A Quiet Moment Amongst Friends

The Gentleman Lion

Drawing, pencil on paper, 5 x 8 inches, 2010

 

Over the weekend, I spent six hours watching basketball and drawing. I grabbed a magazine that was lying around my apartment and drew a lion's head that was part of the cover story. Then, instead of drawing a normal lion body, I drew the body of Arthur Conan Doyle, who was featured in another story.

UPDATE: I just realized that this drawing could easily be mistaken as a pictogram for a dandelion (Dandy + Lion). That's not what I was going for, I promise. 

Draw Your Favorite President

February 15th is Presidents Day, and to honor the occasion, I'm asking anyone who is interested to finish this drawing with the portrait of a president. You can see examples of a similar collaborative-drawing assignment here.

 

Participating is easy. Here's how to do it:

1. Click on the image (right click and download the image for a higher-resolution version)
2. Print the image
3. Add your favorite President via drawing, painting, photoshop, or any medium of your choosing (You needn't be a great artist. Bad art is welcome.)
4. Scan your presidential portrait
5. E-mail the finished portrait to aquietmoment@gmail.com

All submissions must be received by the end of the day, Friday, February 12th. DO IT!

UPDATE: Foreign citizens are welcome to draw a president from their home country. You'll probably want to scrub the flag and bald eagle. Also, Americans have never had a lady president, but your country may have. If you are drawing a female president, you'll want to white out the suit and tie.

The Cruelty of Children

Found items and doodles, mixed media, 2009

My friend Nathan L teaches middle school in New York and comes across all types of student doodles on a regular basis. Most of the doodles he finds are charming, but some of them can be nasty. Nathan recently found these two examples of mean-spirited notes on the floor of his classroom:

While I don't condone this anonymous attack on a fellow student, I decided to take a stab at improving the work. In my version, Stacy actually is a dinosaur who goes back to school and spooks the bullies. 

I'm not sure if this helps Stacy. Probably not, I really just felt like drawing a dinosaur. 

These dinosaur notes reminded me of another note found by my friend, Lila K, in an elementary school playground in Seattle. In this note, a young girl attacks her classmate Mia with a couple of harsh put-downs. 

 
In response to the note, I drew an unflattering portrait of the note's author. I hope my drawing teaches anyone considering writing a mean note a valuable lesson: What goes around comes around.

 

UPDATE: Nathan was recently the target of friendlier caricaturists at his school:

Why Are Things So Slow?

Doodle, digital color, 8 x 8 inches, 2010

 

Why are the blog updates coming so slowly, you ask? It's because some people have been very busy and they need time to think up new ideas so that everyone can have a lot of fun later on in the year. You see, if my friends and I just start posting stuff for the sake of posting stuff, it will dilute the blog. Do you know what dilute means? It means when you put too many ice cubes in your soda and it gets very cold, very fast, but then it starts to taste gross when you are only halfway through because the ice melted. 

I want this blog to be luke warm and potent. Stay tuned!

Make Your Own Low-Rent Handimals

Handimals, iPhone photos, digital paint, 250 x 350 pixels, 2009

A few weeks ago, during a quiet moment at work, I took a photo of my hand, added google-eyes, and sent it to my sister. My sister responded with her own modified hand photo, and ever since, we've been challenging each other to see who could come up with the best hand animals, or "handimals". 

Here is the entire collection. (Note: The man hands are mine and the lady hands are my sister's.)

   

   

    

   

    

   

After putting this collection together and naming it "The Handimals", I did an internet search and was disappointed to learn that there is a guy named Guido Daniele who has cornered the market on "handimals" with a bunch of fancy-ass, Las Vegas sideshow-style, painted hand animals. Apparently this guy has done ads for AT&T and is raking in the hand animal cash. Mr. Daniele needs to realize that he can't lord over this art form. Handimals are for all people and I am standing up to reclaim the name!

With that in mind, I encourage everyone to make their own handimals and send them to aquietmoment@gmail.com. I'll add your handimals to the collection as soon as I receive them and, little by little, we will build an army of handimals that will shock the world. 

