I recently did some traveling, and when I do, I always take my sketchbook with me. I pulled it out last week while waiting for my plane in Philadelphia and started to draw those around me in the waiting area. I chose to focus on some heads that were interesting to me at the time. What do you suppose all these people were doing that would cause them all to be posing in a similar fashion?
Airports always provide an interesting array of subjects to draw. Jury duty is a close second.
If you guessed “hair sniffing,” you would be wrong. They are all checking out their mobile phones, of course! If they happened to look up at all, they were probably perplexed as to why I had a book in my lap. Some of us still prefer to remain unplugged.
It has been awhile since I have posted anything. I have been wandering the country seeking new opportunities and connecting with old friends. Of course, I always take my sketchbook with me because you never know when inspiration will strike. It struck in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.
While waiting for a flight, I found a nice cozy spot near a TSA checkpoint and proceeded to break out a pen to document the wonders that lay before me. There were so many to choose from, which made it difficult to concentrate on any one subject. However arduous the task, I managed to plow through and came up with this page of life drawing doodles.
Only two people on this page were passengers walking through the airport – the rest were airport/airline employees.
You stay classy Dallas airport.
Of course, now that I’ve posted these, I will likely be targeted for the full search every time I fly. Sigh.
Yesterday word started fluttering about Facebook amongst film music fans that Ken Thorne passed away. Ken’s name may not be well known outside of film score aficionados or die hard film buffs, but his contribution is no less important, and he couldn’t have been a nicer guy.
I only had the opportunity to meet Ken once. He attended the Fans of Film Music event back in 2011 where he sat on a panel of great composers such as Brad Fiedel, David Newman, Brian Tyler, Nicholas Pike, Christopher Young, and Lee Holdridge. At 87, the elder statesman of the group not only charmed the audience with his gentlemanly ways, but he also charmed his fellow panelists.
Ken Thorne, taken during the 2011 Fans of Film Music event at Dark Delicacies in Burbank, CA.
Since you were wondering, Ken’s contribution to film began in 1948 with British fare that later included Help! starring 4 lads from Liverpool which later led to his work on Head, a movie starring the Beatles influenced band The Monkees (a film co-written by Jack Nicholson no less). He could do comedy like Alan Arkin’s Inspector Clouseau, he was a master at adaptation taking John Williams’ themes to build new scores for Christopher Reeve’s Superman II and Superman III, and he could do action with Tom Selleck’s 1980s film Lassiter. Somewhere along the line (1967) he managed to win an Oscar for his work on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
That day I met Ken, I sat in the audience caricaturing each of the panelists. This drawing of Ken was posted back then along with the other panelists (which you can revisit by clicking here), and I thought I’d share it once again here today.
Seek out Ken’s work. You’ll find a treat waiting for you!
At 87, Ken Thorne was the eldest of the composers on the panel, and also was the only one with an Oscar which he won in 1967 for his work on the movie “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum.”
It has been awhile since I last shared with you a drawing from my travels through Eastern Europe last November. How about a little music from the locals?
While traveling aboard the river boat, once in awhile after dinner they would bring folks on board from wherever we were docked to entertain or enlighten us in the local traditions and customs. I believe it was when we were in Croatia that they invited a local band who performed some traditional tunes, as well as some more modern songs with their old school methods. The guys were a lot of fun interjecting a lot of personality into their performance. I took a few photos this being the best one:
Three of the five singers who joined us on board our ship. While they knew people were taking pictures, they probably didn’t realize that I was drawing pictures, too.
I also created a few sketches of the band while they performed, this being the best one:
I try to always make my subjects look as dignified as possible.
On the second day of my trip to Eastern Europe a couple of weeks ago, I was able to tour the ancient town of Constanța (for you Seinfeld fans, it’s pronounced Costanza). Back in the time of Jesus Christ, it was known as Tomis where the Roman poet Ovid was exiled. (You all remember good ol’ Ovid, right?) Located on The Black Sea, Constanța is the fourth largest port in Europe, and it also is where the canal that leads to the Danube is located.
