'The Love Box' ?

Last week was spent on a business trip working at a trade show booth in Las Vegas.
I've been there numerous times both on business and on pleasure trips and still can't get over how surreal the place is.
Although I was really tired from working everyday, I still had to get the room sketch out of the way before I could really rest. After 8 years of drawing every hotel room I stayed in, it's almost engraved in me to get the sketch done. It does feel good after completing it though.

Out of the items that stood out in the room, 'The love box' was a small black box on sale along with other things such as snacks and drinks. I was curious on what was inside but was scared to touch it since all these items on display were on a weight sensor and touching it causes the item to be charged to the room.
The room was a little dated but was fairly nice.

Quick weekend in NYC

My wife wanted to go see a musical with her friend so we drove in later Friday night and drove back Sunday morning - a real quick trip. It's been a good 6 months since we last visited New York City so it was nice to visit.

Saturday was a bid windy but sunny and my urge to want to sketch was much stronger than going to see the musical - so I hung around the 42 st/ time square area for a few hours. The first 2 sketches were from Bryant Park - a small but beautiful park right behind the public library.

Warm up sketches of the NYPD car, 3 recycling bins and a statue.




2nd sketch is looking at the back of the public library facing the east side. They had a really nice comfortable rocking chair perfect for sketching. While sketching, I had a small conversation with a man cleaning the park that came over and complimented my sketch. He also mentioned that I should go draw Times Square and if I could do that, I would then be really good!




I took up the challenge and walked over to times square :)


It felt funny walking around times square looking for a subject to sketch. There's just so much going on in this place that it's just an overload of information. I just picked a spot and started to sketch the buildings looking North of Broadway and 7th Ave. In the beginning, it was pretty boring and uninspiring. After a while I noticed 'Naked Cowboy' walking around - a muscular guy in underwear, cowboy boots playing a guitar. He was quite popular with girls/ woman of all ages having pictures taken with him. Then I noticed there were more Naked Cowboys and a few Naked Cowgirls too - the guy had started a franchise! Clever.
There were tons of other people in various costumes too - Elmo, Mickey, Minnie, Buzz Light year, Dora, Spider Man, Iron Man etc... you name it, they were here. Being in times square for an hour was more than enough for me - I was exhausted.

That night we went back to my fathers place in New Jersey and went to an all you can eat Korean BBQ place. Since he lives in a town with one of the highest Korean populations in the US, the quality of Korean food in restaurants is absolutely amazing. This place had an amazing Kalbi BBQ and was hard to believe that it was all you can eat for a fixed price.


I personally like the Kalbi shown in #2 where they would cut it off of the bone as a long meat rather than the #1 where there are smaller pieces of the bone left inide. Once cooked, the server would come over at a perfect timing to cut the meat in perfect sizes using a scissor.

We were stuffed. It was a fun trip!

Samurai exhibition @ MFA (Boston) starts tomorrow!

Since I'm a member of the museum, the other night I was able to take a sneak preview at the Samurai exhibition starting tomorrow at the Museum of Fine Arts.  http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/samurai

This was by far the largest and the most impressive exhibition I had ever seen.
The 2 hours I was there surely wasn't enough time and I plan on heading back to capture more artifacts.

My very first Solo Exhibition in Boston!

I'm super excited to announce my very first solo art exhibition in my hometown Boston!
My work was selected at Gallery 263's curatorial proposal series and I'll be showing 80+ original Hotel drawings I've done over the past 8 years.

If you're ever in town (or better yet during the reception) it would be great if you can stop on by!

Rendered Rooms - Hotel rooms drawn on location by measuring

On view: March 14–April 6, 2013
Reception: Saturday, March 16, 5-7 PM
Gallery hours: Th/F, 1-6 PM; S/Su, 12-5pm
www.gallery263.com

Press Release 1
Press Release 2


Sample images of what will be shown.

It's hard to tell from this scene but Pen Pen our cat would usually sleep by my wife's feet. In the morning my wife would rotate and twist around 180 degrees so she could go cuddle and sleep with Pen Pen. This is the scene I would usually see in the morning when I'm preparing to go to work.
This year I had president's day off from work so I finally got my opportunity to sketch my favorite scene.

T-Rex Restaurant

This was probably one of the places I enjoyed the most while I was in Florida for a few days.
It was a restaurant called T-Rex in downtown Disney - a dinosaur themed restaurant and every 20 minutes there would be a meteor shower projected on the ceiling and the dinosaurs would start to move and roar.
The drink I ordered was called a Coronarita - a Frozen Margarita with a full bottle of Corona beer placed in the drink upside down. What a drink!! Sketching dinosaurs while having a mega frozen cocktail is like a dream come true! :)

Disney - Beach Club Hotel

I don't travel on business as much as I used to in the past but recently went out to Florida to attend a conference for a few days. Strange, but I expected Florida to be really warm so 60º F (15º C) felt really cold when I was out there. I'm back in Massachusetts right now and the temperature is 15º F (-9º C)  which actually doesn't feel that cold! (Because I expect this place to be really cold!)

The room felt a little dated but I liked the little Disney themes happening throughout the room - especially with the Jiminy Cricket illustrations used for the evacuation map and the Mickey Lamp which casted a beard like shadow!

Skeleton sketches

December 31st morning - with a few hours to spare for myself, I ran out to the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Boston. It's a fairly small building but the displays are packed.

Skeletons are quite fun to sketch!

Moose, Sheep, Deer:




The Hominoidea: Humans and its relatives



The Great Moa, Dodo bird and the Great Auk - all birds hunted to extinction.
 

