My final Story Auction piece

"Nina Light Reading" was done in Gouache on pastel board. My thanks to Ted Mathot for giving her a good home and that very generous contribution.

I love a nap. The auction was held last Friday and it was a roaring success. I've been very busy of late and yet it's a good busy--the only kind I welcome. Somehow with even less time than usual I managed to help out in the Story Auction and make pieces for it. Of course I drove Shannon Ryan mad (she's our Story manager on UP and shoots lazers from her red haired head). But that's part of the fun I was talking about. She's gonna kill me next week.



It was a blast. So much fun. It was like a fiesta and people attending were having such a great time, some even remarked that we should do this more often. If it wasn't so hard to organize alongside work we probably would. At the night of the auction this piece had the single highest bid during silent auction.



My thanks to all of Pixar Story for being the stars of the show. You guys and gals ROCK! All of the volunteers who traded in more extra hours of their free time to organize and run all the details of the show. You are all rock stars. To all who participated by buying art, appreciating it and making the event a grand success, thank you, thank you!

More details and pictures to come.

Nina Flying

I'm musing on the graphic design of a card or a cover here. A last minute impulse to try. Watercolor and pen on Arches paper

A second auction piece. I've not been making artwork to show for a while and, just like anything I do, it takes some time for me to warm up. As a story artist my work is done in intense bursts yet I must also regard it as disposable. A conundrum about the job. You have to invest in it for it to be any good but detach from it soon as it's had it's day in the sunlight. Either half isn't easy to do (I don't even think about that, the job's a blast).

So, switching from "Nobody will see this" to "I'm putting this on the wall for all to see" can strip the gears some. It doesn't help that we draw digitally on a screen. No actual paint, graphite or ink. This auction keeps me in shape for a larger piece I have to work on. There's a project we're working on for this year that I have to have done in a month. More on that later.

Nina starts the year

Photoshop drawing and color. Low-rez with a customized brush then scaled up. Something Don Shank showed me.


Monthly drawing? Maybe not a bad idea to have a regular drawing post, eh? I can gather enough for a calendar? The storms over the weekend had forced us to hole up in the house. I need to get the hybernation cobwebs out. Heck, need to work out.

My thanks to Claudio Acciari for continuing to post on my humble Oekaki board. He's such a consumate draftsman, it's not even funny. While you're at it, check out my very own Oekaki board. We've been losing comments to the ether lately and I've no idea what triggers it. I hope it fixes itself in the long run. I also posted the simple password for comments on the top of the page (under the banner of my oekaki page). That's just so the spam bots don't thrash my board with mindless ads for vulgar items. Sheesh.

while you're at it, maybe you want to leave a drawing on that there drawing applet--it's really quite a versatile drawing program for something free online. Most of the controls and options you would have been used to in other drawing applications are there. I can even custom make a brush. Too bad you can't save it permanently.



Claudio Acciari

OekakiBBS tutorial. I really should go through this myself(though that scary image can hinder the faint of heart).Scroll down the page for a call-out of all the tools.

Paperbiscuit OekakiBBS--in case you can't see the banner in the sidebar linking to the site, heh.

Happy Holidays 2007

Mostly done on my Oekaki board. I brought it in to Photoshop, hoping to jazz it up. Didn't really do much--just touch ups. But do check out the OK BBs link on the side bar.

Wishing you all the best. Have a happy and safe holiday. This is an Oekaki drawing, something I haven't done in a while. The java applet seemed to be working better in my Safari browser (though still not working in Firefox) since an update on my java came around. Good to be drawing.

It was a good year. I travelled to many wonderful places (I also have so much back log of posts--from the Italy, France and Philippine trips) and so glad to have met so many good people. I hope to see them all again soon.

Be well and here's to the new year, may it bring you all peace and happiness.



Paper Biscuit Oekaki Board

Sketchtravel: Page colored and done

Above image is cropped but it links to a larger view. See? It takes a while for me not to be all shy about showing bigger images but I come around.

PENCILS DOWN! Well, you have to stop, push away from the drawing board and say, "That's it! Anything I can do to this from here on will have to be conjecture."

As always I am liking the work more and more the longer I stay away from it. Dice Tsutsumi and Daniel Lopez Muñoz saw it first as I was scanning it for my files (it goes away, see. I'll not see it for a long while). They were very nice and made me feel real good about the work. Artists, we're forever chastising ourselves for not being better and better every time out of the gate. Or is that just me? Shrinks are expensive, fortune cookies are free.

Anyway, my thanks to all involved and the book is now about to be handed to the next person in line. Dice will arrange the photo shoot of that hand-off. Onward!

Sketchtravel
Sketchtravel Blog

Sketchtravel: My page in progress

The finished pencil page. Color will be added.

