool!
Joan was waiting to speak to our son’s teacher. I showed her the sketch later and she laughed, it’s very “her” the way she stands. I started to draw the background but the teacher became available so I had to stop.
Since I’ve been working Saturdays for the last month or so, every weekend it’s bring your kid to work day! This time it was Janie’s turn. She looks like she was holding perfectly still, but not so: I started drawing her in one position, but she kept moving, eating, talking, so I had to interpolate the motion information to the pose. Kind of hard to do, in a fun way. She drew me too while I drew her.
Anthony Zierhut 