Jim

April 2011

Thank you for being such a great, though elusive friend, friend.

well why not

August 24, 2010

I didn't put these up because I find it lame that the only time I stretch the sketching/doodling muscles is when I send someone a thank-you note! But since any amount of exercise is better than NONE, here they are.

gamboling

July 11, 2010

A speedy drawing of my dogs. Fastest I ever whipped something up, well almost. I like how BB on the left looks but I overdid Max's face on the right. And I still have much to learn about rendering Westies well!

send me artichokes

May 11, 2010

My mom came back home one morning last month with artichokes from her friend's backyard! After being obsessed with them all spring, my love for them has still not wavered. They are beautiful and delicious.

my friends in their rooms - 2

May 5, 2010

my friends in their rooms - 1

May 5, 2010

I find private dwellings, especially the ones of a few good friends, utterly fascinating, because a person's room can tell so much about the occupant. For these if I'm lucky to have some reference photos on hand, they're based off that, otherwise I make things up. Roughly 50% real, 50% imagined.

more blankets tributes

August 2008

The drawings I drew but never sent as I had hoped to, to Craig Thompson, whose work blew me away after my friend Dan handed me a copy of Blankets to read.

doodles 1

February 2, 2010

This will be an ongoing series of snapshots of doodles I neglect to scan. The graph paper book is one that I share with my friend Steph - we started in high school, writing and drawing to each other and passing it off to each other in-between classes. It was a definite catharsis and here we are in college, still carrying on. My silly side definitely comes out in full-force in my doodles to her.

reading girl

February 2, 2010

I think I need a bigger sketchbook since it seems I can't stay within the boundary of a 5"x8" page. I also need to work on the human form and physiology - my figures always look so stiff.

found

c. 2003-2004

An unfinished illustration of a polaroid of my friend Steph that I started in high school. At the time I was infatuated with the work of Adrian Tomine, and if you look closely at the line work I think that is slightly evident, or else a bit of a stretch, ahha.

oak

January 26, 2010

I carved this on a 3"x4" piece of linoleum. It is based off of an Ansel Adams photograph of an oak tree. The original photograph is amazing, and I tried to capture the luminous quality of it through the carving. I can't quite say I succeeded, but I am satisfied in the very least with the shadows of the tree.

arowana!

January 18, 2010

The arowana of the freshwater bony fish family Osteoglossidae is one of my favorite fish, because its strange oblong yet thick body, covered with huge armor-like scales makes it look prehistoric. Plus they come in a large array of colors, which I failed to show in this sketch, but instead began to convey with texture.

various ♥s

January 18, 2010

My sister got me into drawing parts of the human anatomy - specifically the skeleton and muscles. Which is much more valuable practice than drawing hearts, but I found an image of many different anatomically-correct hearts that I was compelled to draw.

westie sketches

January 18, 2010

When I want to draw but my creative juices are lacking, I instead sketch to improve my line quality, going off of references rather than my imagination, which I believe is better than sitting there waiting for an idea to come. Today was one of those days, and I worked on quite a bit of these kinds of drawings.

I definitely need to practice rendering fur.

rover

November 2, 2009

Another thank-you note. Reference photo taken by Tommy. I'm trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to improve my line quality...

say thank you with westies

September 23, 2009

I am sending someone a thank-you note, and I didn't want it to appear blank. As the recipients are proud dog-owners themselves, I did a sketch of my Westies, I hope they like it!

languishing

But still here.

(hastily scribbled)

July 15, 2009

yuri

March 6, 2009.

This isn't good enough.

dan

October 7, 2008

He is my best friend - one of the most unique souls I have met. We first bonded over a mutual love of Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction - this was in high school). No wait, we first met at a screening of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie at the El Capitan Theatre. He introduced me to New Wave and comic books, and continues to teach me about music and film while I amuse him with my goofiness and drawings I suppose. And the rest, as they say, is history.

floating

August 16, 2008

I read Blankets by Craig Thompson a month ago and was utterly touched and inspired. I started drawing a small comic story to tell him how his work impacted me. This is a photo of one full panel.

Note the computer paper cut & paste work (I messed up, big time).