Public transportation in San Francisco is cause for many emotions. Whether it is issues with the bus system itself or just interesting exchanges with the variety of patrons that ride the bus, there are a lot of good stories out there. Friends Jeff and Tara are two of the people behind Muni Diaries where people can submit their tales livin’ the Muni lifestyle. I highly recommend the site. Anyway, Jeff and Tara just got married and I drew them a little card a while ago for the bridal shower. It was a quick little drawing, but they immediately contacted me for permission to put on their site for their wedding. I couldn’t have been more flattered.

Oh yeah, I should give credit to my wife for the idea of this card. It was a cute idea.

Congratulations you guys!

The yolk’s on you! Wah wah. Sorry. Illustration Friday’s topic this week is “Breakfast.” I entertained the idea of drawing bourbon and corn flakes, or maybe a nice Bloody Mary. In the end, I drew an egg and his peeps. Bon Appetit!

This weekend is the 2010 San Fancisco Silent Film Festival. I’ll be there, although to be honest I forget what I am seeing. There were so many options this year, including a very special showing of Metropolis.

David O’Daniel did some amazing posters for the event. Note the skulls amongst the gears! I may have to buy one of these myself. You can see more here.

Gallery Meltdown in Los Angeles will be having a pretty nifty “Law and Order” exhibit soon. “These are Their Stories” will run from July 24 to July 30, 2010. Each piece is an artist’s interpretation of the episode summary from the DirecTV program guide. I dig these kind of exhibitions and hopefully I can swing by and see this since I will be in LA that week. I love some of these artists, so should you be around, check it out. More information about the exhibit is right here!

Gallery Meltdown is located at 7522 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90046.

As usual, baseball isn’t exactly going my way this year. It could be worse and the season certainly isn’t over. While my wife was doing some mad yoga, I kept watch on our pooch in the other room and drew this with a brush pen and those trusty Microns. It was colored in Art Rage. I am a sucker for odd perspective and although this isn’t accurate in any sense, it was fun to draw. Now to go hit a game and see if my luck changes.

Click on the image for a larger version.

On my personal blog at Doubtful Guest I got all excited about Drawing Day 2010. Anything that promotes drawing is good in my book. If you want to depress me, start talking about schools cutting down on art programs. There are many forms of creative expression and it is easy to shy away from them or view them as not being practical. Drawing Day promotes drawing for everyone, just for a day, not to be judged, just to enjoy the process. Drawing day can be any day and if you missed it this year, there is always next year.

I am the first to admit that my drawing is simple here. I decided to use Drawing Day as an excuse to learn Art Rage and I have to say, I am impressed. It isn’t as full-featured as Painter, but wow is it more intuitive and easier to learn. Also, it’s crazy cheap.

Why a Scotsman you ask? I have no idea.

This week’s topic for Illustration Friday was “Slither.” For some reason I thought of a snake and a particular oil company. Go figure. I call this rough little doodad “You’re Welcome.”

Once upon a time, really not that long again ago, Mtv had some pretty groovy animation. It’s hard to imagine in this era of Jersey Shore that Mtv would support and release alternative cartoons, but they were pretty much the only place that even attempted to have a home for cartoons like Aeon Flux, The Maxx and Daria. It seems like today Mtv caters to one age demographic, but if you go back a little bit, you’ll see that not only did they program for one demographic, they programmed for different segments within that age demographic. You had your various shows, your popular stuff like Real World, but you also had shows for us pessimistic outsiders that didn’t really fit in. What is the equivalent today? Glee? Glee has outsiders getting together so that they can fit in as a group. Would Daria be in glee club? Not by choice. Glee is a Saturday Morning Special in comparison. Daria would have mocked it the same way she mocked all school activities, while at the same time trying to make a comfortable existence for herself. All the characters are interesting in Daria and no one is safe, but at the same time, each character is pretty interesting and there is more dimensionality in this cartoon than any character you will see on The Hills.

Then there was The Maxx, a superhero cartoon, but this isn’t your standard hero. You don’t know who the Maxx is, he doesn’t even know who he is. Is he schizophrenic? Does he really go to other worlds and see creatures from other worlds creep into our world? Maybe it’s all just in his head. You have to watch to find out. The drawing style is beautiful and the story is dark, crazy dark. The villain, Mr. Gone, is one heckuva villain. If you aren’t familiar with the Maxx, you should definitely check out more of Sam Keith’s creation in print. He is quite the artist. If you like Watchmen or Dark Knight, then check out The Maxx. I’ll probably write more about him later.

I’ll close with a typical line from Daria.

Lawndale Mascot: My head’s too big.

Daria: That’s ’cause it’s so full of dreams.

Who woulda thunk after all these years some lucky lady would succeed in taming a wolf like myself. I consider myself most fortunate to have met my match and we have a wonderful life together. I can’t remember a time when I have been happier.

For the wedding I did a couple drawings. The centerpiece is a drawing of Sonia, Homer and myself all decked-out for the event. Each print was placed on a small easel and it looked swell. I didn’t know what the dress looked like so I had to guess a little. As for me, I finally had an occasion to wear my 1939 double-breasted tux. Man, they sure knew their suits back then. I also did a drawing to help people find what table they were seated at.

I confess that I was a little nervous doing drawings for this event, but I think they came out ok and most disappeared by the end of the evening. Sonia has been a huge inspiration to me, so it was an honor to have these be a part of our day. We are a very happy couple and it meant a lot to share this event with such wonderful friends and family.

Oh and yes our dog was a part of the wedding and yes, he did wear a collar and bow-tie. Very dapper.