I got my daughters lunch at the local deli while I got a haircut across the street. This was my view of them from standing behind the glass door waiting my turn, and later from the barber chair. They were having such a grand time and they never left my sight (Mike the barber turned the chair so I could see them). Yet another sketch done standing up. I’m getting used to it now, I suppose.
Today I got the day off, so I sat at the dining room table and had an uncharacteristically calm breakfast with Lily. Jane was still sleeping and Jack had to go to school. She was telling me about the music video she was “directing” in her imagination with her dolls. A sordid love triangle as far as I can gather. The slow pace of the morning slowed my hand down and it shows (to me at least) in the sketch.
Today, my day off, blasted by. The kids had lots of fun playing practical jokes on each other for April Fool’s Day.
My good friend Dave Lowery just this week got his new blog up and going — he’s already got some beautiful sketches up there. That prompted me to update the links on my site, changing or deleting the dead links, etc., which led to me once again enjoying the great drawing related links on Josh Sheppard’s wonderful links page. There I found this blog entry concerning the legendary illustrator Noel Sickles. Scroll down and behold the mind-blowing simplicity and genius of those Civil War sketches of his. Looks like pencil and wash. Just humbling to see that kind of ability, in my opinion. Then, going back to Josh’s page, I found this fantastic collection of self-published artist sketchbooks that can be purchased at Stuart Ng’s bookstore in Torrance, CA. There you go: inspiration — at least for me.
I walk past this famous old beauty every day on the way to my current office at the studio. She’s been parked between a large storage bin and some potted plants near the loading dock across from my building for months, if not years. What a great vehicle to sketch. I may try for another, more unconventional angle later.
I drew this at dinner tonight. This is the last sketch on the last page of my moleskine sketchbook. I threw some gray marker on it, and was surprised to learn that the flimsy, slick moleskine paper loves marker. I’ve been limiting these sketches to the usual pencil and smudge tool, but now I almost want a do-over.
Anyway, keeping in the spirit of my new year’s resolution, I’m completing things left incomplete. So instead of buying a new sketchbook, as I would normally do, I’m finding old, half-finished sketchbooks from the past and finishing them! I’ve found a sketchbook that my wife actually stitched together and bound from scratch and gave to me for a gift back a few years ago. It seems to be from 1999, mostly. Just to illustrate this, my daughter Lily, seen in the middle of the sketch above from this evening, is shown below how she appeared to me in 1999 in a sketch from my new/old (or is it old/new?) sketchbook.
I drew only in ink in those days, mostly fountain pen. These days I’m liking pencil: less fighting, more flow. So here’s a new sketch in the old book from this evening just to kick things off:
Joan put Strathmore drawing paper in this one, and I really like how it takes the 6b pencil. I have no idea whether anyone else finds any of this interesting, but it’s amusing to me, so hey…
On the day we were to leave, early in the pre-dawn, it snowed. This was intensely exciting to our kids who have only ever seen snow twice before, and one of those was from a moving vehicle. It doesn’t snow much in Los Angeles. So overnight the forest was turned into a winter wonderland.
Headed back home on a crowded freeway. You can tell from the palm trees we’re back in familiar environs. The kids had so much fun frolicking in the snow that they slept the whole drive back. It was nice for me to get out somewhere different and do a little sketching too.
On the second night we all huddled around the laptop watching funny videos on YouTube, thanks to the high-speed wifi connection. Roughing it in the cabin (ha). The kids had never seen Michael Jackson’s Thriller video before; then got a huge kick out of watching the Lego version (a little out of focus, but funny nevertheless).
We’re home, and I found a scanner. This is the view across the valley from the back porch balcony. It would snow the next day and change this view dramatically.
Two families, five kids. My friend Mark and I played a lot of guitar, mostly Robert Johnson blues standards. Very fun.
Anthony Zierhut 