Sketchbook Number Fifty-Eight – 11 December 2010 to 30 June 2011

The Front Cover of Sketchbook No. 58, about 8 1/2" x 11"

I finished another sketchbook. A little faster than the last one, which is in some ways good. I’ve posted a few sketchbook 58 images earlier: L.A. Regional Bike!Bike! and San Francisco and my nephew’s graduation. I did a lot of sketching on the San Francisco trip, and that got me on a roll drawing more.

Below are a few excerpts from the book. These are some of the better drawings (there’s plenty of unsuccessful ones, too) – ones I haven’t posted already – shown in chronological order.

Page one of Sketchbook 58 - watercolor and pen - December 2010

Here’s the first page – in pen and watercolor. The writing for the finished date was written by my friend Michael (son of my friend Mark) at the Novel Cafe earlier this week.

Man listening to presentation - 16 February 2011

I like this drawing, done when I showed up early before a talk I gave at TreePeople.

Face/head sketches - February 2011

Here’s a page of mostly face sketches, just tooling around with different styles. The two faces in the middle left, with the thought balloon that says “We’re so negative”, are done in the negative space of the profile.

Man drooling - May 2011

This is one of the more completed drawings in the book, done shortly after the SF Trip. I think it turned out well, sort of man as lustful gorilla. The oddball thing (that works ok) is that the face is in profile, and the body is more in three-quarters view.

sketches waiting for and on the bus - May 2011

Sketches from the bus stop, then on the bus. After SF, I did a lot more sketching just wherever I happened to be.

People at Los Angeles Eco-Village Monday Night meeting - 23 May 2011

One of my many drawings done at meetings at Los Angeles Eco-Village, where I live.

Gravestones at Evergreen Cemetery, Boyle Heights - 29 May 2011

Working on planned CicLAvia expansion in Boyle Heights, I got to check out Evergreen Cemetery – located between First Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue along Evergreen Avenue. It’s a very old cemetery (for the west coast of the U.S., I guess), where various prominent 1800s Los Angeles families, early mayors, etc. are buried. There are Japanese and black sections of the site… and just lots of great old fancy gravestones. My drawing isn’t all that incredible (compare to Mike Mignola’s), but I liked it. I wrote out the inscription

L.A. River in Frogtown - 3 June 2011

Here’s an L.A. River landscape drawing – in pen and ink with color pencil. Read L.A. Creek Freak for my L.A. River writings, and check out my book Down by the Los Angeles River for more river stuff and lots of river drawings.

And if you’ve gotten this far, you might want to check out my earlier Sketchbooks numbers 57 and 56.