Making a handimal couldn't be easier. Here's how you do it:

1. Move your hand around until you see the faint resemblance of an animal or an animal's face.
2. Take a digital photo of your hand while you can still see the animal (Note: If you lose the animal, return to step #1).
3. Import the hand photo into a digital art program like Photoshop, MS Paint, or any iPhone art app.
4. Add google-eyes and animal features such as horns, hair, or teeth (Hint: Don't add so many features that you completely obscure the hand!).
5. Attach the finished handimal file to an e-mail and send it to all of your friends with the subject line: "See, I told you my hand looked like a [insert animal name]!".
6. [Optional] Make a t-shirt featuring your handimal and sell it on the internet:

 

UPDATE: Seth L stepped up to bat and hit a home run with a vomiting handimal: 

 

Adventure at Fort Funston

Illustrated travel log, photographs, Google images, color, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Ryan A and I decided to explore Fort Funston on the southern end of San Francisco's Ocean Beach. Neither of us had been there before and we didn't have a clue about what to expect. 

Fort Funston was part of San Francisco's military coastal defense from 1900 until its decommission in 1963. Since then it's been a city park primarily used by dog walkers. Entering the park along the coast, we first noticed the massive cement remnants of the cliffside cannon turrets. The circular tracks that were used to aim the cannons have been discarded in the surf. 

From satellite you can see where the cannons used to point out at the sea. 

Farther down the beach, the punks and hippies had staked out their turf. Their graffiti will let future generations know that Fort Funston is a good place to do drugs. 

In the punk zone, everything doubled in size. The cliffs rose into the sky and there were cement pipes as big as jetliners. 

We crawled into one of the tunnel pipes. 

It was like being a coal miner, but instead of coal there was spray-paint and decomposing seaweed. 

No one on the beach knew where the tunnel went. One guy said that he heard from a friend that it went straight back into the cliff to an abandoned military base. He said that hippies and punks live back there and spend all day and night sitting on rusty metal benches drinking beer. Another guy on the beach said it was an overflow pipe that lead into the San Francisco sewer system. I don't know who to believe, but either way, it seems like a fun place to hang out. 

Here's the tunnel from above:

Past the tunnels, heading south, we began to hear the buzzing of remote controlled airplanes. Suddenly the sky was filled with toys, kites, and people in hang gliders. If we didn't keep our eyes open, a person in a hang glider would have landed on our heads.  

You can see one of the hang gliders via satellite:

We reached the end of the beach and hiked our way up the cliff and out of the park. The cliff path was steep, too steep for dogs.  

Fort Funston was a blast. If you are looking for a city park with old military debris, graffiti, giant pipes, people on drugs, dogs off leashes, and hang gliders, then this is the place for you!

Tic Tac Toe Cat

Doodle, ink on paper, 5 x 5 inches, 2009

 

My friend Peter F and I were recently playing a game of Tic Tac Toe when, in the middle of the game, we noticed a cat face looking up at us. We added some features to the cat so it would be easier to see.

This is different from a "cat's game". An actual cat face appeared in the middle of the game.

A Quiet Moment at the Beach

iPhone painting, 800 x 550 pixels, 2009

In this digital painting by Jake C, a man takes some time to unwind and watch the waves. I'm guessing this guy's wife and four step-kids don't even know about this secret spot on the beach. It's the perfect place to chill-out.

Jake is pushing iPhone art to new limits. The depth and shading are amazing. Nice work!

Stretch Your Neck Out There

I'm continuing my push for artworks that are created by (or transported via) mobile devices. If you have a fancy phone, it's super easy. I think phone art is interesting enough to look at for two minutes and it's also great filler for when I'm too busy or lazy to work on bigger projects. After Thanksgiving, I promise to roll out another collaborative assignment, but in the meantime, here is some more cellphone art:

Nico already sent in a few photos, and today he e-mailed this doodle of a long-necked fellow in a trench coat and a fancy hat.

 

Anna U sent in a digital drawing of a squirrel that has been startled by an earthworm. 

 

Lila K snapped some fish eggs in a blue bowl.

 

And yesterday at work I drew a Nordic guy with a distorted face and a pine tree air-freshener.

Sarah Palin Pun

Fake book cover, photoshop, 350 x 600 pixels, 2009

 

Do you get it?