Lazy days

Hey, if you were here, you'd be slow to post, too. :)

Don't be too jealous. This photo is from a few years back. I couldn't take a photo from the Pali this trip, so far - - it's been far too rainy. Makes for nice waterfalls, though. Stay tuned for more when I get back home to my computer, scanner and Photoshop... :)

“Everybody’s got their thing..”

Haven’t made much time to just sit and draw in a while (or have I been ... drawing but just more strictly editing what gets posted and what doesn’t? I’ll never tell.). Here’s a couple from today.

I’ve been playing with different materials, techniques – more with the watercolor pencils,


water-soluble brush-tipped markers,


and different pens.
(click this one)

A number of Moleskine blogs raved about the Pilot G2 retractable gel pens. I think, “Retractable? Cool!” and bought a package. I don’t know what the deal is, but after working with them, I’m not quite sold on the whole “Exceedingly Smooth Writing, Water-Resistant, Smear-Proof Ink” bit. Water-resistant? I don’t know how anyone else can really use the pens for watercolors. Or maybe it’s that super, heavy-duty water we have here in California... my G2 pens smear, are not so smooth-writing, and aren’t water-resistant. They run so uniformly that they make wonderful washes for shadows. [Sigh] Anyone want the rest of my four-pack? I’d originally started with and will probably stick with the uni-ball vision elite pens. "Airplane-safe (I’ll test this soon), Smoother ink flow (yes), fade proof (we’ll see) and waterproof". Waterproof? Yep. And it comes in at least two pen nib widths. Remind me again why I wandered away from the uni-balls? The lure of retractable pens? Forget that!

You’re thinking that I obsess too much about materials? Right. Danny Gregory’s “Everday Matters” is great. But, when I read the post about Roz ...
(click here for the post)
...(okay, I’ve only skimmed it so far, but mean to actually read it), I decided that I wasn’t alone. Everybody’s got their thing.

If you go to Roz's website and also like dogs, you'll really like the DailyDots drawings. Very sweet.

Purple pieces of ... flair

Wow, it’s been a bit. Thought I’d let you have some time to digest all those pumpkin-carving and tableau-creating photos (Um, yeah. If that was a bit more gory than you were expecting, sorry ...)
I’ve been trying to put away all the pumpkin crafting supplies and am starting to think about Christmas ... crafts, decorations, and baking holiday cookies.

Mmmmmm, cookies...

Anyway, here are photos I found of incredible fridge displays on a fridge door group (what else?) on Flickr.



Have you checked Flickr out? The fridgerator door photos are pretty amusing. I'm keeping track of the "What's in Your Bag?" pool of photos, and then go browsing a bit from there.. sketches, artwork, Moleskine stuff. Interesting creation of communities and tribes.


My fridge door is less organized than these and has far fewer pieces of .. flair. I did add this piece onto my actual fridge door over the weekend, though:

Here’s to spreading the Purple through Southern California. Cheers!

Go U NU!
:)


And these are purple, too! :)

The happy pumpkin is feeling awfully lucky ...

This was for my group's entry into the pumpkin-carving competition at work.

This is the other pumpkin I did this weekend. Is it appropriate that it was in the fridge for a while? Imagine how disquieting it was to see this ...



... everytime I opened the fridge door. "Eeee-ah!"



Well, things couldn't be as simple as just that.



(You should be thinking, "Uh oh"...)




Evil minds and skilled hands at work.




It can only get worse from here..


Here's one of the little buggers, in action.



Like the little knives?





Well, to see how it all came together ...





... you'll have to ...





Keep scrolling..





Oh yeah, it's worth the wait.






And, yes!, your fears were well-founded..



"Eeeeee-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"







Be sure to click this one









And, yes, we won.

Victory is sweet.

Happy Halloween!

click me!

Oh, isn't this sweet? Yeah, just wait. There's more. It was a busy weekend, carving pumpkins.

Beach Views

If you haven’t checked the 'L.A. County Beach Views' link in my Favorite Links list yet (you’re slacking), here’s something nice that I’ve discovered. Sometimes they’ll let the cameras keep taking photos after dark. But I’d say that more often than not (or, when I remember to check), I think they try to have the last photos of the day be around sunset. So, no matter where you are, you can enjoy a great Los Angeles sunset, almost everyday (and, I guess, watch the sunrise, too). Nice, huh? These were thumbnails from today. If you go to the site, you can see the beach images at a larger size.

Zuma

Las Tunas

Topanga South

Marina Del Rey

Will Rogers State Beach