Animal Antics

My parents went on a little vacation and I was in-charge of looking after the house. However, I was not alone, I had the quirky pets with me--mainly Annie the boulder of a cat(Kiwi too, but he's pretty much my shadow.) Here are some silly drawings to sum up what it's like to be the only living thing Annie has contact with:

Annie is still on her 6a.m. feeding schedule, however, unless something is seriously wrong with me...I'm never up at this hour, so she had to endure the traumatic experience of waiting for an additional two hours before her belly could be satisfied(I also never heard her 6 a.m. cries, but the second my alarm went off, she was at my door.). Drawing number 3 represents what greeted me when I opened my door every morning---a bawling baby. Drawing 2 is her expecting her food as it's about to be lowered to an adequate feasting level. Drawing 1 is what she does when my Mom is usually around. Starting at about 3 in the afternoon, Annie plants her butt right in-front of the door leading to the garage and stares intently at the bottom of the door, anticipating that glorious moment when my Mom walks in and feeds her. Even though I'm walking around in the same area, Annie does not care--I'm clearly not a reliable source of crunchies. The last drawing on the page, is just a silly example of the kinds of judgmental looks Annie likes to give me.

In between her feedings, Annie occupies herself with two things---hanging out in my room and throwing me dirty looks--My desk faces away from my bed. Annie likes to make a "nest" in the sheets of my bed and whenever I turn around, I get this look. The drawing on the left also illustrates her "I hate your taste in music" glare. Activity number two is play-time: She loves to roughhouse and if you pin her on the ground she goes nuts. She'll flip over and do this type of pose---eyes completely the size of saucers, arms spread far out, and her tail is flying.


The night before my parents came back Annie was chilling on my bed. I had my headphones on and drawing. Suddenly I see a grey blur out of the corner of my eye and Annie has frozen in place at my door. I had the door open a crack so she could come and go as she pleased. She was standing inches from the crack looking like the world was ending just outside. I hate it when she does this because then I think there's a stranger in the house or something(it's like 11 at night, with no one else at home). Obviously, I took my headphones off, no commotion,..just silence, but that didn't help my nerves--in the end, it was just another "Spook attack" where Annie reacts to literally nothing. She also does intense staring contests with empty carpets and blank spaces on walls--when I usually sneak up behind her and poke her, sending her straight up in the air and upon her landing, her tail is 100% poof. So I guess this is her payback?

Yesterday I got wind that the yearly Rooster Crowing contest was taking place and of course I had to attend. Unfortunately, the sketching was terrible--both conditions(cramped spaces between lots of sweaty people, a couple of whom didn't know about the invention of deodorant.) and just my own drawing-mojo. So I didn't stay very long.


Not only were roosters encouraged to crow, but there was a human rooster crowing contest. Whoever sounded closest to a rooster, won. Kids and adults alike participated. And not just uttering, "Cock-a-doodle-doo" people were going all out.

My drawings....like I said, cramped drawing position+95 degree heat+bad drawing day in general='s a poor representation of what took place yesterday. Definitely didn't do them justice. Oh well...

The obligatory rooster photo. This one was called, "Lil Guy" and he was lil. Not taller than the distance between your elbow and wrist. His whole body went into his squeaky crow. Kind of adorable.

Beach Bum

This morning I woke up and took a impromptu trip to the local Oregon coast. Beautiful drive, weather was absolutely perfect...all in all, very relaxing day. Only hitch is that I'm now sporting a very nasty sunburn because I didn't think I'd need sunscreen. No complaints...it was kind of worth it:
Some pictures:


Nice lil river I found as I drove along the 199.






This Pelican now has a story. So, I'm drawing and suddenly a girl around 13-15 bellows, "IT'S THE PICKLE GUY! LOOK! HI PICKLE GUY!" I immediately assumed she mistook this innocent pelican for the iconic Vlasic STORK...it was funny at first, but her fangirling grew very annoying after 10 minutes.

