Sktchy

I've been spending a lot of time lately on sktchy (www.sktchy.com), an iPhone/iPad app that works a lot like the Julia's Portrait Party group on flickr. It's a really vibrant group of artists and I would encourage anyone with even a passing interest in drawing and painting portraits to have a look. These are a couple of my recent entries.

Gasworks Park

We are enjoying the last gasp of sunshine here in Seattle before clouds and rain set in for a few months of the grey drizzle for which we are so rightly famous. What better way to spend the morning than sitting in Gasworks Park with the oatmeal sketchbook?

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

This was drawn from a photo in a calendar put out by the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, which one of my co-workers was kind enough to share with me. It seems to me that the owl in the middle is probably the boss, but I can't help feeling like the one on the left has big plans to knock him off the top of the heap as soon as he lets his guard down. He and the other owl probably laugh at Boss Owl behind his back as they hatch all sorts of plans for hilarious owl-pranks involving rubber mice.

Emu: Livestock of the Future

A million years ago (well, the 1990s) I took a road trip to Oregon with a couple of my roommates. Oregon is really beautiful and we saw all sorts of stunning natural wonders, but I think I speak for everyone involved when I say that the highlight of the whole trip was the billboard outside of the emu farm declaring it to be the "livestock of the future." It would appear that the emu-dominated future hasn't quite arrived yet, but I'm sure it's just around the corner.

Birthday Sketching at the Museum of Flight

Today is my birthday and I decided to spend a good chunk of it running around the Seattle Museum of Flight drawing the airplanes. It was all kinds of fun and I really recommend this place to anyone who has a chance to see it. These drawings are all dedicated to my dad, who loved airplanes his entire life and who I really wish I could have shared this with.

Lokapala at the Seattle Asian Art Museum

This pencil drawing was done in a couple of sittings at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The sculpture is labeled as a lokapala from the 8th/9th century. Yeah, I didn't know what a lokapala was either but, according to Wikipedia, it is a guardian of the world and one of the "Four Heavenly Kings." It also makes for an imposing figure as it stares down at you from the museum wall.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

I recently went to see the National Theater Live production of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" with Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench. The performances were amazing and I really enjoyed the play, especially when they got to the part featuring the greatest stage direction ever written: "Exit, pursued by a bear." I've been thinking a lot about bears ever since, so I decided to dip back into the endless treasure trove that is the National Geographic web site and try my hand at a bear drawing. Here's hoping I never find myself pursued by one.