Instruments & Mahakala Sculpture @ MFA

It was the end of the year winter break and I took a quick morning visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
It was cold and raining really hard and thought the museum would be quite empty but it was packed with people, lots of people from out of town. I jumped into the first room near the main entrance filled with old/ rare instruments from all over the world.
 
Here's the Lyre Guitar from France, Treble Guitar from Portugal and a digital harp from England. Since I love playing the ukulele, I loved seeing the Treble guitar which is what eventually turned into the ukulele when it was introduced to Hawaii.




This colorful harp was an exact replica of an Irish harp made in 1734. The original was displayed next to this model but was really beat up and just dark brown.




Here's a trumpet from Tibet and Zither from India.

All of the displayed instruments were quite fascinating and I wish I could have listened to a sample of what it would sound like.


After having a quick bite to eat, I wrapped up the day with 2 more sketches of Mahakala sculpture from Tibet.

Front view:




Back view:
I loved the back view of this even more.
The thing he's stretching is a flat 'elephant' and he also has 2 feet hanging from his butt which I thought was quite comical.

British Automobiles in Boston

Here's a number of British cars sketched during the winter break at the Larz Anderson Auto museum here in Boston. These cars were some of the popular models that were imported into America after WWII displayed at this exhibition titled "Britain can make it".

I liked how the mannequins were standing next to the cars wearing the fashion of it's times.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

 
1950 Rover 475 Cyclops

   
1947 HRG 1100 

 
Triumph 

 
1954 Jaguar XK120 

 
1958 MGA Coupe Supercharged
 
 
1950 Jaguar Mark V 

 
Bentley 

Sculptures @ MFA (Boston)

2 months ago I became a member of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have come here already about 5,6 times to sketch especially on days that are cold or raining. I like this place and usually come with an open mind, walk around, and sketch whatever interests me at that time.
This day the theme seemed to be 'Sculptures'.

1st one was the Kneeling Knight from Spain (1600's)
Very powerful room setting with the stained glass in the background.

 

Not really a 'Sculpture' but a Burial Urn from Mesoamerica.
There were a few of these some what fun large sized Burial urn's.

 

Here's Ganesha from Northern India in 11th Century




Amida Buddha from Japan (1737)
   

The last one was Aizen Myoo from Japan 14th Century.
The sculpture was very lowly lit and was quite scary.
   

Happy Holidays everyone! 

Indian Motorcycles @ Springfield Museum

Not many people know about this hidden gem but about 1-1/2hours west of Boston is a city called Springfield, and they have an amazing Museum comprised of 5 Museums in 1 location! 1 of the Museum is called the Museum of Springfield History and they displayed a few dozen Indian Motorcycles which were produced in this city from 1901 until going bankrupt in 1953. Pretty amazing motorcycles and they were recently acquired by Polaris Industries.

Indian Sport Scout drawn in basic perspective

Indian Chief with Side car – a little more forced perspective.

Indian Military model – drawn in complete forced perspective. I really liked how dramatic this one came out.

Indian V-Twin – a little forced perspective. This one’s a hybrid motorcycle/ bicycle.

Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra @ Norwood Theatre

My home town theatre had been going through restoration for the past 2 years and reopened this summer in celebration of the 85th anniversary. Since I've live in this town less than 2 years this was the first time stepping inside to see URO - Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra. I've never heard of the band before but quickly found out that this giant 10 vocalist rock band performs tons 70's British Rock song hits - and they sure did. They played hits from Queen, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin and much more.
The stage side seats weren't the best seat to see the show but this 1st row seat was a great seat for sketching! I was drinking my beer, singing along with all their songs and sketching a double page spread. It was a fun night.


(A photo my wife took of me in front of the theatre and of me sketching the stage details during intermission.)

 By miked

Higgins Armory Museum

Every once in a while I wake up in the morning with a strong urge in wanting to sketch something particular. I’ve had dinosaurs, large mammal skeletons (whales), classic cars and this time around it was Armory. Online searching lead me to a place an hour west from Boston called the Higgins Armory museum - listed as the “only museum in the Western Hemisphere that is solely devoted to arms and armor.” I was excited and quickly headed out.

The free-standing glass and steel frame structure could be spotted from miles away and it was considered to be the first of its type to be built in the United States. The 4 story building was packed with armory from all over the world with a wide selection that was medieval and Renaissance Europe.

The day was a Sunday and their hours were very short so I needed to get all of my armory sketching cravings out of the way in 3 hours.

The 1st two were the two knights that were staged fighting each other. Forced perspective is something I’ve been enjoying recently so I tried a little bit of that here too.


Since I had no idea what I was sketching, finding a disassemble figure with descriptions called out really helped me out.



A large center display on the 3rd floor consisted of two figures on horses jousting each other. This one was a fun sketch looking up and sketching the knight and the horse.



Here’s a very decorative figure with colorful fabric clothing.



3 figures shown here from the left are from the Netherlands, England and Switzerland in the 1600’s. I like how each country had different approaches to aesthetics and functionally.



By this time I was starting to get exhausted and started head to the 1st floor and found this huge armor with really scary looking pointy attachments on the feet.

And next to the figure was a cute little dog with chain/ plate armor was sketched to wrap up the day.

3 hours exact – I was physically and mentally wiped out but felt really good since all of my armory sketching cravings were accomplished!

Tug boat @ Mystic Connecticut

Tug boat @ Mystic, a photo by mike__d on Flickr.