It’s been a while since I’ve been to the drawing club.  The theme was the detective. 

silhouette  studies using water color.

Got up at 4am this morning to get the last bit of the lunar eclipse.  It was darn orange, and the last slit of light on the edge was cool.  Here are some links

photo submissions posted at  http://spaceweather.com/submissions/map.php?cat=eclipses&limit=25

animation of the total eclipse at http://shadowandsubstance.com

Below is a photo from http://spaceweather.com

Finally made it out to my first sketchcrawl group outing. The location was Little Tokyo where this weekend was bustling with the last weekend of Nisei week festival. Here are some of the better sketches from the day. We met at the wooden fire tower and wondered around.

Some historical building lines First street.

sketched in the village till a band started to play, at which time we hurriedly packed up our stuff and left.

We saw the Nebuta float from a far and gravited towards it. You can get info on this float at http://www.nebuta-la.org/. We also found out that there was a “shojo Manga: Girl Power” exhibit at the JACCC gallery. This is a great show that features how in depth Japanese manga is, or used to be.   Do not be mistaken by the phrase “girl manga”.  It was a substantial collection spanning 60 years. Also was nostalgic because I read several titles featured in the show.

Unrelated to the festival was an immigration protest march down San Pedro.

We ended up at the Hotel New Otani gardens. I tried some water color although I struggle with this medium.

It was a small turn out, but a really fun day.

grand stairs -

 The Huntington mansion has been under renovation for years. I went to a sneak peak before it re-opens next year.  It was cool to see the house without the art – just the architecture.  Some sketches from the day.  More to come..

the main library

looking at the courtyard from upstairs room

by the front door

It’s been a looooong time since I picked up my paint brushes. My butcher pan covered with dust, paint tubes dried shut, and my brushes chewed off by my cat (kidding on the last one). Very rusty but gotta start back somewhere. I see flaws now that I am uploading them.. maybe I’ll fix them later.

There is a really great exhibit at the Forest Lawn gallery.  the most featured artist was William Stout, and seeing his originals is amazing.  I was surprised to see some of the Disney works on display as well.  Original works by Mary Blair, Glen Keane, Hans Bacher, storyboards from Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty visual development paintings etc etc.  Maquettes too!

 … actually a day at the Natural History Museum. Surrounded by prehistoric giants (and very loud visitors) I felt overwhelmed by the the size of them and the fact that they existed so so long ago..

Their shoulder blades are very different. The T-rex barely has one.

it appears that this guy had bones in the eye socket. It looked like a sculpture more than a skull because the textures were very clay like and organic.

a skeleton of one of my favorite animal. All hidden inside this awesome shell, but has a collar bone and similar skeletal structure.  The face looked kinda like yoda.

On the 2nd floor is the bird section.  I got a little sick being in there.  surrounded by all these birds.. stuffed.. so many of them.. It’s not the same as seeing the big stuffed mammals with their painted backgrounds.

Some of the more successful sketches of the mammals.

I’ve been studying animal anatomy from several books. I figured I’d start from the horse. Theses are studies from various photos.

at certain time of the day, normally smoggy LA is blessed with unreal colors.  This is  VERY quick sketch trying to remember what I saw on my commute home

I started taking animal drawing class with Joe Weatherly on Saturdays. We started out at the Page museum to study the skeletal structures. They all have the same elements, but according to their needs (supporting weight, sprinting for the prey, running for life etc ) the size, shapes, placements, and proportions varies. I was intrigued by the shapes of the individual bones of the Mammoth.