I forgot to post these before...tell me what you think!

Camarillo Figure Artists Meetup 11.04.2010

I've been wanting to go for a while, but we finally made it this past week. It was great. The model was lovely and the drawing group was great and quite diverse. We will be going again this week. It's located at Blue Sky Art which used to be Los Primeros Elementary on Ventura Blvd. If you're in the 805 area and are interested, here's the link for the meetup: http://www.meetup.com/Camarillo-Figure-Artists/

The first three red ones are Carlos's and the rest are mine (Naomi). Have a great weekend!

A Piece of My Mind 06.12.2010

I am busy putting inspiration up in the studio. Found some old life drawings from Foundation Year at Otis, so I had Carlos help me tack them up! We're going to go through his drawings from school soon, too, so it's not just my stuff up. Other inspirational things, illustrations I saved from annuals and magazines, pictures, etc., will be going up soon, too.

Starting on a new illustration of CJ.

As we were packing for our move about 2 months ago now, I noticed that I had a lot of drawings and artwork of Alyssa when she was about CJ's age. I only had a couple of drawings of him. He asked me why I was always drawing her and not him. I had no good answer for him. So this is the start to even the score. :) Much more to come.

A Piece of My Mind Each Day. 01-08-10

Happy Friday everyone! Here is my piece for today. Sketched at the Camarillo Adolfo Ranch House on my morning break. I am left with the thought I had after I finished my break..."I need to start sketching again!" Here's the first sketch of the year. Enjoy.

A Piece of My Mind Each Day. 01-06-10

Inspired by Amanda Blake and etsy, I've decided to do something "a day." Amanda is a very talented artist who is creating a drawing a day. I had a little trouble deciding what I'd want to do everyday, and what I am actually capable of finishing every day at this point in my life. Finally, I've come up with "A Piece of My Mind Each Day." Since my mind's a little chaotic and all over the place, yet still pretty focused, I think this commitment to a daily post will be good insight to what's goin on in my noggin. This will entail a drawing, or sketch, painting, collage, or if nothing new is going on in my head, progress on a current piece. As long as there's something art related I'm doing every day, I will have reached my goal. Today, I'm posting vector icons of mer-kittens I did for a friend. These were fun to do, too!

Naomi

2nd Stop on the Art Tour: The Staples Center in Downtown LA

The Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles. We are going to the Margarito vs. Moseley fight on Saturday night. It is going to be a blast! We go to many a fight throughout the year-and meet up with our many friends from maxboxing.com. Hopefully I'll get a good amount of time to sketch people and the arena, as it is our second stop. I'll do what I can and post it here, of course. Who are we going for in the fight? Here's a hint:

ART TOUR CAMARILLO! 01.18.09

OK-like I said earlier about our first stop, good gage for where we are right now, and where we need to go. Here's what we came up with. We'll start with Carlos. He was definitely looking for quality and not quantity. He worked on a tree in Dizdar Park, in Camarillo.


Below is the actual texture of the tree, which we'll use for reference at some point. It was very hard and rough-not something I'd like to fall into!Now onto my sketches. These were done very quickly, in between buying fruits and veggies at the Farmer's Market.

The singer, who was very good btw. He was singing a lot of Johnny Cash, and well, and I liked him a lot.
Some weird onion squash type vegetables that I thought looked interesting...These buckets were next too some delicious apples that we bought. I wish I had these at home. they were very iconic of the market to me.

We took my son to get a haircut at Hank's Barber Shop. He loves getting his hair cut, so he sat still like a perfect angel, falling asleep.
More haircut sketches. Carlos got his haircut at the same time, though I made him look a little weird. It's been a while since I did any drawings of him so cut me some slack!


Next ones are my sketches from Dizdar Park. Below is a sketch I did of St. Mary Magdalene's. This chapel belonged to the original Camarillo Family who used to own this land. This is my favorite sketch from Saturday. This was my view from the picnic table at Dizdar Park.


