Noon time Dance at UCLA

I went to see my friends Sandra and Shyamala of Post Natyam perform with a number of other dancers at a noon time dance program at UCLA. I drew these watercolor sketches while watching.

Aashish Khan Sarod and Swapan Choudhury Tabla

I went to a Music Circle concert to see Aashish Khan play Sarod with Swapan Choudhury on Tabla and David Goodheim on Tanpura. I love these concerts. I can't say enough in words to describe how much fun it was. I just sat there with a goofy grin until it felt like my mouth was going to drop off. I also did some painting. For one of them, I decided to try and draw it all in with pencil first. I guess one should bring an eraser...but I did without. Accuracy is not really the point here. Most of what I've been doing of late, or really for a while has been straight watercolor or straight ink and watercolor so there's no erasing anyway. It's a good way to try and train myself to make those first marks the right ones. The tree is from just outside the chapel where the concert took place. It was a quick sketch done before they let everyone in. Lastly, my friend Robin Sukhadia took some photos during the performance, and a few were of me :). Thanks!

Sufi Soul

My mom had video taped a show off of Pakistan Television called Sufi Soul which features sufi musicians from all over Pakistan (including Qawwals like Meher and Seher Ali as well as other singers of the verses of saints like Saeen Zahoor) who perform live in an intimate setting. I can watch that show for hours. Here are some sketches I threw together while I did just that. The watercolor is from a skit comedy show.

Abida Parveen - Tu Han Sakhi, Mai Han Pyasi

Abida Parveen is a Pakistani singer whom I've wanted to sketch for a while, but could not pull off anything I was willing to post until tonight. She is known for singing the poetry of many Sufi Saints from all over Pakistan and India in a number of languages. Her singing is beautiful and the poetry she chooses equally so. I'd like to share translations of this type of poetry more in the future, but for now a taste.(poetry by Bulleh Shah with translated subtitles)Kithe Mehr AliDamadam Mast Qalandar (traditional Sindhi song about Lal Shahbaz Qalander with mention of Jhulelal)Mahi Yaar Di GharoliTo me, many of these songs are mysteries to be unravelled. Names and titles mentioned in this poetry is often the starting point of discovering where the song came from and what the social context is, though the meanings tend to be universal themes. The context simply makes it that much more rich.

Children's Folk Dance 1

Last weekend my friend Alina told me there were a whole bunch of little kids dressed in traditional clothes about to put on a dance performance in front of a small Mexican resturaunt around the corner from her. That was enough for me. I grabbed my sketchbook and joined her. I did several pages of pencil drawings. I'll upload them as I get around to coloring them. I want to try a few different methods for computer coloring on these since I never really do that. Here's the first.

Pandit Arun Dravid

I attended a beautiful morning concert of Indian Classical Vocal Music of Pandit Arun Dravid of the Jaipur Gharana. It was a small house concert out in Arcadia. The people were really friendly and I have a lot of respect for those who do what they can to keep the arts alive, simply for the love of it. My thanks to Shobha Dravid Ji for accomodating me at the last minute and to the host family for opening their home to us and allowing people to enjoy such a rare treat!

Jose Reynoso and Jin-Sook Yang

Checked out dance performances by Jose Reynoso and Jin-Sook Yang. I did a lots of gestures to try and capture their quick movements.

Descanso Landscape

Here's a watercolor I did based off a photo I took at Descanso Gardens.

Almost Random Faces

Some faces culled from my sketchbook.

Good Hurt

Went to a club called Good Hurt, just down the street. Hung out with some friends and did a few sketches too.

My pal Alina, the Ice Cream Monster

I did this caricature of Alina as revenge for all her misdeeds. That's all she's got online, but you should see my poor sketchbook she destroyed with evil drawings. It's too painful for me to scan. So I did some quick doodles in pencil, scanned them, hacked them together in photoshop and added some color. I wasn't trying to clean it up. The final image was always intended to be the watercolor. I like the pencil one best. The face kind of changed by the time I got it to the watercolor. I haven't had as much time to paint and draw lately, but I want to try and spend a bit more time on the ones I do, just to more consciously work towards improving.

Below you can see some of the quick sketches I did to figure out how I'd approach this.

Now if I can only get photoes of Cholki and Mark...

Descanso Gardens 2

A painting I started at Descanso Gardens and finished up at home. Usually when I paint something like this I do a lot of pushing and pulling. I build up real slow and just keep pushing things back and other forward and hope that when it's all done, something decent comes out of it.

Descanso Gardens

Went to Descanso Gardens with a group of friends for some drawing, painting, photography and goofing around.

Here's a quick pen sketch I did while someone else pretending to draw trees was not.

Baba

Quick watercolor...didn't quite pull it off, but managed to do some things with color.

Chinese New Year

Went to check out the Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown here in Los Angeles. The company was great, but the parade was a bit underwhelming. I wish I'd some drawings of the tiny kids performing traditional dances before the parade. They were quite amazing and cute. Too bad they weren't in the parade.

Street Dancer

Painted this based off a thumbnail pose I drew at dance performance a few months back. Been busy lately working on my short. The thumbnails shown were drawn in the dark. Hard to draw when you can't see the paper...gotta work on that. You can see where it becomes completely dark in the progression of poses.

Huntington Gardens Sketches

Went to the Huntington Gardens, took lots of photoes and did some pen sketches.

Greene and Greene 2

More based off Greene and Greene's architecture in Pasadena.

Getty Center and Work

Went to the Getty Center and listened to some blowhards use big words to describe art. Then I saw a short performance of Indian Classical music (the reason I was there) which was a lot of fun. Also threw in a sketch from my desk at work. Good way to rest your eyes from staring at a computer.

Greene and Greene

Took some photoes of houses designed in the Arts and Crafts Style by Greene and Greene, up in Pasadena. Working on suggesting more detail, rather than drawing it in. This is the first watercolor off of these photoes I took.