A little bit of scribbly ballpoint covered with Photoshop later. Violetta is looking a bit on the “bad girl” side on the bottom. Probably needs to be toned down. She’s a trickster, but she’s not evil. More like a Puck character. And I kind of like the little Hindi woman that appeared.

This is a continuation of the weird and random drawings of bears from before. I think I found him. Will be working on color, too.

The little gremlin on the left was drawn with my non-dominant left hand. Just to see what would happen.

I came across an old black and white photo on the internet while doing some research and pretty much stopped dead when I saw this gypsy girl showing off her dress. Here’s a quick sketch. She’s creepy but I can’t stop looking at the photo. She kind of has that quality of the twins from “The Shining” who themselves were based on a famous photo of twin girls by Diane Arbus. Kubrick and Arbus knew the inherent creepiness of little girls and symmetry.

On such a gloomy, wet day like today. He’s definitely part of Violetta’s world. Just a blip in the mind right now.

I’m an avid newspaper reader. Waking up early and perusing the articles and photographs every morning with a cup of coffee and a bowl of chunky oatmeal is bliss to me. I always go through the op/ed pages which include the editorial cartoons. And over time, I’ve discovered that the cartoons that stick out to me the most are those by Ann Telnaes.

What I love about her work is the perfect combination of her style that makes such great use of simple shapes and caricature, matched with her searing portrayal of issues that face our country. I think she’s pretty incredible. Her line quality and draftsmanship are inventive and superb, simple and precise. And her clever scenarios are full of bite, wit, and fiery satire. Indelibly, her cartoons leave a lasting impression on my mind.

Looking at her site, I discovered that I’m not alone. Ann has won the Pulitzer Prize for her work in editorial cartoons. Before cartooning, she worked at Disney as a designer, and is a graduate of Cal Arts.

Got to make it out to Enrico’s and Ronnie’s Sketchcrawl this past Saturday. I hadn’t attended a Sketchcrawl since number 2! Wow, long overdue for me, but it was great to be out there.

This crawl took place in Portsmouth Square in Chinatown of San Francisco, and it was a fantastic spot for characters and architecture. Check out the Sketchcrawl forums to see more work from artists all over the world who were all out sketching on the same day! It’s incredibly inspiring to see other people’s work, and knowing you’re part of a world-wide community of artists! Thanks to Enrico and Ronnie for organizing such a great phenomenon. Join us next time, wherever you are! They take place about every two months or so.

Hrag Vartanian who took the photo above wrote in his blog about the first year anniversary of the assassination of Hrant Dink. Hrag was the last person to interview Hrant before he was killed.

It’s a difficult thing. My background is fully ensconced in what this assassination represents. My Armenian family is from Istanbul, and left the country to flee a kind of persecution that is boiling under a seemingly placid surface, and rears its ugly head in tragic and violent moments like these.

I met Hrant Dink at an Armenian function in San Francisco a year before he was murdered and am outraged that his voice has been silenced. To speak up in Turkey can mean the signing of your own death warrant. But in remaining silent, you die a little each day, allowing the memory of your past to vanish into thin wisps of air.

Some kids waiting with us before a screening of Cloverfield. A PG-13 rating guaranteed having the early-teen set saturate the theater. I have never felt so old…

Good film. Definitely gave me the heebie-jeebies, which I love. Nice effects and full of tension and surprises. My one wish would be that “less is more,” which was lost a bit. But it’s still fun. Check it out.