A Piece of My Mind Each Day. 06.04.2010

What's the general consensus on this style? Haven't done anything in a while in this style and am thinking maybe I should create more. Tell me what you think.

Naomi

15 Things a Designer Should Never Say on Artbistro

"ArtBistro asked several career designers: what should a designer never say?" They give some truly great advice. Many of the things a Designer should never say, we have already been guilty of. So I'm posting this article, which can save a lot of our fellow designers, especially if you're just starting out, some heartache (and headache)!

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

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