Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
It's good to be home, but Loki sure doesn't make it convenient. Cat, I have work to do.
Still, I guess you're going to do you.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Loki, in my lap as I type this (likely because, right now, I'm not letting him sit on my recently-filled-in whiteboard desk) and Loki, eating with his feet in his food bowl, because ... ?????
It's late, and I anticipated a cat would end up in my lap, so just a quick sketch for you. This is Mom, from a photograph back in the day - this is actually the photo we used for her funeral. We think the photograph was colorized and retouched, which was the style back in the day.
Interestingly, the photo was so blurry due to movement that I had to retroject the cleaned sketch back onto the notebook page, which I think turned out pretty well, though you can see a bit of the blurriness left in the notebook page texture. (Update: hit post too soon, thanks to cat, fixed now).
-the Centaur
Another Photoshop study, this one based on a doorway on College Street in Oakland.
So many wonderful shapes and patterns present themselves to us every day, but if we don't stop to look around once in a while, we might miss it.
-the Centaur
Another Photoshop study based on some of Sandi's art, which we finally got around to hanging after the renovations. Fun fact: both the lion and the wall are Sandi's (a sculpture, and a faux).
-the Centaur
P.S. The original is below ....
Ya know, I could render this better, but, it's 3 in the morning, so, I'm not.
Enjoy another Goldman study.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
I'd gotten out of the habit of doing these quasi-comic style art pieces based on photographs, but I've taken a few really good candidate pictures with the right layout for it, so I hope to get back into doing that. This is a picture of one of Sandi's art pieces she completed this weekend at Silicon Valley Open Studios, and it will now be on display at Kaleid Gallery in San Jose. Neat fact: this little guy is actually a cabinet!
Still, he's a little guy.
-the Centaur
Pictured: One of Sandi's sculpture cabinets, to be on display at the Kaleid Gallery.
Digging through my photos, looking for things I had forgotten to blog, I found some nice pictures of some cherry blossoms, and decided to Photoshop-rendition them into an illustration.
Please enjoy this bonus illustration!
-the Centaur
Pictured: Um, I said it already, cherry blossoms, seen through a window, then Photoshopped. This is about 8 layers of perspective tweaks, color / tone / contrast adjustments, filters, masks and layer effects.
Long day helping clean up after Silicon Valley Open Studios and taking art to Kaleid, so here's a quick sketch of Jeremiah, based on a drawing of Jeremiah that happened to be sitting near me, after I had mostly assembled the furniture which goes in my new home-away-from-home office out in California:
You can barely see her next to the chair there, but it's the same drawing I have used for a variety of JW things, including the upcoming Jeremiah Willstone audio dramas:
Still, kind of appropriate that a character whose catchphrase is "Quick, now" (and who complained about her author reducing her strategies down to just the quick-strike) would be rendered in a quick sketch.
Drawing every day, even if I am shy of time.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Quick sketch of Jeremiah, with a little photoshoppery to jazz up the red scribbles around the Kathodenstrahl pistols, and my new home office, plus some of Sandi's sculptural furniture - believe it or not, the freaky egg thing is a combination hatrack / cupboard / jewelry case.
Well, that's a wrap for Silicon Valley Open Studios. After-action report will have to wait - it's late and I'm tired.
This was our celebratory meal from Craft Roots, though - almost identical to the one I failed to take a picture of a few days ago (yes, we went to Craft Roots just three days apart, it's that good).
-the Centaur
Pictured: Sandi's brochures on an unfinished table, and a meal at Craft Roots.
"No, it's not Master Strange, or Mister Strange, but Doctor Strange!" It still cracks me up that Dr. Strange's actual name is, like, Doctor Strange. "So, Stephen, what do you want to do when you grow up?" "Imma gonna be a doctor!" "Great!" "And then become a wizard superhero!" "You run along, Stevie."
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
1 
A brief one, as I have Silicon Valley Open Studios AND consulting work to do today, but a comment one of my wife's friends made once was "there's nothing so confused as a vegan at a vegan restaurant" ... because normally they have NO options or ONE option, but now have ALL the options.
I dunno, to me, it seems like a good place to be.
-the Centaur
Pictured: My wife at Craft Roots, a vegan bar and grill in Morgan Hill that we love a lot.
Not pictured: the meal, other than the buffalo cauliflower - I forgot to let my phone eat first.
Also not pictured: the dog which came BARRELLING past us, tied to a clanging metal chair that was chasing it down the street (AAA! AAA! Angry metal thing is following me AND I CAN'T GET AWAY!) I caught her by the leash (just as unleashed a load of pee, how fun) and my wife grabbed her and calmed her down until the owners, panting, ran up - apparently the male owner had tied the dog's leash to his chair, but the chair moved or fell over when he stood up, and the dog, scared, took off, the chair in hot pursuit.