And I had to draw that same tree that Carlos was drawing, from a distance, and he's the little red smudge at the bottom left.

Some photos:


This just looked very Americana to me, with the mountains, the flag, and the vintage worn Liquor sign. This was across the street from Dizdar Park.

That's it for the first stop! Please stay tuned for next week! We'll be in Downtown LA for the Margarito vs Moseley Fight. Not sure how much time we'll actually have to sketch, but I am bringing my sketch book, and we will probably hit a bar before the fight. And there are always interesting things to draw in Downtown Los Angeles.

N

Illustration Friday Topic: Pale

I don't know her story, maybe you can come up with a good one. This drawing started off as a version of Snow White, but then I didn't feel like making her hair black or her lips blood red. I think I was channeling my inspiration from some of Jasmine Becket-Griffith's recent color schemes. I really like the soft ethereal effect on this. I think I may use it again.

Also, if you are an Illustrator from Illustration Friday, please view the post before this--we are starting a personal art tour this year, and I really respect all the Illustrators on the site, and would love your input on our idea.

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

N

The Beenznrice Art Tour: First Stop--Camarillo

What is the Beenznrice Art Tour you say? With a fair amount of traveling done last year (well, more than previous years, hopefully it's an ongoing trend), I noticed that we did have much to show for it, art-wise, even photo-wise. I thought, well that's a shame, considering that we are illustrators and that art should be right at the forefront, but truth be told, last year was more about the 9-5 keeping the money flow steady and even, which is fine for a while, but we are ready to reach new heights in our passions and career. We are starting a tour, inspired by music tours, or rock tours, all across the country, where they go and perform, essentially perfecting their craft. I thought, well why can't we have the same mentality? When we travel, honestly, it's usually because there's a boxing match, or a band's playing or we're taking a family trip, etc. I started asking myself, what would happen if we started taking trips (this is not a family trip btw, that is too hectic for what we are trying to do) specifically to create art? The places that we would be traveling to would have been specifically chosen to inspire and have great landscapes, or historical still lifes, etc. An example that's been frustrating me lately is that we take a good amount of trips to Vegas to go see fights (go Pacquiao!) and I've always wanted to visit Calico, the old mining ghostown in Yermo, CA. The bad thing is, whenever we get to that point, we are too tired from partying the weekend before! I want to have sketches of a famed ghost town when we come back and not just a headache from dehydration and sleep deprivation.

So this is what we are proposing, and we will be posting our travels and sketches, paintings, photos from them. We will be touring the state of California this year (and hopefully some other states, Vegas will definitely be one of them), with the goal of art and honing our craft in mind. First stop, and actually any weekend we are unable to go very far, it will be local, this weekend, is Camarillo! Because of course, the best place to start is where you are. I've already done some sketches last year at the Adolfo Camarillo Ranch House, and I kind of stopped because of the cold weather and other factors, but I'm starting up again. Here is a sketch I did behind my day job, just another corporate business park on Flynn Rd. Quite a nice pathway though:

And tomorrow, we are going to the Farmer's Market, where I'll be taking reference photos and getting some sketching done. The Camarillo Farmer's Market is probably one of the best ones I've been to; because the farms are all in Camarillo (and some in nearby places like Somis and Oxnard), the produce is so fresh and fairly inexpensive. You can also find some specialty produce like Blood Oranges and Japanese cucumbers, for cheaper than you'd find at the grocery store, and much tastier. It's a great place to sketch and just to visit if you ever get the time.
The information for the Camarillo Farmer's Market can be found here: www.camarillohospice.org/farmersmarket.html

More posts of sketches and photos from our first stop on the tour!

Naomi

Inspiration

I want to start bringing my sketchbook everywhere I go again and actually drawing something from everywhere I am---like I used to. Boredom was my glory time, and it still should be. I just randomly looked up good places to draw and I got this blog, artist Nick Abadzis, which was exactly what I needed to both see and read. Enjoy!

www.firstsecondbooks.com/authors/nickAbadzisBlog01.html