A Show, Sketch, Film, and Birthday Walk into a Post

Show

It ended up raining during the reception on Saturday night after all. But despite that, we still had a great turnout. People came in waves throughout the whole evening and everyone had a great time. My small camera is pretty much ready to die, so I hope you'll excuse the lack of photos. I'm waiting to see if anyone else grabbed a few. Here's one Alex took of me answering a few questions.

Sketch

Inspired by the critical mass viewing of early morning paintings, a few of us went out Tuesday morning to paint. The sun was a little dodgy, and to be honest, I'm out of practice in both, plein air painting and waking up early, so I avoided being overly ambitious by sticking to a watercolor/gouache sketch in my book.

Film

I finally watched The Great Race the other night with Alex. I say 'finally', because it's a classic that I've wanted to watch for nearly ten years, ever since I caught a brief moment where Jack Lemmon's character lights a match along his teeth. I could never find a copy of the film in a video rental, and I don't watch much TV (where they apparently play it every year). But it was recently reissued on DVD, so we Netflixed it. It was pretty funny, especially how every character in the film resembled a cartoon character in very obvious ways.

Birthday

Today is my thirty-first birthday. That's an odd number to get excited about, so I insisted that Alex not get me anything this year. So what does she do? She goes and gets multiple gifts. She began celebrating my birthday before I even realized it was here.

I chose "P" which turned out to be a DVD of Pixar's animated shorts. What a gal!

Peet's on Shattuck

It's been raining off and on all week, including today, but it let up just enough for me to take a walk downtown to run some errands. I had some waiting to do, so I sat in a Peet's coffee shop to do some sketching. I should have drawn the homeless man seemingly staring at me from the outside as he fixed his hair in the reflection of the tinted windows.


So tomorrow is the big reception for our Early Bird show that I mentioned a couple posts back. I'm hoping the rain will continue to let up long enough to encourage people to stop by. As much as I enjoy painting moody weather, I prefer it stays "on the canvas" once it's painted.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sheriff Dalrimple

My old subcontracting partner, we'll nickname him Mike McV, has a lot of great stories despite being the mellowest guy I've ever met. He's really a story in the making on a seemingly daily basis, which can be unfortunate for him most of the time. What I enjoy most though, is how he tells his stories, and I try to make it a point to document the way he breaks them up with footnotes, expressions, and body language, which usually involves looking downwards, cradling a cigarette as though he were heating his palm with it.

Skipping Stones Across Tahoe

I often find it nearly impossible to adequately describe the happier moments in life through words. It's as awkward as trying to convince someone to love your pet as much as you do, and as challenging as describing how you fell in love without making your audience nauseous... (with that special someone, not your pet). Something gets lost in the context. In this case, I wish I could write about the joy I felt spending a long weekend with my family. You'd be in for a few laughs at the very least. I hope you'll settle for a picture instead.

Early Bird Painters - Show with Reception Feb. 23

A few months ago, I wrote a few posts based on early morning painting sessions with a few friends. We even started up a collaborative blog based on our results. It wasn't long before we caught the interest of the folks at Studio Gallery in San Francisco, where we now have a show coming up!

Here are the details:

Wednesday, February 20th - Sunday, March 9th

reception: Saturday, February 23rd, 4-8 pm

And here's the Gallery info:

Studio Gallery

1718A Polk Street (between Clay & Washington)

San Francisco, CA 94109

415.931.3130

As usual, I've got mixed feelings of pre-show anxiety and childlike excitement. But whereas I've mostly participated in large group shows in the past, this one focuses on just a few of us. Ten or eleven, I think. So my nervousness is a little bit intensified! It should be a lot of fun though. If you live nearby, be sure to check it out.

Here's my stuff, all ready to go.

Caffe Trieste

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been really busy with a couple projects the past week. Luckily, I was able to spend some time at one of my favorite cafes yesterday. It's always full of interesting characters.

Stream of Consciousness

I was able to take an extended "coffee break" today so I painted in my journal for a while. The drawing was laid down in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, based on a number of doodles, styles, and thoughts I've been tossing around in a passport sized Moleskine.

Here are some of those doodles.

You may have noticed my brothers popping up quite a bit these days. I've been writing a story based on my family, and since I'm not in the drawing stage yet, I'm still playing around with styles, approaches, and just getting an overall feel for the "characters". The more cartoonish characters you see reoccurring (the bear, squirrel and my ever-present cat) are part of a separate project that will hopefully be making its debut a lot sooner.

Float

Well, I'm feeling a lot better, though I've still got some of the funk left in my system. But I'm better enough to draw slightly more cheerful subject matter, though I have to say it was nice to take the edge off in the last one.

My mom had this chop made for me while she was in Korea a few months ago. Apparently, the Queen of England and a few other world figures had theirs made there as well. Not that I'm a world figure in any right, nor do I assume any of them stamp official documents with their chops.

"Float" 4.5 x 9.75 inches. Pen and Ink and Digital.

Print Packaging sample. You can visit the listing here.

Fever Dream

Sorry for the strange image, but my flu is in full swing. Will try my best to return you to our regularly scheduled program within the next couple days.