My Reward

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My reward for this horrible, hectic week is this post. A

Awake at 4:30am - 2 hour commute - 10 hours of design rat-race - 2 hour commute home... for the past 2 weeks. Yeah, I know, nobody likes a complainer.

I'm gonna go draw the back of somebody's head.

A hair fetish.

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If you ride the MAX train and have dandruff, sebboreah, or psoriosis... I probably know.

Keeping tabs on commuters.

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Some people call it stalking, others just call it creepy. I call it "observation".

A hodge-podge mish-mash

A 'mish-mash' of sketches from various pages in my sketchbook.

A few notes:
The Dark shapeless blob looks cooler in person than it does on the scan... All textured and moody...(Likewise, I am more interesting than I appear on this blog)

I draw the back of too many heads...I know.

The skull wasn't drawn because I secretly want to draw comics or "ink a tat"... Or whatever.. I didn't draw it because I'm a dark person...into witches and barbarians....I drew it because there was a teenage boy in the train seat right next to me... I knew he was watching me draw... And, I admit it... I wanted to draw something a 15 year old would think was cool. Not another sketch of somebody's head.

Lastly, the explanation for the penguin - It's a flight-less, Antarctic sea bird.

Secret dispatches from the eye of the storm.

I haven't been posting onto the blog. But I have been sketching.
Work get crazy occasionally, and I need to put my distractions back on the shelf... which is fine, as long as I remember to get them back out as soon as the dust settles!
The dust hasn't settled. I have, however, decided that I will sketch and post when nobody is looking... and at the moment, the coast is clear.
So, if you don't tell my creative director, my wife, my kids or my Boston Terrier, I'll try to send out these messages in bottles from the midst of the storm.

Ken
Reporting from a squall

The People on the Bus go....

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I think I drew the back of this guy's head before... or somebody that own the same jacket. I cant seem to land on a style that makes me happy. Then I start thinking about it while I draw... then the whole thing turns into a muddy... scribbly mess. I know what I like. But I think I'm going to list it out analytically with citations and examples... A sketch manifesto if you will... maybe that will get me back on track. I'll publish it here on the blog, and you all can say you remember the day that Ken went completely Bonkers.

Click this picture for a closer look.

The Rock and Roll Hall of fame on my train car! I was doodling like I do... trying to draw without looking like I was drawing...looking for the characters in the crowd... only after I was done filling out the page did I notice that the guy on the top looked a little like U-2 guitarist "The Edge",
The Emo girl in the middle looks like shock-rocker Marilyn Manson.
The guy on the bottom sorta looks like "The Boss" Bruce Springsteen. I don't know who the guy on the left looks like... bet he should consider rhinoplasty.

Catch-up sketches

I need to get better at uploading the things I sketch. It really is the bottleneck in the blogging process. These were done on the train. I think I need to do more stationary drawing.

centerfold

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New rules -
Start drawing when I get on the train, and don't stop until I reach my destination, no stopping, no re-starts.
Or: 45 minutes of graphite chaos.
This ended up a little sketchy, but here are some good things about it; it's an accurate panorama drawn from life. Every seat, hinge and bolt were drawn from observation, in public (I'm a shy public drawer), and it is a 2 page spread. in my hand made sketchbook, with a dull #2 ticonderoga pencil.

The back of his head.

Click on the picture for a closer look.

It's hard to sketch on the train. The loco-motion, cramped seating all conspiring against me. Not to mention the lousy mechanical... I know, I know. Just grab a real pencil Ken.
Then I feel like a creep staring at strangers... they probably think I'm a pervert or something.
And then... before you finish, the "victim" of your sketch, gets off the train....
Oh then there are the people looking over my shoulder... silently critiquing my work. I know they are. I would.

You gotta restart somewhere.

Yup, you gotta restart somewhere. Why not the back of this dude's head. It's what I was looking at during my light rail commute this morning.

I stopped my sketch-blog a while ago, and now I feel like I need to start it up again. The back of this guy's prickly melon gets to be the first. I kinda got lost in the minute details of his bulky snowboard jacket.