This one’s hot off the press. We just had dinner together about an hour ago at the Thai restaurant across from the studio (Jack came with me to work today). We were listening to Daniel Johnston‘s Jump/Yip Music, a recent discovery for both of us. Jack was also telling me about his latest obsession, a Japanese manga comic series called Naruto.
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.
This is from last weekend — a wonderful time spent at my brother and sister-in-laws’ house. They have a beautiful 1911 home in Orange with a great back porch.
This weekend we’re in Idyllwild with some good friends. This is the first time I’ve blogged from a distant location. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my scanner, but I’ll put up the sketches when I get home. They say a snow storm is on its way here. Hopefully we won’t get snowed in!
We had some fancy dessert last night. Joan’s showing Jane how to properly use the butane torch on the Creme Brulee. Fun and tasty.
Anthony Zierhut 