What It's Worth

First off, normally I don't add my personal life into this blog, but what has been going on in my life has been very important to me and thought i'd share. I apologize for the lack of updates, but due to my current situation I haven't had much time for leisure.

About 2 months ago my aunt was diagnosed with Stage IV liver cancer. It had spread throughout her body and she had no idea until she was diagnosed. The disease attacked her quickly and very aggressively. Knowing how severe the situation was, i quit my job and moved to Arizona where they lived to take care of their 3 kids while my uncle took care of my aunt. Unfortunately the worst happened and she passed away a little over a week ago. She fought hard to live, the doctors were amazed to see how long she stayed with us because they originally only estimated she had not more than a week to live, but she fought for 2 months. She was a great person, one of the most easy to get along with people I've ever met, I'm not just saying that. anyone who has ever heard me talk about her knows how highly I thought of her and I love her dearly. My uncle is still trying to get back on his feet after this ordeal and still has his 3 children, Catelyn (3), Cassidy (5), and Chandler (6), to take of.


Christina Park
3/29/1971 - 9/19/2007
I plan to stay here in Arizona to take care of the kids til at least the end of the year and see where things go from there, which means 1. being out in the middle of nowhere, Maricopa, AZ, I dont have much places to get out and draw, and 2. taking care of 3 young kids is no easy task so my time is severely limited. My updates may be far apart or sparatic the next couple of months, all depends on what comes next. However, next week I will be in California where my aunt will be buried and plan to stay a few extra days to get one last drawing week in at my favorite Coffee Shop (Barefoot Coffee Roasters) and maybe some zoo and drawing salon sketches.

**end personal life**

So since I've been here, I have only a handful of sketches, and have the last bit of carictures I had done at work a little over a month ago. As usual nothing amazing, but comparing to the very start of my season, i have improved immensely I think. I only wish I could've worked more, but just cause my season is over doesn't mean i'll stop, I'll manage to squeeze out a caricature here and there.

These guys were pretty awesome from what i remember, the girl on the left was a lifeguard at our park and was treating her bro and sis to a day out at the park. I like the way this came out because they all have their individual look and for me it it's a pretty clean sketch. wish i left more room for the brother though.



These next two guys were just demos so i played a little bit with uglying them up a bit.





This guy was pretty cool too, he had a Transformers shirt on and I love that series, so i asked if I could draw a demo of him as one and he ended up buying it. I'm disappointed though because i accidentally drew his chin line in forgetting he had a beard so it's overlapping... *sniff*



These two were fun to draw together because I got to add a bit of contrast between them. The guy on the left is a nice clean sketch up until i did his shoulders and shirt. the one on the right is a little sloppy.



Could've done her hair a bit better... I think it looks like her though.



Some family came by my booth earlier on in the day and watched me draw a few people. They came back later telling me they visited all our booths and wanted their kids to be drawn by me and only me cuz they though i was the best in the park. I think they must've been staring at the sun all day but I really appreciated the compliment and drew their kids all cutesy.



So these have been more recent. The sketches of the people were from about 2 weeks ago, and the zoo sketches were from last week.







As usual, thanks a lot for taking a look at my stuff, let's hope I don't slack too much on my practice. Everybody have a wonderful day!

Everybody Wang Chung

Greetings Star Gazers, I'm here to update you with my latests. I have noticed a dramatic change as of late in the quality of my work, but at the same time, I feel I am going through some of the hardest hurdles of the season and I have had several days of hit or miss. Once you find that comfortable cute salable sketch, it's hard to fall out of it. Of course you can just get really good and make it even cuter, and improve its overall quality. but it will still be that same face, the same eyes, the same every little cute that it is with slight variation to appease that of the customer. I feel i found that cute sketch, and I sometimes feel it is right and or needed for the sake of sale, but when i feel that is not the case, it is hard to take your drawing hand off "auto-sketch" and draw what you really see. The ugly.

So I'm trying to break from auto-sketch and it sometimes makes my drawings rather wonky or just plain bad. It's about experimenting new lines, and learning some of them just dont work well with others i'm currently using. At least I can say I'm trying, with some minor successes here and there. Anyway, enough about my feelings on my journey towards drawing better, onward to the park sketches!

These are all so you can see my current ability at likeness and then a close-up of the sketch.

These dudes were awesome, but drunk too. They were all about 26 or 27 and acted like they were 6 or 7. But the got a kick out of the drawing and I got a kick out of drawing it for them. They wanted that guy in the middle to be drawn like a baby and they be drawn normal, but I couldnt just draw them normal. I had figure if the guy was to be a baby the other two were to be a gay couple or men with bodies of a god holding the golden child. i went with the latter.

Clearly the greatest drawing I have done this season. I mean, look at their physique, their glory, their thongs. Okay, well it ain't perfect, the guy on the left's right arm (your left) is all weird outstretched the way i drew it, the babies middle toe on the right (his left) is longer than the rest... o_O and I like the guy on the left's face the least compared to the other two. But overall, i find this drawing funny and one of my better ones this season. btw, thats a bottle of kettle one floating on that their cloud.

This chick paints her face every time she visits great America. every time.
my only wish, the green band behind her was more level... that and better coloring of the hair.
As you can see by her smile, she really enjoyed this drawing. but alas too poor to buy it.
line quality could be better, but I'm glad I tried something new.

I like how I i didnt really give him much of a pupil, just little dots. Something new, something blue.He didn't seem happy with it. Too bad, you didn't pay for it anyway!

