Color Thumbs

Watched Feng Zhu's FZD design cinema episode 73 today and got inspired to do some color roughs.

Train Station

Its a train designed for interplanetary travel, using electromagnetic acceleration to escape the planets gravitational field.

bar at the Aladdin

I got in to Iain McCaigs workshop today and that made my trip worth it for me. Watching a master concept artist at work, and witnessing the enthusiasm which animates him and those around him is an example of what is best in the human spirit. And it was just plain entertaining. Sat here in the second floor bar at the Aladdin hotel which is a historic building from 1925. There is a feeling of class in here, even though it must have been really something when it was brand new  during the roaring 20's. Michael the bartender was the only guy there when I started the sketch, after about 20 min, in walked a lady in a red dress as if my pondering the hotels former glory had somehow summoned this mysterious dame from a noir film. Turned out she was actually another artist named Prissila who was just dressed up for the award show. So perhaps there is no truth in the Aladdin being haunted, but it does turn up as such in a google search to be just that.....

spectrum fantastic art live

This place is really more than I could have expected. Kansas city Missouri is a world class art Mecca and I have thouroughly enjoyed my first day on the ground. I had a layover at LAX on Thursday and did this sketch and then made these characters on the flight to MCI.
     I met another artist from St. Louis who gave me a tour of some of the main attractions, including the jaw dropping Nelson Atkins Museum which had architecture rivaling Europe or anything we have in the bay area, but the treat was going inside and seeing paintings from all my favorite eras, and places on earth. NC Wyeth, Jean Leone Gerome (who had his own room) Monet, Sargent, and on and on.
     The town is phenomenal and this is before I have tried the BBQ which is my next goal.

Ended the evening doing figure drawing and ended up sitting next to Justin Sweet who was kind enough to sign a print earlier and gave a nice panel interview. That leads me too meeting Swayne , one of the three co-hosts of my favorite art podcast , sidebarnation.com . it was a goal to let him know how meaningful that source of discussions on art is to me.

View from "Le Croissant"

When I first began working in Burlingame about 5 years ago, I would always pop into Calvin's cafe. It is now the last privately operated coffee shop on Burlingame Ave. and has held onto his business despite the introduction of a Starbucks, Pete's and finally, the La Boulange within a block of his shop, "Le Croissant". His method is that he is his business, he and his wife know the name of every customer, their kid's names, their grandkid's names, the family pets etc... He knows because he cares about people and represents the kind of mom and pop businesses that originally built the small town charm that is Burlingame, and countless other suburbs like it.
    Sadly, with property values surpassing the 2007 housing bubble level, rents have gone up, and in his case, the most recent one will likely be what closes his doors. And what will replace him? Another franchise? The city has made a good investment revitalizing the avenue and I believe this is a wise and lasting improvement. But what good will that do if the street ends up resembling an outdoor mall employing a revolving door of people who are not connected to the community in the way a small business owner is?
    Until then, stop by Calvin's while he is still here. He will know your favorite drink, where you work, what you do and offer his food and drinks at a more than fair price.

Carolands Gate House

Got some early  morning light out here at the Carolands Gatehouse in Hillsborough CA. I got to meet two of Hillsborough's finest as the site of a guy sitting on the roadside is unusual in this community. I painted with Emery Miller, a friend and fellow Petaluman Artist who finds himself working down on the peninsula.

Counter Sniper Operations

Here is a cut-away view of a typical Iraqi cinder block construction building which lines main supply routes through the city of Mosul. Inside a sniper has created a fireing position from the 3rd story, looking down through a curtain and out a 2nd story window. This position allows him to place fire at traffic moving up the route outside, without giving away his position as his muzzle flash would not be visible to counter snipers who might be in other buildings in the area.

A SEAL team that was working in our Area of Operations found this sniper in short time. they located him using the sound of his shots and eventually circled around behind him and neutralized him in his sniper hide.