Chorus concert doodles

Pirate organist

Today we got a special invitation from some good friends to see the third Pirates Of The Caribbean movie at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. It's an ancient theater, renovated to better than it was in the 1920s, no doubt, which is now owned by Disney so they art direct the heck out of it for the movies they show. Many of the original props from the movie decorate the lobby and several original costumes of many of the characters are on display for viewing after the show in a museum area downstairs. Before the show began an organist on stage dressed as a pirate played several Disney movie scores, ending with the Pirates score. It's a fabulous sounding organ that was all dressed up for the occasion too. I knew I had a limited time to sketch him after we were seated, because once he's done the entire organ and organist mechanically drop down below the stage as the lights dim. I just finished the sketch when this happened, which amused my son quite a bit. We went with a large group of friends and their kids. It was a lot of fun.

Sketching at the recital

My son had a music recital recently at his middle school, along with the rest of the students in his music class. It took a little while for things to start so I sketched, naturally. The top two are men in front of us -- each had a radically different profile. I liked the swirly hair of the kid sitting right in front of me, and the girl is Lily sitting next to me. She said, "Draw me like this," and she made a semi-sad, bored face and held the pose. I think she was protesting the pre-recital wait. As with everything she does it was brimming with humor, despite the attempted pathos.

View out the (old) office window

We've moved offices off the movie lot. This is the old view from my 3rd floor window -- a palm tree growing between buildings. The foreground mess is some air conditioning ducts on top of the offices across the way, the building directly behind the tree is the scoring stage where the musicians play and are recorded for the soundtrack of the movie, the yellow building is an apartment complex across the street from the studio. The move and some impending deadlines have made sketching and posting difficult lately, but most of that has passed (for now).

Lily at work

Just a quick sketch. I took Lily to work today. A friend instant-messaged her, so the two nine-year-olds had a very slow, funny conversation on-line. This is Lily waiting for the response from her friend. She didn't hold still for too much of this and was quickly off doing something else, leaving me only about a minute and a half to sketch her.