Kongobot

This sweet little segment is from Golden Age, a short by Augenblick Studios, which was recently given, by AWN, a great review in Fresh From the Festivals. You can view the entire cartoon here.

Café Sketches

I love these Moleskine sketchbooks. It makes being sneaky in small cafés pretty easy.

CARtoons Magazine

Though I had been drawing for years, this little mag played a major role in pushing me as an artist. The cover's drawn by CARtoons legend Shawn Kerri. (Image above: CARtoons Issue Vol. 30, No.1, Feb. 1989)

Some of my other favorite artists were George Trosley (creator of Krass and Bernie), Joe Borer, who had a phenomenal gift for pushing poses, and Steve Austin (no relation to Stone Cold) who's style was always a lot of fun to look at.

Painting Ansel Adams

My senior year at CalArts I ran across a beautiful color photograph by Ansel Adams. For some reason I had to paint it. I think the actual size is somewhere around 51/2"X8" . This scan is from a 3"X41/2" color copy.

One of the Few Survivors

Upon my acceptance to CalArts, in the Spring of '94, most of my old life drawings from San Diego City College quickly met their fate at the altar of the Mission Beach bonfire. Somehow my parents were able tuck this one away. I'm kind of glad they did. I haven't done anything like this in years.

More Pianos

For some reason I'm fairly obsessed with pianos. Probably stems back to spending the better part of my youth staring at those ivory shackles, running through scale after scale. Notice I'll never really commit to one of these. It's usually just a quick sketch.

Jerry Lewis Portrait

Every once in a while I'll do one of these for a friend. I snagged the reference from an old photo and just left out Dean Martin. This one goes back to '97.

"The Simpsons" do "Pulp Fiction"

Back in '94 when Pulp Fiction was all the rage in L.A. some drawings leaked out of Film Roman. I don't know who did these, but they're great. Though I've got thirty or so of this series these are my favorite.

From the Vaults: Ben Balistreri

A lot of my archives were ruined in a flood a few years back and only thanks to my parents does most of my collection survive. These fun model sheets were drawn by Ben Balistreri in preparation for his end-of-the-year film (ca.1997).

From the Vaults: Jae H. Kim

While at CalArts, I was surrounded by countless, incredibly talented artists. Jae Kim was amongst the best. These two pieces represent a couple of doodles his did while sitting in my cubicle discussing a story outline for his freshmen film (ca.1995). It's important for me to note that the dragon was inspired by Mike Mitchell, our life drawing teacher, who brought in a slew of development work he had done. One of his pieces featured a dragon and Jae was compelled to try and reproduce the drama of Mike's incredible rendering.

A Robot

For some reason, when I have nothing to draw the first thing I vomit out is a robot. I don't know why. This one goes back (I think) to '97.

Pen Sketch

I just found this little 11/2" X 11/2" pen sketch in an old book I took to read while waiting for the opening of Eyvind Earle's last exhibition in Carmel (ca.1999/2000).

More Great Quotes

"Enthusiasm is the mainspring of the mind which urges one to put knowledge into action." -Wally "Famous" Amos (as quoted by Walt Stanchfield)

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." -Jack London

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." -Paul Gauguin