Tourists, Dancing and my Magical Water Elf

Thought I'd start off with a lovely Vancouver sunset.





So, I haven't been doing as many coloured and finished-looking drawings as I thought I would out here. I think that's probably because I'm seeing so many great things, there's barely enough time to draw it all.

Here are some tourists I drew in Gastown, the historical part of Vancouver. They're all snapping photos of the steam clock... which is pretty cool-looking, but surrounded by fanny packs and cameras seems a little corny. Anyhow...




And there was also this Blues and Chili festival happening a few days ago, so I checked that out with my sketchbook and drew some musicians and dancing people.







There were a few middle-aged couples who were really getting into the slow songs, which was fun to draw. People don't tend to dance like this much anymore.




And then there's the obligatory chubby lady. This seems to have become a signature of mine... hehe!



Also, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Ricky Nierva Character Design class last Friday at the Spark Animation Festival. (In case you don't know, Ricky has been at Pixar since 1997 and was most recently the Production Designer on "Up".) Only 20 people were able to go! He spoke about all sorts of interesting things, but I think this post is running awfully long as it is... I guess I'll just have to talk about it next week! I'll also let you know how the rest of the conference went, because there were a lot of interesting/inspiring presentations.

And now I leave you with my favorite stranger in Vancouver... this man who stands on skis and paddles around the shore. I don't know how often he's there, but I've seen him a few times. Maybe he's a magical water elf...?

Trees, Volleyball Players and the Roast Beef Sandwich of Champions

Trees on sunset beach! I don't ever draw trees and plants, so one afternoon I decided to sit down for a few hours and teach myself. The first few I started out with were horrendous so I thought I'd spare you the pain and show you the nicer ones. Vancouver is pretty much the best place to try drawing trees because ALL of them are interesting!








I did these one day where I sat on a bench on English Bay Beach and drew the volleyball players. They're very dedicated because I see them every day... all day long... 7 days a week. The thing about Vancouver is most people don't appear to have jobs. Maybe that's why there's so many Starbucks!






And in closing, I thought I'd share with you the coolest tomato I have seen... and also the best for sandwiches, because it's all flesh and very little juice! (re: no drippy sandwiches!!!) It's called a strawberry tomato (for obvious reasons) and I bought it at the overpriced yuppy farmer's market down the street for two dollars. And I made the roast beef sandwich of champions!