San Francisco Victorian

Sketch I drew of a typical San Francisco Victorian.

Sketchbook: Victorian Sketch

A watercolor and colored pencil sketch from my sketchbook. Happy New Year everyone. May you have a most joyful and prosperous new year ever!

Sketchbook: Architectural Sketch

Here's an architectural gem that caught my eye from my sister-in-law's living room in Kensington, CA. I just had to paint it!

Thanksgiving E-card

Sketchbook: Concord Garage near the Movie Theater

Having a little spare time, I drew this in my sketchbook while waiting for my friend Claudio to watch a movie. It's a parking garage that's across the street from the local theater. It's in the center of my town of Concord, CA. It's in the downtown shopping area and blends in with the surrounding architecture of the area. I believe Concord has the best downtown plaza compared to all the surrounding towns. I'll have to draw more sketches of the plaza to show you. Through these quick sketches, I'm learning to use the economy of line with simplified darks to communicate volume.

Sketchbook: APE Experiment

I went to the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco yesterday and it inspired me to put this together. I painted the image on my trip back to "suburbia-land" on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train. I wanted to put my architecture and cartoony stuff together. Wow, there were certainly a lot of good artists there today. A source of great inspiration!

Illustration Friday: Vacant

This illo is an homage to this Halloween weekend.
Q: What could be more "spooky" then an old abandoned cemetery?
A: Being inside a "vacant" building near that cemetery. :)

Bye for now, see you next week.

Sketchbook: Saint James Church

Here's another gem. Sketched across the street from St. James Church on 23rd and Gerrero. Then, Photoshop enhanced when I got home.

Sketchbook: La Boheme Cafe at 24th and Mission

A quick sketch while sipping coffee in a San Francisco coffee shop: La Boheme in the Mission district at 24th Avenue and Mission Street. It's an old cafe that's been there forever. Sketching alongside a new artist friend of mine named Rick King. As an experiment, I took along my old fashioned crow quill pen and bottle of India ink. I seemed to have liked the results. I'll have to do it more often. There's nothing that has more richness then an old San Francisco cafe I came to realize. It's a great stress reliever too which I've been experiencing a lot of lately.

Sketchbook: The Redwood Empire Ice Arena

I painted this while at "The Redwood Empire Ice Arena" next to the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA. It was built by Mr. & Mrs. Schultz in the late 60's, built for their love of ice skating being from their home state of Minnesota. Here's the link.

Sketchbook: Saratoga Archway

Experimenting with watercolors, lineart, and Photoshop. I painted this outside of a Starbuck's coffee shop admiring an architectural archway across the street.

A special thanks to Alina this weekend for inspiring me with her wonderful sketchbook.

Sketchbook: Top Floor of the San Francisco Center

This Labor Day weekend, my family and I went to the San Francisco Center to do a bit of shopping. This is a fourth floor view looking onto an existing Beaus Arts dome below. I like the result of the drawing since I didn't use a pencil to sketch everything out prior to inking. My pen just followed the lines as I saw them. The drawing seemed to have taken on a life of it's own.

Illustration Friday: Sail

Here's something I painted while observing the San Francisco Bay. Not quite my usual image style, but it's fun to try other things sometimes! The scenery just inspired me at the time, so I painted it. Enjoy.

Architectural Gag Cartoon

A little drawing I did for my company newsletter. The finished piece and one for you to color for yourself.

Sketchbook Entry: Union Square

High atop Union Square in San Francisco looking outside a Border's Book Store, I drew this little sketch one fine Saturday afternoon.

Sketchbook Entry: Moot Hall

They call it the Moot Hall which is a 17th century box frame building in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Taken from the same book as the previous blog entry.

Sketchbook Entry: A nice home

Here's something I sketched from a photo of a book I just bought today. Lots of other photos in the book. More to come!

Sketchbook Entry: Victorian House

A little sketchbook entry to share with everyone.

Sketch Crawl 13: UC Berkeley Campus

It was another great day participating in Sketchcrawl 13. Today, we went around and drew or painted the University of California Campus in Berkeley. It was great fun and super nice weather. To see the results of the day from other artists, click here.

Black and Orange, A Creative Halloween Contest

This is my submission to a Halloween contest put on by Penelope Dullaghan of illustrationfriday.com. The only requirement is to use "orange and black" as the main colors. Here's the link if anyone is interested in participating: Black and Orange, A Creative Halloween Contest. There's a lot of good artwork and some neat prizes to win as well. Good luck and "may the force be with you". :)