Photatoes

I have plenty of arts on backstock but I thought I'd take a quick break for some recent photos taken while out and about in the city. I recently got an iPhone and there's this gimmicky app called ShakeItPhoto that makes all your pictures look like polaroids. You even get to shake it to make it develop faster (thus the name). For some reason, I've become addicted to it. I imagine I look pretty strange standing on street corners shaking my phone in front of my face intently all the time.

Above: The Tenderloin near sundown. Tempting fate, apparently. Dumb.



Above: Waiting at the platform at an Oakland BART station at sunset.


Above: Obligatory pet photo. Yeah, that's my dog.


Above: Definitely not the city. Uh, somewhere along I-580? I think.

fillMORE: An Ode to the 22

The theme of my last week's collection of sketches was (unintentionally) Fillmore. With the exception of the car (a holdout from the previous weekend's Sketchcrawl), all of these drawings were done somewhere along Fillmore Street in San Francisco.

Above: The top drawing was done sitting in the window at Alamo Square Cafe. I only drew the tops of the buildings not just because the lighting was more interesting but because a lot of buses come through this intersection, obscuring the view much of the time.

The bottom painting on the same page was done at a park in Pacific Heights, Alta Plaza. The park has killer views in every direction but I actually picked the least picturesque view to paint. Partially to be contrary. Partially because this particular view lent itself best to this composition. But mostly because it was the least windy spot and thus, the least annoying.

Above: This was originally intented to be a painting... the lighting was incredible. I did this in a Tapioca Express on Fillmore where all kinds of road construction was going on in front. They had the music cranked to 11 and then some so after finishing the initial drawing, I just had to leave. A painting was not meant to be. Heh, I totally tried to sneak an extra L in O'Farrell like I didn't totally just mispell that sucker.

Above: The bottom drawing is from Sketchcrawl in the Presidio. It got too windy to continue... paint kept drying right on my brush and I had to leave for the end time meetup anyhow. I wasn't going to share this because it was in an awkward stage when I abandoned it but I sort of dig it now. It's a charming painting-drawing half-breed.

Sketchcrawl 23 (and then some)

This Sketchcrawl was held at San Francisco's Presidio and I definitely plan on returning there another day this summer for more painting when the weather is supposed to be nicer.

Below: Done in two sittings at Buena Vista Park in Haight-Ashbury. I had a rather peculiar run-in with a hammer-wielding junkie and thought it was probably best to finish this another day...

Above: Drawn while the stage was being set for a concert at Berkeley's Greek Theater.

Below: Same spread but with color added to the Alamo Square Park sketch on a second sitting.

Above & Below: These two spreads were done in front of the same cafe... I just drew different buildings. I may add color to the one below in another sitting. The top one was sort of a warm-up over breakfast.