The town seemed fairly crammed together. While most everything looked pretty old, now and then you’d see something built in the 1950s squeezed between things built in the 1700s or earlier. Then you walk into a building, look down and see a mosaic street built by the ancient Romans (discovered when they built some apartments in the ’50s).
A large part of the charm of the area was seeing some of the people who live there. We stopped on the steps of Constanța’s local cathedral listening to our tour guide, when a couple of local ladies walked up and were just as curious about us as we were of them. Through our guide who knew the local language, we were able to ask questions about life there.
This one lady who was in her 80s really caught my eye. She had so much personality about her, that I did a few sketches based on the photos I took that day. I did one that was a bit more serious than I usually work, and the other is a more cartoony version of her. Enjoy!
The church lady. Isn’t she special!
The Romanian church lady should she ever star in her own animated show.
My recent trip to Eastern Europe was a river cruise tour with the Grand Circle company. (Do I get a discount on my next trip for mentioning you GC?) These tours make international travel easy because when you book your trip, they make all the arrangements: flight, meals, accommodations, and guided tours at stops along the way.
This type of travel results in being a very social experience. You are on board a ship with 150 or so other people for two weeks. In my case, it was with 150 people who were mostly 30 or more years older than I. You get to meet many single ladies, all of whom are widowed octogenarians. One woman asked me how old I was. I replied, “Young enough that I had to take time off from work to come on this trip.”
In all seriousness, I do enjoy talking with folks older than I. They have so many stories to tell filled with wisdom, humor, and life experience. When you are trapped on a ship, you have the time to hear EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of those stories.
You also have time to draw those around you. During travel time on the Danube, I would often sit in the ship’s lounge with a hot cup of coffee and pick out interesting people to sketch. Once word got around the ship that I was a cartoonist, folks wanted to look at my sketchbook. One lady saw my sketches of the other guests and said, “Please don’t draw me.”
So, below are a few of the 150 I travelled with. More travel drawings to come in the days ahead!
The lady in the lower right I nicknamed “Cruella de Vil” because not only did her look remind me of the dalmatian diva, but her behavior on the boat was pretty atrocious. It’s a good thing pets were not allowed.
I just returned from a trip to Eastern Europe where I had an amazing time touring parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Hungary. Naturally, I took along a sketchbook hoping to capture some of the people I encountered on my journey. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share with you some of my observations that found their way onto its pages.
First up are some faces seen on my 9+ hour flight from Los Angeles to Amsterdam on November 10. I flew on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines which, despite the name, was not very royal. Nothing was covered in gold, the seats were not lined with ermine, and there was no discernible trumpet fanfare when I entered the plane. Maybe you have to be Dutch to experience that part of the airline’s name. Had I read the fine print, I would have learned that in actuality, KLM stands for “Kramp Legs Much”.
That being said, I had a pretty good view of the lavatory line. With the exception of the smiling stewardess, these are the faces of international travelers awaiting international relief.
If the fella in front of me hadn’t put his seat back onto me, I might have had more drawings of desperate faces after one of the lavatories went out of service. Good times.
I dropped by the barber shop this past weekend with a sketchbook under my arm. Barber shops are always populated with a cross section of ages and personalities that make for an interesting time. The regulars carry on conversations and offer unsolicited opinions on just about any topic. The newer guys sit and listen participating only with facial expressions. You never know how long you will have to wait on a Saturday morning, so why not capture these moments with a pencil?
I go to Arenas’ Barber Shop on Victory Boulevard in good ol’ Burbank, CA. The shop is run by second generation barber siblings Denise and Steve Arenas whose pop got them going down the path of hair manipulation many years before. They used to work in the hair salon on the Disney Studio lot for years until current management starting eliminating some of the family atmosphere of the employment experience there, and forced out the Arenas along with other follicle folks.
Ten years ago Denise took over an old time barber shop run by an old timer named Chuck (I used to go to him, too), fixed up the joint and created a fun atmosphere for parting parts and taming tresses.
Denise will cut any hair no matter how much or how little you have.
So, the next time you get your hair cut, look around and take it all in. There are few experiences in life where complete strangers can all be the best of friends for an hour while waiting their turn for a trim before walking out the door into harsh, cold anonymity once again.
