bus stop stuff.

i spend a lot of time at bus stops here in hamilton. i did this while waiting to be picked up at about 1am. this kid walked by and i didn't even really see his face, i just found his hair to be inspiring.

i was drunk.



i call this one "lotus kids" because that song by the chili peppers was playing on my ipod at the time i saw this character... could be a title for the future. i had a lucid moment at the stop that day; i came up with a great idea for a story by watching this person as he appeared to aimlessly meander around the street corner. in hindsight, i think it would make a better graphic novel as some of the theoretical aspects are less inclined to a novel or short story, and the characters lend themselves more to an image-based medium.

i did the sketch the next night from memory while tami and i watched some tv. my character is a man; however, the person who i had been watching for almost twenty minutes eventually came up to ask me for the time and i realized that it was actually a woman (with a crazy--swedish?--accent). just another nutty night in the rain at the bus stop.

it's been a long time running...

been quite some time since i posted anything here. we've been busy as hell since the last posting, that's for sure. i did this sketch while waiting at the nanaimo ferry terminal on our way back from tofino this summer; i like it a lot.

we started loading onto the ferry as i was finishing up... you can see that the lamppost and park area on the left aren't quite finished.

there's just something about the island...

from a notion into reality

it's fair to say that i love to build things and one of the ways that i work out the details prior to commencing a project is to sketch it out. for our deck plan i must have come up with a billion or so doodles--often the same thing over and over--so i figured it'd be fun to post some of them up along with some photos of how the whole thing turned out.

original concept sketch:


working out the ideas:


still planning:


some final numbers:


the end result:




* i had a tonne of help from friends and family over the course of this whole thing (from the designing, to building, to beer drinking) and i plan on putting up some pics from the various stages of this very long project now that it's actually done. thanx to everyone who was part of this.

living room plant

i've always enjoyed drawing plants--they don't move around the way people do.

8.5 x 11, unlined
pencil

my first koi

i really like how this turned out--especially considering that i've never drawn one of these before. the head could be a little wider on the bottom left, to make the fish look bigger as a whole, but i'm certainly satisfied with the result. i opted for the koi because there are a whole lot more images of these available on the net than there are dragons and i figure that the style/technique is similar. this was fun--hope to do more soon.
the picture quality sucks... damn, i need a scanner.

3.5 x 3, unlined
pencil

dragon(ish)

it's been a while, i know, but you get what you get when you read this blog. uninteresting as it may be, i've been thinking about learning to draw dragons a lot lately--the classic, japanese styles were what i'd been leaning to. however, there's a method to them and i'm not familiar with that technique. maybe a book would help. anyhow, i was doodling at my sister's table the other day and figured i'd try on my own to see what i could come up with. this is it... hopefully they get better.

6 x 4, lined
ballpoint

inspiration

one thing about nephews is that they are never short of fresh ideas. the slump has returned and it's been affecting all aspects of my life lately including the doodles. thankfully, the boys came up with this idea for me yesterday and this is what i envisioned. i'm off to white rock for a couple of days--needed to get out of the k-town gloom--and won't have much to do during the day so i plan on bringing my book and investing in a new black fine point... perhaps i'll manage to unclog the creative pipes.

8.5 x 11 (lined)
felt-tipped pen/wax crayon