Just a couple from Spring Break road trip from TX to GA

Going away on a spring break means work will be super busy when I return. Here are the only two images I have managed to scan since we got back. One is my boy and the other a Red Tail on display in Mobile AL at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.

New Years Eve - games, fire and fireworks

What type?

The local AIGA chapter is hosting Design Week here in Houston. A different activity each day. Speakers and presentations etc. On Thursday I went to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts for the Design Week presentation by Jonathan Hoefler. He is a type designer, specializing in web fonts. Since I am a graphic designer mostly working with print media, web fonts are relatively new to me. Now I know - print fonts on the web are bad, don't do it.
At the end there was a Q&A segment. One of the Q-ers was pretty enthusiastic, her comment, "I'm not a designer, so I'm like WHOA…is this Sci-Fi?". She cracked me up. A theatre with a couple hundred people to hear this dude talk about pixels and letter spacing. Nerdville and I'm a resident.

Jonathan Hoefler at AIGA Houston Design Week

Last year in Santo Domingo

Another sketch from last year. This was from the very busy steps in front of the Mercado. Lots of life going on in this area.  Two 7 year old boys kept me company while I drew this. Although we didn't speak the same language we had a nice visit.

Hanging out with Picasso in Barcelona

Barcelona side street

The show must go on…

High school band is back in full swing, and has been since the first of Aug. At the end of summer just before school starts back up, they put on a little exhibition for the parents. Wouldn't you know it starts raining on the performance field just before the exhibition was due to start. All the instruments were wheeled back into the small gym. The band has 300 kids, so you can imagine how many parents and family members were on hand. Way more than fit comfortably in the gym. We ended up sitting on the floor around the edge of the basketball court. We had an up close and personal view of all the horn section. You could even say we had "smell-a-vision". August - Texas - afternoon practice. You get the picture. The first sketch is of the warm up that the kids do to loosen up. Then the drum line and all the kids listening to the band instructors. This was about as public as I have sketched in "real life" not a sketchcrawl or off to the side somewhere out of the way.

Pink shoes, pointy churches and parting ways.

The Cinderella Shoes Store was a severe departure from its gothic surroundings. Old stone walls surrounded this hot pink shop full of extremely high platform shoes. I did see women teeter tottering down the street in some very high shoes that weren't a good choice for the uneven walking surfaces in Barcelona.

The architect sketchers in the group drew much more anatomically correct versions of this beautiful cathedral. 

 Last sketch before leaving 4th USK Symposium. boo hoo.

Pickin' and eatin'

Easter weekend we took a trip up to visit one of my sisters and her family and stayed in Denton, Texas. It was perfect spring weather.
Downtown  Denton is centered around a large country courthouse and is lively with bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and funky old antique shops. Every Saturday morning a group of musicians gather on the courthouse lawn for a little pickin'. My uncle is the one playing the big bass. They play a range of country and bluegrass music.
One evening we went to eat at Rooster's home of the Hell Burger, a burger doused in ghost pepper sauce. (Only the hottest chili in the world, as recognized by Guinness Book of World Records. According to the Scoville scale of pepper pungency, the ghost pepper (aka India’s Bhut Jolokia chili pepper), is 300 times hotter than a jalapeno and 10 times hotter than a habenero). I wanted to survive the weekend so skipped the blazing burger. The mash up of neon and cheezy decorator touches gave me plenty to sketch.

Face Hair Pair

Sadly these guys passed before I could get a better sketch of them. As noted on the page they were sporting striking facial hair configurations.

Japanese Festival in Houston Hermann Park - Japanese Garden

Back to Barcelona

Barcelona Summer 2012
Do you recognize the roof details? The roof of Palau Guell designed by Antonio Gaudi.
Bar Veldromo - I will return there, a groovy neighborhood bar with a laid back vibe. Some old guys playing pool and another group of old guys playing dominos in the loft area, from the sounds of it.

Sketch Crawl 38, Jan 19, 2013

I joined the group of Houston (and surrounding area) sketchers for World Wide Sketch Crawl 38 at the Julia Ideson Library in downtown Houston. A marble bust, architectural detail and sketcher Chris. 
Strathmore toned sketchbook, ebony pencil and white Conté pencil.

A little bit of Spain

Cuenca

and Barcelona

Cannon fire and sketch crawl

World Wide SketchCrawl 35. I went out the the San Jacinto Monument for the reenactment of the Battle of San Jacinto. From the website www.sanjacinto-museum.org "The battle reenactment dramatizes the decisive battle where General Sam Houston led his Texian soldiers to victory over the Mexican Army eventually leading to almost one million square miles of Mexican territory becoming a part of the United States.  The reenactors  dramatically interpret the Runaway Scrape (Texians fleeing from the advancing forces of Santa Anna), the cannon duel and the final battle between the two forces."

Strollers in Lisbon

from last summers trip to Lisbon, Portugal

Tents and Texas

    This past weekend we took a short road trip to Liberty, Texas. We went camping at our friend's family ranch. If you are not from Texas you probably picture dusty, mountainy, desert with steers. This part of Texas is lush and green. Rolling pastures with big oak and other hardwood trees. Their ranch house is a single story house spread out with a garage for bikes and cars and the dogs kennel. Even a small pool in the back. We camped across the field near the barn and work sheds. We arrived late in the day on Thursday, set up camp and headed into town for Tex-Mex and a margarita. Delisioso! 

     The next day we headed over to the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center. On the campus of the library are a full size replica of the Texas Governors Mansion, the church in my sketch, a house and another building. We were lucky that the librarian took us around and opened up the buildings for us even though it was a holiday. It gave me a brief chance to sketch. It is good to have friends with connections. (this is a composite of 3 of my sketchbook pages)

    The rest of the weekend we grilled steaks, the guys set up a shooting range to target shoot, and the teen boys had a huge amount of fun driving the "gator" on the gravel ranch roads. Sort of a golf cart for farms, perfect for 13 year olds. The weather was perfect and so was the company.

Training

Training and training. Went to a Adobe Muse beta demo and during break sketched from the porch.

Fresh Bananas 2.8.12

Quick loose sketch at the kitchen counter.

Dinner 1.16.12

The closest to Italian style pizza we have found near home at Grimaldi's. Thin and crispy crust and fresh cheese, not gloppy gluey globs.

I hope I will continue to post when work is busier than it is now.