Nautical Inspiration

17 Aug 11

One of the benefits of being an artist is the fact that I get to make my own schedule… most of the time. That can be both a bad thing and a good thing. Good thing is the freedom it affords me. Bad thing is the fact I tend to be spontaneous and impulsive. This sort of lifestyle requires good time management and work ethic. Here’s an example, yesterday, I suddenly had this urge to go sailing. Well, renting a sailboat at this time isn’t exactly within my means. I mean, I have my keel boat certification and all, so that means I can take out anything up to 25 feet long, but the cost to rent one was a little more then I wanted to pay. So I settled for a whale watching cruise. Only cost me $15 (I had a coupon) plus $8 for parking. I’ve also wanted to take some new reference photos for a body of work centered on nautical life. Figured I’d try for some shots of sea birds first. So why didn't i go yesterday? Mainly because I felt some other things needed to be finished first before I go running off on what amounts to be a mini vacation. Basically, if I allowed myself to just run off every time I have a whim, I'd never get anything done. So I decided if I completed a reasonable set of goals yesterday, then I'd basically "earn" my trip today. Goals complete, Off on my trip!

I love being on, in, and around the ocean, so I was one happy dude today. Really needed to get-away too, even if it was for just a couple hours. Being that it was a Tuesday, there weren’t many people on the cruise, so it was good day all around.

I slapped together a quick video of my trip. It’s my first attempt at making a video so take it easy on me:

I got a few good shots I plan on seeing if I can use in new drawings, so stay tuned to see what comes of them =).

Good Sunday... Bad Sunday

1700 hours. Home. 


Welome to "The Art of Life".


This, our first episode (at least in this blog... every day is an episode for me), we find our stoic hero... avoiding doing anything constructive... trying to teach a young dog a new trick that doesn't involve vomiting... and casually pondering a problem that has plagued artists since the dawn of time! 


Soooo tired. Woke up yesterday at around 4 in the afternoon and I haven’t slept since. Been pulling a lot of long hours trying to get as much work done as I can. Why? Well, my boat isn’t going to buy itself! Hehe, more on that another time. Decided to take the day off basically. Kinda didn’t have a choice actually. Lack of sleep has made my brain cottage cheese so trying to get anything done was probably going to end up being counterproductive anyway. So I called up my buddy Jason and we took our dogs to the dog beach in Long Beach. Sam apparently still hasn’t figured out that salt water is not for drinking. So he’d gulp some sea water, then come running back to his water bowl that I brought for him and guzzle lots of fresh water, then repeat the process over and over again. Poor guy, when he got home, he peed for like a good 2 minutes. In so many things, he’s a really smart dog, but in some things… I swear, a pigeon learns faster than he does.  Jason’s dog Leia is like the perfect dog, course she’s about 6 years old and well trained. Sam is still like a drunk monkey on acid. *sigh* puppies…

 Dog Beach. Long Beach California. If you don't like dog's, dont come here.

Water, water everywhere. But nary a drop to drink... but that doesn't mean he isnt going to try though! BAAAARF!!!... again.

Sam seems to have that whole "Fetch" thing down pretty good... Mostly.

And now on to the crappy part of my day. On the way back from the beach, I got a ticket for speeding. I wanted to argue with the female highway patrol officer that I was doing 75 like everyone else on the freeway. Had i been doing the speed limit, my vehicle would soon become an obstruction to traffic. The California vehicle code clearly states that ones motor vehicle must always be operated in as safe a manner as possible. It further states that should a vehicle drive in a manner that causes more then 4 other vehicles to have to slow or alter driving direction, that vehicle could then be considered an obstruction to traffic and the driver susceptible to a ticket. Therefore, traveling at 75mph (the same rate of speed as all other traffic around me) was the safest way to operate my vehicle. It's the same concept as that idea that one must match the speed of traffic on the freeway before merging onto said freeway, otherwise you are a danger to the flow of traffic..... but i didn't. I'm pretty sure my words would have been met with a blank stare and a terse "Sign here" and that would have been the end of it. *sigh* C'est la vie.

Moving right along here... So my current plan is to stay up as long as I can (which from the way my eyelids keep getting heavier and heavier, isn’t going to be much longer) and try to get back on a “normal” schedule… whatever that is.

So, like I’ve said before, I’m liking the whole doing art on the iPad thing. My buddy Ben in Oregon told me that digital art is the way to go these days and suggest that the best way to market that kind of work is by selling limited run giclee prints… sounds great, but I think I need more places to sell them. One of my biggest shortcomings is that I can do the work well, but when it comes to marketing it, I suck like hoover industrial vac! Any suggestions?

All I've had to eat today was a Baguette sandwich from Mr. Baguette Sandwich shop in Rosemead. I think i'm hungry but i'm too tired to tell. Eh, off to bed!

I know it's been a while but a lot has happened since last i posted. Let’s see... I've started an exporting business selling stuff to china (yes china, their economy is booming and they love all things American... funny enough, just nor Americans).  It’s amazing how much time and effort has to be put into all the logistics and stuff for a project like this. Knew it was coming, just whining a little =) . I might be starting part time as an artist at a tattoo shop in Pasadena Ca. soon. So, in trying to get all those thing rolling, I’m still trying to finish a couple bodies of gallery works and have some sort of semblance of a social life (though I think this last part might be failing a little, price of ambition sometimes I guess).

So I’ve taken to doing more art on my iPad. I think I like working like this since it’s opened up the world of color digital painting to me. *** Special note: Thanks Anjii for the Waccom stylus for the ipad, best damn tool in the whole freakin world! *** For those of you just joining our program, our intrepid hero has a slight case of colorblindness so doing artwork in color can be an issue.  But here is my most recent attempt:

I purchased a few apps but I think I’m liking sketchbook pro the most for painting (which is the app I used to create the above work) and Inkpad for vector drawings and stuff. All the apps I’ve downloaded have been either free or under $10. When you compare the fact that photoshop and illustrator are hundreds of dollars, it’s not a bad deal. Of course you don’t get the functionality of those programs, but you do get portability, which was exactly what I wanted.

So I still have a ton of photos from china that have yet to sort and upload, but it is on my to do list, so stay tuned! =)