Here are the two studies I did while at Harris Beach State Park:



Drawn and colored on the spot--which grew pretty hard when the wind was starting to whip sand across the still wet pages.

A horse show has been in town and I've been going as often as I can since I rarely draw horses. Here's just a quick collage...I've got about 20 + pages in my sketchbook FILLED with these types of things. Still need more practice...

Summer Sketch-a-thon

More highlights from my newly started sketchbook. I've been frequenting the mall food court of course, but also venturing out into the dog park....


^------Click on the thumbnails to really see every last glorious detail.

And then I combined the rest of my mall peeps:


Look Kristen! See I told you I spotted a side-ponytail! OMG!

They all have a memorable story, but I think these pictures sum them up pretty nicely.

And then some dog park gestures along with some kid drawings(done at the mall at a child play area several blocks away from the dog park.):

My Wednesday Morning

This morning was fun---woke up at 7 am to take my car down to get it looked at(weird rattling sound). Figured it should only take 15 minutes(I had an appointment after all), I was soon informed that-- "I might be able to look at this in like 30 minutes...I'll call you whenever I'm done." So I walk across the street to the local(and very popular on this particular blog) mall food court! To my absolute delight(seriously--it's 8:30 am, nothing else that's within walking distance is open, and I'm stranded) the "mall walkers" were up and making their counter clockwise cycles around the interior perimeter of the building. I settle down at a table and start drawing. Here are some highlights that made my morning(and none of them are actually 'mall-walking'):

The thing that interested me most about her. As she waited for her husband(in an equally red shirt/jean outfit) to come back from Subway-- She was so composed on top, but from the waist down---her legs just spilled out. The definition of a "mullet" came to mind--business in the front, party in the back. haha

It's now 9:30 am and some of the various food joints have started opening up. Wendy's was one of the last. Not 5 minutes after opening--3 people are headed that way, including this character:

He was gradually hobbling over with his money firmly clutched in his hand. Don't let his appearance fool you, by the time I looked back up again--he had made his order and was nowhere to be seen.

And bringin' up the rear is this 'Dale Jr.' He was making pitstops at various food stands(no orders, just talking). It was fascinating because his mouth was going 100 mph and the rest of him seemed to go into suspended animation. Not much going on from the chin down. He seemed to have a routine of doing a lap around the mall and then stopping at a food-stand. Because after this stop he headed back out on the "track" and about 10 minutes later I spotted him pulling into Starbucks(time for a fill-up in his silver canister?). His shirt and hat just screamed Nascar fan. The back of his shirt read, "Dale Jr. " followed by an "88"

Oh Mall Food-Court how I missed thee. :) Many more quality drawing times are planned for this summer, you can be sure of that...

Oh yeah, and I was back behind the wheel of a now rattle-free car around 11 am!

Summer '09

Last weekend I packed up the car and headed back to Oregon!


Welcome to the Rogue Valley! What a sight after being gone so long. This view was immediately followed up by my welcoming committee:

Annie--aka. the Crater. She hates looking at me when I've got the camera pointed at her.


...and that's why she has earned the title of "Crater."


So now I'm all settled in and catching up with friends and family. Not quite sure how updates are going to be, but they'll be pretty sparse--I'm already working on new film ideas, and starting to break-in my home-made animation desk. Behold:

I dug up an old easel that I was about to donate when, "Hey! I wonder if my disc would fit on this" popped into my head. A moment of modifying and ta-da! My little setup is complete. Kiwi makes for a great in-betweener, model, and most importantly---animation coach. He's all about correcting my mistakes and isn't afraid to chew up a bad drawing. haha


I just saw Pixar's new film, "Up" on Friday---overall, a very enjoyable film. Absolutely loved Dug and Kevin. Pixar did a great job at pushing your emotions---every laugh was followed up by a tear. Lots of beautiful animation--I left the theater pretty inspired. Anyways, go see it and for now, back to the disc....just a couple boards to go!