Group Sketch in the Summer!

(... Grooooooouuuuup Sketch, For EVAH! does no one else get this stuck in their head?) I mostly wanted to call it Group Sketch because it sounded like Group Sex.

ANYWAY, yes, a group of us braved the gloomy weather on Saturday to draw at the Conservatory of Flowers. The last time some of us had been there was back in school, when we had to draw 50 flowers and 50 trees for homework. I think maybe that's the last time I had used the particular sketchpad I had brought, as I found some old drawings of pitcher plants inside it! It was fantastical to be inside the humid white glass building again, albeit overwhelming. Next time we might choose to paint in it, instead of draw. But it was a great challenge for everyone (even the seasoned pros) so, Win.


Golden Gate Park trees. Trees are hard. Perhaps I could have chosen to focus on a single leaf instead.









When it got too cold (I think Lenny got frostbite on his fingers, haha), we took refuge inside the Velo Rouge Cafe to draw old ladies singing jazz and rock improv songs about how it's ok to be queer. Also we drew each other.





Next Group Sketch coming soon! I'm thinking maybe the Oakland Zoo?

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Zombie Traci

I caught Teh Crud. Teh Brain Crud.

Sickness compromises my brain, Roommate bails me out

4 Sketchbook pages

Bandelier National Monument, NM - Longhouse










Taos Pueblo Cemetery, NM
















Brown Sugar Kitchen, Oakland


















My dirty hair, Everywhere

Updated portfolio, a.k.a. Send work my way!

Finally updated my online portfolio (and my resume, but I'm not posting that here). I've rearranged pre-existing stuff, added a gaming UI menu I did, added some illos in the Magazine category, and added a few pages from both my Sketch Blog and Sketchbook. I like this design a lot more; it's cleaner, simpler.

Let me know what you think. Click the "Portfolio-liolio" hyperlink in the sidebar, or go to: www.krop.com/tracihui
Thanks!

Experimenting with grey areas

This reminds me of this thing we used to do in drama class where we'd take vague dialogue and construct scenes by projecting various emotions onto them.

Although this conversation sorta actually happened, give or take a panel.

Emeryville Cove is for da boids

Did some East Bay sketching this Sunday, testing out a new pen. I forgot how nice it is to be specific in a drawing.

This is Eville Cove's bird refuge. For all the bird refugees. They come over 20-30 birds at a time, sitting on handmade rafts fashioned from bits of blown-out tires, so hungry – most haven't seen the sight of millet in days – driven out from their native home by bird oppressors, the anti-avian guerilla groups of Marin.

Anyway, at the Marina, I got us invited to a party hosted by the people who live in the boats. I would have gone, but the sun was setting, and it was hella windy. I stopped drawing not because I was done, but because I was too cold to stay there.
"Thanks for the invite guys, but I gotta go home!"
"No! We got food! And music!"
"I'm freezing!"
"We got blankets ..."

A comic journal page is in the works. IN MY MIND

Emo Storm Thoughts

It's not often you can walk and smoke in Oakland without being asked for a cigarette, or money. So you have to do it when no one in their right mind would be out, like 2am in a miserable wet gale. Recommended!

Thinking aloud: Should I swap out the text above for the text on the sketch journal page, which is crap and annoying to read?

Gossip Day

I thought about adding more of an explanation to this page, but decided I like it the way it is. For the time being.

Eventually you will notice that I am usually eating food, getting food, thinking about food, and/or drawing food ...

Tampocalypse 2011

James Jean's sketchbooks are works of art unto themselves.

I draw tampons in mine. What.
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Drew this one around the time drugstores stopped supplying o.b. tampons for several months, something about a problem with the distributor. That made no sense, but the end result was nothing but the hated Tampax, Kotex, and other such nonsense for a long-ass time. Boxes of o.b. were selling on eBay for $50. I was worried it might never return, although the fact that the empty spot in the Feminine Needs aisle stayed empty (rather than being filled up with other products) gave me hope.
Lucky for me, o.b.'s back on the shelves again. Just bought a box a few weeks ago. I almost didn't open it.