Backstage. Deadlines are great motivators. I had the one weekend to finish and that was it. Things will get busier, what with the Italy and Paris trip just around the corner. And I'm wary that the idea I had might just turn into mud as I try to realize it. The window of two days got whittled into one day, then into an afternoon. Actually a handful of hours.


Marker study on a pad of Muji newsprint from Japan

Start already! I had a thumbnail I worked up weeks ago, even before Enrico had the Sketchtravel book. I like it, it should work. Next was to do a rough on tracing paper to work out the composition.




That rough done, it seemed that it could hold together. The meter is running. Oops, we gotta run! We're due at Pixar to welcome our close friends to a Ratatouille screening in the best screening theater in the east bay. The sound in the Pixar theater is just truly amazing. You are forever spoiled for any other theater experience. Well, after leaving our guests there I really should be getting back to my drawing. But, well, you gotta have coffee, right? Off to Peets on Piedmont Avenue.



I used a coffee press for the composition but this coffee urn had so much character, so in it goes

They have a collection of antique percolators and coffee urns. I've taken many photos of these over the years but I don't have time to hunt through my un-tagged photos in my computer. I took a snap of one that catches my eye. Then I was thinking, hey, I'm a little sore from working out last week, when was the last time I had a good steam? We schedule a steam in the early evening--just to relax the anxious drawing brain.



I also collect these large wood block letters, likely used for headlines, and I thought it looked neat and complimented the urn. Seemed like fun, so in it goes.

Back to work. Oh, look at the time. I trace the drawing onto the page. I can't see the page too well, I should go outside to the back patio to draw. Natural light. Okay, now I can draw it for real. Pencils, HB, 4B, 6B. I'm careful not to smudge the page with my hand. Oh, fudge, look at the time. Honey, we gotta go. Time for the steam!




Ahhh, that made me sleepy. It's an hour later. Man, I gotta hustle. The light is dying in the backyard. I watercolor the coffee urn with a round sable and let the colors puddle and dry on their own. Takes time. I run inside to finish coloring.

Then it's a lot of staring at it.



After a great deal of squinting I grab the pastels to unify the whole thing. The focus of the piece is pulling to the left. It has to be all about Nina. That's what the pastels do. I do a lot of retouching the pencils and chase down some smudge I made of touching wet color. It seems to be holding together, but I do the diligence of touching it up here and there. By the time it's time for bed I will have resolved to wait till daylight again next day to truly judge it.

The finished piece in color to be posted tomorrow.

Nina Sleep Pattern

Drawn to sleep. I've been having better sleep of late and counting my blessings. I've been afflicted with a sleep disorder most of my life and when I was a child it used to terrorize me all morning. By sunrise I'd feel rescued. Then I would dread the sun setting knowing that night was coming and it starts over.

This explains why I follow the adventures of a character who shares my malady. I know it so well. But with a good regimen of exercise and focusing on modifying my old stress responses I seem to have gained an upper hand at it, after all these years.

Although I've lived long enough with it to know not to declare a victory outright. I've experienced many lapses in episodes over the years only to see them come back with a vengeance.

Drawing helps. So, here's our girl in a rare nap. She looks so tired and likely fell asleep during the day--messing up a job opportunity. I wonder what she's dreaming right now.

A Sketchbook page

Fabriano Quadrato Artist's Journal. Pencil and pen plus some cutouts.

The laboratory. As in, the sketchbook as laboratory. I do my thinking on my sketchbooks. I jot it down as I muse on what happens to Nina. The problem is I have so many notes to myself that I forget which ones to follow. I guess the most recent ones are the ones I use.

The current kick I'm on is the fact that I love my sketchbook drawings. So why not use those drawings for the book? Hmmm?

The truth is I could be staring at the obvious and not see it. I have to "talk" to myself about stuff. The sketchbook is a way for the dialog to actually take place.

We are officially strange as of today.

Nina Chapter Breaks

Grab what time there is. With schedules being what they are and no way to govern a world full of surprises I am left with little pockets of time. This is where I'm going to have to learn a more efficient (even better than the last ones) way to get the books out there. I've talked about a more relaxed approach for a while and it seems I'm closing in on the beginnings of one. I'll cross my fingers.

Thanks for the support out there. You all make it so worthwhile. I call the above illo a chapter break, but really, it's an exercise. Enrico and I try to nudge our personal projects along with little signs of progress here and there, we talk everyday about the challenges of keeping our books alive as well as progress our stories and drawings. All with just those little pockets of time.

Hope to keep myself honest. I'll post more as it comes.

Nina doodle

Photoshop CS2 with a customized brush. Click image for a larger view.

Because it's been a while. Been heavy on the schedule and work side. No time to doodle. I've been working on the next Nina stories. There's much to do that I'm so excited about, but no time. Yet.

I'll post sketchbook scans next.