This dude wanted to be drawn playing guitar Hero.
I was trying new lines, but nothing really flows right in this picture... I wasn't gonna post this originally, but it's Guitar Hero... come on!
This kid gave me most likely the oddest request I've had to do and will do all season. He wanted to be drawn with four arms, playing two guitars, standing on two goat legs in the pits of hell, fighting chuck norris. I told him i'd do it all, but chuck norris. We negotiated and came to a compromise of a sillouette of satan in the background.

So some lady came up to me saying that the drawing she got early made her look too much like a man and was wondering if I could redraw it. I hate redrawing peoples sketches, especially when i feel that artist is a lot better than me, because if they rejected them, what the hell would they think of mine?! I tried my best to stay the cute route and be safe. I dont like this sketch.
This is Fabian's version. Clearly the better sketch, but the chick was right, she does look like a dude in the picture. Funny though, I didnt really look at his sketch til later, but our mermaids are basically in the same pose, just on opposite sides.

A mix of good and bad here... This was the first time I ever put 6 faces on one page (a mighty expensive drawing btw). I'd have to say the likeness of the sketch to the people was okay by my standards except for the little girl in the bottom middle. that was just... she was the first one i drew and i screwed up bad, i was thinking too hard to try it make it look cute (as to not lose the sale) it ended up totally not looking like her. the two ont he left and right on the bottom were twins... so i don't feel so bad they look a lot a like. The quality on the girl in the upper right I think is best. Not much detail went into this drawing, but i didnt have much room for it, it was an overall okay sketch, but I'm not terrible happy with it nor would i call it a failure.
I actually don't like this sketch at all. Only thing I do like is face variation, but the overall quality is terrible.
This father seemed pretty cool, he seemed to deem his son as his favorite though by reminding me he wanted to be draw with his son next to him and his daughter could be anywhere else. =*(
But notice how the son and daughter look a lot alike? no folks, thats not cuz they are related, its just cuz I drew them using the same lines, just gave em different hair. Bad Sketch!

I really like the way this came out at the time, it felt less like an in park sketch and more like my coffee shop caricatures.

I like the generous use of freckles i did here, but the hair is terribly messy.
I really like the way this came out, it resembled the guy a lot. I could have pushed things a little further as always though...

Aside from the terrible background coloring, I realy liked this sketch. I find it humorous, and the quality of the face one of my finest. It looked like the guy a lot and doesn't look like any of my other sketches.


This is a cute sketch. I wanted it to be cute, and i feel I succeeded. couple issues in line quality, but i like the way i did the soccer ball, he looks hurted. =)

I've been reading a couple comic books lately and wanted to draw iron man. I drew iron man.


egh... it's okay...

This is a bad drawing, but i thought i'd throw it in because the mother of this child came back to me after sending her boy off, to tell me how insensitive i was to make his ears so large and what I did was a terrible thing. I could honestly care less, and found her reaction funny cuz he didnt seem to care (though he wasnt thrilled about it either). Thanks to Edgar for pointing out the fact that his knee looks like the kid has a boner. Thats what your buds their there for, to let you know ur cartoons got wood.


That's all for now. Until then, keep watching the Stars!

Just Your Salesman, Your Pet, Nothing More

Haven't done an illustration in a while, I'm quite rusty... but here is the latest, "Wild Child".



So other than that sketch, I haven't been able to do much fun stuff lately... Just work work work... my sketches, well the line quality is getting better, but I'm falling into a formula. I guess I have achieved what i mentioned earlier, of a salable sketch, these are made to please.

Prepare for the cuteness...


This was just a demonstration. at first. yea, I knew this would sell, hehe.

My first attempt at a hockey body. I like what i did with the puck, but i could make the background a little more interesting, and the body could be cleaned up a bit more... but I'm okay with it...

My first attempt a Silver Surfer body, I am pleased with the outcome...

I was sad, this chick looked awesome, had a frohawk, facial piercings, and punk eyeliner. But i never got to finish it fully because of willing, paying customers wanted to get drawn while i was doing this. This was also originally just a demonstration. She ended up buying it later.


I should have drawn her teeth... His body looks all funky too... grrr...

I drew a co-worker of mine... She didn't like it... =*(

Read a Book

This Dakota Fanning look alike has been draw by me before (in face it you scroll down, you'll see a black and white sketch i did of her). and she liked it so much, she came back to get it done and color and actually buy it this time. She's awesome!

This guy really played for the Phillies... His son was never really spiderman...
I love emos. yea, that's a dude on the left.

I dunno what it was specifically i liked about this drawing when i did it, but i think I my line quality significantly improved after doing this sketch. Hair still sucks though.
This kid reminds me of Jordan from the Bernie Mac Show.
Playing with some exaggeration... funny, but sloppy.

I think i got likeness really well on these guys.
Grape Soda + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious
I just like the line quality i did on this guy, most of it feels clean and smooth.

I think this one came out funny. I like it.


I like this cuz to me it doesn't feel like one of my generic sketches, there is more variation in its shapes, compared to my quick sketch.


Alright, that was just a small lot of park sketches i've been doing lately. So tired now... I update with better stuff next week.

Quickie

O wow, an update with no park sketches! huzzah! but that means just 3 pics... busy busy busy.

This girl was just chillin' listening to her iPod and i imagined her jammin to it...

Oooooo, Rated PG-13 for adult content and mature situations...
Wanted to try a little different sort of style. Kinda like it. =)

Have a great day people!