Happy Year of the Ox!

For those of you celebrating Lunar New Year, I wish you all happiness and prosperity!

IF: Climbing

I've been doing a lot of sketching from life in the city for Urban Sketchers lately. So for this week's IF topic, "climbing", I am posting a sketch of a vine that is climbing on, through, and around the linked-wire fence. I am amazed at power of nature to overcome obstacles by growing little by little every day - a perfect metaphor for being an entrepreneur!

Sketchcrawl: The Americana at Brand

For the 21st Worldwide SketchCrawl, the Los Angeles group went to The Americana in Glendale, which is an outdoor shopping center built less than a year ago. Southern California has many designed environments with pleasant illusions - after all, this place is home to film industry and Disneyland. I enjoyed sketching in the warm sun with fellow sketchers, soaking up the relaxed atmosphere.

While European-looking buildings lined the brick road and the trolley looped around the area (this mall is built by the same company who designed the Grove, as sketched here), there were moments that made me chuckle, like cherry picker behind a white picket fence (it was there to remove Christmas ornaments from a very tall tree), and a delivery truck under a gigantic chandelier that hangs over the trolley tracks.

(This post is also posted on Urban Sketchers - take a look there to see what people around the world are drawing in their cities!)

IF: Contained

For this week's IF topic, "contained", I thought about how a big bulk of what I do in my life is contained in a box called "the computer with internet connection" - keeping touch with friends and clients, working on projects, listening to music, looking at photos, finding reference, playing games, and so on takes place in there, which is truer even more now that I have another little computer. It's something I'm suspecting is true for a lot of people these days....

Los Angeles Sketches: Santa Monica in Winter

Here's a sketch from Third Street Promenade, a popular shopping street here in Santa Monica, California. I like the lights that are hung throughout the street during winter holiday season - they subtly change color every minute or so. The vehicle in the foreground is a converted golf cart that the city uses to do work around town (in this case, hauling trash.)

Most of the night sketches I've been doing were done very quickly with loose, fast lines, and watercolored later at home - it's been too chilly to linger outside!

IF: Resolve

I resolve to sketch at least one drawing a day in 2009. I figure it's the best way to practice my observational skills and to go back to my love of drawing things around me.

Meanwhile, I'm very excited to announce that I got accepted to be a Los Angeles correspondent for Urban Sketchers blog! All the more reason to draw :-) Here's a little explanation of why I like drawing.