Its been awhile since I last updated and I think it would be appropriate to use this entry to wrap up summer.  I'm a bit in disbelief that school is going to begin on monday for me T_T....

SO...We went to Disneyland..

Me and a couple friends road tripped to Disneyland during late July.  It was literally Disney ALL the way to Anaheim and ALL the way back to the bay area...so we were listening, singing, laughing about disney music the whole time x__x.



YMCA epic-ness!!!  (probably the picture that highlighted our trip)

Twas fun.  Good times.

SF Wushu BBQ Bonanza!

And...a couple days ago the sf wushu group finally got together for a bbq.  It took about 4 hours to prep and cook all the food x__x...I was there at 10am to help out and we ate at around 2:30ish, haha.......it was crazy, but well worth it. 



Witnessing Jared's Burning Inferno!



A pair of the most sexiest chickens I've ever laid my eyes on....breast to breast in an endless dance of steamy ecstasy :)



I know what you're thinking....we dress totally different, right?...



Glorious...glorious bbq ribs...







LOOK at ALL that YELLOW! haha



Fenton's in Oakland :)





Someone Took an incriminating picture of me finshing off my Guilty Pleasure >__>;;;...lol.

Last Works of the Summer

These are probably the last sketchbook works of the summer.  And my final free zoo day until winter break :(



Mandrill studies - I love this species of baboon because of their vibrant facial coloration, plus...they have pretty gnarly fangs hehe.



Mandrill portrait - I guess I was so inspired by sketching the mandrills at the zoo that I wanted to dive into a portrait painting afterwards.  Although it was from a photo, it helped me get out of my painting funk since I haven't been painting with acrylics for so long.



Pagoda at Stowe Lake - I like how this one overall turned out...probably because of how the shadows the trees really accent the pagoda itself.



Japanese Tea Garden Entrance - Probably not the best sketch since I screwed up a bit on the perspective, but it was a decent attempt.  Twas pretty complex.



Samurai Armor of Domaru Gosuko - Me and a couple friends made a trip to check out the Samurai exhibit at the Asian Art Museum.  It was pretty interesting, though I thought there would be a lot more to see......but I have to admit, the samurai armor were very impressive and complex...especially this one which caught my eye with the dragon ornament on top of the helmet.



Sharpei Portrait - Another acrylic painting I worked on for fun.  I've always loved this breed of dog :)



Clash of the Titans

A project that my friend asked me to do for him. He wanted a charcoal drawing with a dragon, great roc, and a tiger all in one composition. I actually had fun working on this one, but did a good amount of research and reference searching beforehand. For example, the dragon was tricky because it is a creature from imagination/myth...so I looked at images of crocodile heads, eagle talons, deer antlers, and bearded dragon scales for reference. The turbulent water was also tricky to capture and I still need some practice...but overall, it turned out decent.

By the way, sorry about the photo, it definitely doesn't do justice to the actual 18x24 drawing :/.




Winged Qilin - My last charcoal drawing of the Summer...and a gift for a friend :)

That will be all. Agh...Summer went by TOO fast :/

-Kevan

I think its time to update...

Painting Here and there...



Golden Gate Park



Weird fountain structure in Sf. I painted this one from a photo though, but i was good practice.



Alcatraz



Tidbits of Union Square

Free Zoo Trip..

Another free trip to the zoo...I'm so glad to be an sf resident :) haha...



Kangaroo Studies



Polar Bear Studies



I didn't paint this at the zoo...but I thought a portrait would be nice to pair with my spectacled bear sketches

Other Stuff...



I found a nice black and white photo and thought it would be interesting to paint it. I should make a point to paint some models though :/



For fun...kinda x__x



Portrait for fun...

-Kevan

I haven't really produced anything that great lately....I've got to try to step it up a notch :/



"OH SNAP!"



"HURRY!!!"

Two illustrations I did for fun which were inspired by two of my plein air studies I worked on a week ago.



Some people I sketched at the mall...In some way I kinda like how this one turned out, *shrug*...



Seal Rock

Another Plein air study. I'm not sure about you guys, but to me...blue green looks like grey to me :/.....

-Kevan

Gosh, I can't believe this will be my third week of summer...and some people haven't even started yet, haha.  It has been productive for the most part, however...I kind of wish I could dedicate more time to wushu practice (I'm getting pretty pretty rusty -__-...).  My heel still hurts after bruising it three weeks ago......I wonder if I should go see my acupuncturist, but its such a hassle going down to chinatown :/. 

The good news is that the hongdao carpet has been laid out once again, and we finally have established a new location :).  Hopefully we can get hongdao practices up and running again soon....



Photo courtesy of Steven Huynh
From this view...the place actually looks humongous, haha.

Anyways...for the past week, I was only able to go out to sketch once and that was to the SF zoo.  It was a free day that Wednesday for sf residents, so I decided to go with a couple friends of mine.  Here are a couple studies that I came out with.



Giant Anteater and Prairie Dogs
I'm liking the anteater sketch on the top left, but the others are kinda...meh :/



Gestural Rhinos



Giraffe Study
This guy was a perfect model :)



"Exposed Lion"
Probably one of the more unusual poses of the day, haha.  This guy was lying on his back with legs spread a part on the bottom of the enclosure's moat, haha.  So...I sketched him from above :).

And...today I attended my sister's high school graduation.  I didn't come out with the best sketches....but they're...decent enough......kinda :/



School of the Arts Class of '09 Graduation Ceremony
Inside Herbst Theater......I didn't want to pay attention to too much detail, just wanted to get the gist of it.



Dance Performer Gestures
A couple gestures from the graduation's dance performance.  The performer performed very well...it was dynamic, dramatic, expressive, and very heartfelt.  This was quite a challenge for me because my gesture drawing still needs some work.....and dancers only give you a second or two to gesture them out, haha....



Some People...
The celebration afterwards was a bit too crowded for my taste...so I went outside the building to sketch some people.

-Kevan

My second year of college has been completed...and summer is here :) !

Now its time to dedicate these couple months to painting and sketchbook work.



Color Rendering

I apologize for the quality of the photo...its making certain objects look more blury than they're supposed to. 

Battling color blindness is no easy task, but I'm surprised at how my rendering turned out. There are probably some weird color choices....but I can't really tell unfortunately :/.



Rendering Monster Doodle

Spawned through tiresome nights of rendering, emerges the RENDERING MONSTER! haha....I doodled this random creation during my last days of color rendering :/

Plein Air Painting

After taking my illustration painting class, I realized that I really need to start practicing painting outside, so for the past couple days, I've been going to golden gate park to paint with gouache. I'm slowly getting accustomed to the medium, but there are still things that need improvement. I can't get the atmospheric perspective that I want in these paintings :/.









On my second trip to golden gate park, I found these one day old ducklings!  They were so small and fluffy....i had to take a picture of them, haha.



Outdoor-sy paintin....along the waterfall around stowe lake

Alright, thats all for now.  Happy summer to all :)

-Kevan