Good doggie, though. Reminded me of my old dog Lady, from back in the days we didn't have portable phones capable of taking frequent pet pictures.
Cue "It's Happening" meme: Silicon Valley Open Studios is this weekend, May 18th and 19th, where my wife Sandi Billingsley will be showing off both her paintings and mixed media including furniture!
Our friend Diane, a glass artist, dropped in to help us manage the day, bringing snacks and champagne!
Sandi has a lot of artwork and furniture on display today, including some very nice large-format art. Above you can see "Kirsten Piig" and "Jim Dairy" from Sandi's "Animals are People Too" series, and one of the geode tables (along with Diane on the left, Sandi on the right, and my toe at the bottom); on the other side is "Missy Elephant" and several of Sandi's other pieces with custom art boards made to look like stone:
Another room has more pieces and some works in progress:
Below you can see "Collie Parton", "Yeti White" and another striking geode table:
This is an open studio, so several of Sandi's in-process pieces are prominently on display, like this bar and chairs set (and also the finished art "Moo Paul" and "Mllama"):
In the back room, this enormous piece is going to be a conch-shaped day bed:
It is so big that Sandi's actually going to partially take it apart and make the top into a removable cabinet:
Not because it can't fit through the door or anything. Not at all. Sandi also let me have a space to display my books, since we needed to find a place to put that bookcase (which I designed and built, I'm proud to say). The giant egg creature is actually one of Sandi's furniture pieces - a hat cabinet!
At the back there is the final geode table, which I think I showed yesterday ... oh, no I didn't, here you go:
We will be here working on art today and tomorrow from 11-5, so please come on by!
-the Centaur
Day 139, still going through Goldman's drawing techniques section. Again I appear to have hit the (admittedly foreshortened, yet barely visible) thumb with a hammer. But, it's a good exercise. For example, the texturing technique I used for the grey background got a little misaligned in the bottom middle, creating an apparent discontinuity where it should be continuous (and making the pipe or stick the back hand is resting on less visible in my drawing, though it wasn't too easy to see in the original).
Drawing on average every day; scheduling posts to go up once a day if I can.
-the Centaur
Contrary to yesterday's post, which was done after midnight so it fooled me about what day it was, TODAY is one day left to Silicon Valley Open Studios, where my wife Sandi Billingsley will be showing off both her paintings and mixed media including furniture, like the geode table above.
Below is one of my wife's pieces, Marylin Thumbtoe, from a series combining animals and celebrities into surreal combinations, like ... Marilyn Thumbtoe.
Perhaps the work should speak for itself.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Yes, I know, after midnight is the next day according to the calendar, but I count days as over when I go to bed, unless for some reason I pull an all nighter, so a 1am post is technically the previous day. I don't always hold to that, but for the purposes of the blog series, that makes the most sense.
More sketches from Wizard - How To Draw: Basic Training. I was curious about what happened to Wizard, and it apparently imploded with the big move to the Internet - just like many Internet publications imploded with the move to regurgitated garbage hidden behind sociopathic paywalls. But I'm not bitter.
Drawing, on average, every day.
-the Centaur
Just two more days to Silicon Valley Open Studios where my wife Sandi Billingsley will be showing off both her paintings and mixed media including furniture. Can't photo yet, we are currently scrambling to get the place fixed up, so let me present representative samples from South Carolina (not on display here).
These three, however, will definitely be on display!
Most of this art, even the large furniture pieces, are made from recycled materials such as paper and reclaimed wood, which I think is very cool.
Please come check it out!
-the Centaur
Pictured: One of the frames I helped assemble today, and some of Sandi's furniture.
Even thought this illustration in Goldman was designed to show off the viewfinder idea, it is useful for my "drawing every day" purposes because it has an unchosen subject that requires new rendering techniques. Getting the texture of the viewfinder right is tedious, and it looks like I took a hammer to this guy's thumb on the left. But it came out kinda nice regardless, and stretched my drawing muscles.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
The cleaned version of what I posted yesterday.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
... so here's a sunset dinner from a month or two ago that I thought was beautiful. Enjoy!
-the Centaur
Pictured: the patio of La Parrilla restaurant in Greenville at sunset, along with one of their excellent La Parrilla house margaritas - the best drink on the menu, actually, even though it is the house drink.
Mixing in some comics-style illustrations based on Wizard How to Draw Basic Training ...
Drawing, on average, every day; posting every day that I can.
-the Centaur