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“After Life” Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda

A couple of days I came across this movie and I have just started to watch it. I wanted to share it here since it seems to be related to the first post entered in this blog.

While the movie is not about art per se, I feel it may place some perspective in your life, and the actions that are taken from day to day.

The name of the movie is After Life the premise of the story is as follows:

After death, you get to choose one memory, and only one memory of everything you experienced in life, all the other memories will be forgotten. You are given three days to decide what to select, then a movie gets created out of that memory before you get to move on.

While I have not finished the movie as of this writing, I must say that the first 20 minutes that I have watched are already quite interesting and thought provoking… thought provoking because I too started to think what would be the best memory I could possibly keep if I was in that situation, and again what other opportunities lie ahead of us that could potentially replace whatever memory we choose to select in this instant.

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Art Materials

It has been about eight months since I started sketching more regularly. When I was a little kid I used to draw a lot, I think all kids do, then at some point the activity decreased. I do recall drawing on the corners of books and making little animations, although I do not recall exactly when. I will leave the story of how I got started for another post.

I wanted to share with you the materials I have collected so far these past months, some of them are recent acquisitions.

When I was starting I liked to see what materials others were using, (still do) as a matter of fact some of the items you see here are what other artists use. I will go more in depth in future posts about each of the items.

Right now I am concentrating on pencil sketches/drawings, and watercolor, I will also try out charcoal, we shall see how that goes.

In the mean time if you know of any other cool additions please let me know.

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Sunny San Francisco

It sure was nice to be in San Francisco on Tuesday, it was a very nice and sunny day.

Took a quick trip to the Coit tower, and decided to take the time to practice some more artmaking.

Below is a watercolor of the coit tower.

I also started this sketch, but stopped after a while… too many buildings and not enough time.

There is a restaurant on the corner of Union and Grant called Cafe DeStijl, I have gone past it but never eaten there (It appears the location is under new ownership). I typically just get water/soda, today however I decided to try their smoked salmon with avocado sandwich.. it was excellent!!! Below is a cellphone picture of the half-eaten sandwich, figured better take a picture before its completely eaten.

For those that are wondering, here are the ingredients: smoked salmon, avocado, sprouts, tomatoes and capers on foccacia, served with green beans and carrots.

All in all, it was a productive day all around.

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Linnea in Monet’s Garden

I must tell you about this short animated film I watched a couple of days ago. It is such a great and simple story that I am sure will captivate the minds of young artists.

The name of the film is Linnea in Monet’s Garden. 

It is the story of a young girl who loves Claude Monet garden paintings, she has a neighbor who appreciates art. They get to travel to France and visit the Marmottan and Giverny.

I am seriously thinking to purchase a copy for my nephews, It was a great way to spend 30 minutes. If you get a chance check it out, or rent it from Netflix.

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Watercolor trials

I would like to share the following watercolor with you. Like many of you, I hesitated at the thought of sharing my beginner attempts, however since this site’s purpose is to chronicle creative discovery here it is.

The ocean color is too purple, at first I thought hmm its not dark enough, and a couple of seconds later after I applied more color, I realized it was too dark and no way to fix it, purple it is, but I proceeded with the painting, simply because with watercolor there is so much to learn, plus its more training to get past the fear of not getting it right 🙂

Which reminds me, if you have not had the chance to listen to Sir Ken Robinson TED talk, I suggest you do so… he mentions so many things that can quite literary change one’s perception of art and creativity. Related to this post is the mention of children not being afraid of making mistakes, unlike the rest of us that as we get older may have accumulated a few fears.

Therefore, below I share my second water color landscape/purple seascape, in the hopes that those of you that have gotten past this stage may have some tips, and those of you that have yet to get here can see that it is OK to not always get it right, and most important that sharing our trials is good for the community in general, as it gives courage to those just beginning.

This and the other were painted on a watercolor moleskin, with Niji water-brushes.

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Comet San, Heidi and Hayao Miyazaki

What shows did you watch when you were a kid?

When I was a little kid one of my favorites shows was “Señorita Cometa” A japanese program dubbed into Spanish, I really liked the little dragon.

The reason why I mentioned this, is because aside of this show, I used to watch a cartoon with my sister. Heidi, Girl of the Alps.

So here we are many years later and I recently found out that Hayao Miyazaki worked on scene design and layout for this show.

Hayao Miyazaki has been one of our recent discoveries. Initially encountered the name when I was researching sketching/animation information (he is highly admired by many artists), so we decided to rent a movie or two and now we know why.

Just a few days ago we watched Porco Rosso, it was great. If you ever get a chance rent some of his movies, they are excellent.

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Self Talk

Just had to share this with you. I’m sure some of you may have already realized this, and/or maybe read the same book (don’t remember the name at the moment – still at the store).

It made a mention of the self talk that we put ourselves through when we sketch. We think (using some of my own here 🙂 ), “there is no way that the arm can be that long” or “the head is too large” etc, etc. If I recall correctly the book suggested that instead of having that type of conversation with one self, we should be thinking something like “this angle should be like this” or “the distance between this eye and the other eye is this much” etc. I mentioned that to my wife and I heard laughter of agreement.

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