GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Drawings

  • Another encouragement to make your website.

    I’m part of a small group on Post.news who posts old work under the hashtag #SundayShare. This was going to be my suggestion for a “lunar new years resolution”…until the tragedy at Monterey park. I still think it’s worth sharing, so I posted it today.

    ~

    In 2008, I planted a flag on the interwebs with www.grizzlypear.com. (We came up with the name as a twist on our bunnies Badger and Peppercorn.)

    I quickly lost interest in the webcomic, but now I had a domain to build upon. It morphed into the repository of my random contributions scattered across various forums.

    Even though #PostCreative / #CreativeCollective is going strong right now, who knows how things will go?

    Let this new-new year will be the one when you start your own site. Build a library that stands apart from these social media bazaars that come and go.

    Your place might have few visitors, but you’re the only one that counts. Maybe you be digging into for next week’s #SundayShare in 2033.

    If you don’t know where to start, I recommend getting the domain name on Hover.com which I’ve really enjoyed using. I don’t know which web-host is best, but I’ve been using the cheapest plan on Hostgator for a decade with WordPress for my blog engine.

    Alt Text: A black and white ink drawing of two rabbits in a rectangular vaguely urban landscape with two rabbits hopping down the street towards the vanishing point. The dot pattern for the sunset was added on the computer and I still can’t decide which is better.

    This is what I shared last week in the face of that tragedy.

    A simple #SundayShare diptych of Badger and Peppercorn ferociously consuming Bok Choy in our old apartment in Houston.

    Alt text: two photos, showing a pair of rabbits eating veggies on the floor. The black and white harlequin steps away after she yanked a luscious green leaf out of her albino partner’s mouth.

    Taken with a Nikon D40 with the 18-35mm kit lens. Fifteen years later, the gear doesn’t matter all that much. Glass and metal tubes sit in the a box while the heart is warmed by the glow of bygone days, occasionally rekindled by pixels on a screen.

    Here’s to the New Year!

    Let’s make many great memories and maybe some photos too.

  • Happy Year of the Rabbit!

    Alt text: an outline handsketch of a hand shaping the ASL American manual letter “R”, in black ink with red ink wash using the kids cheap square watercolor brush. I wasted way too much time thinking about good materials and tools when I was younger.

  • 9 Coins

    an ignoramus tips the Tarot

    Black ink (Flair Pen) drawing on a yellow steno pad. Colored in Pixlr. Collaboration with the kids. She did some of the coloring this time.

    A black ink sketch on lined paper with a pile of nine gold coins with square holes. The coins are marked with a yellow house, an invisible face, a strange oval thing, green icing, and a peachy "DADDY BAD!" warning. Around the stash float two grey locks, two pink hearts, two smiling faces, two purple something-randoms, a blue-red spike ball, three purple hats, four windows, and a tomato-tomato head. This time, coloring didn't last beyond the weekend...then again we didn't go up to Mount Charleston to play in the snow this week.
    A black ink sketch on lined paper with a pile of nine gold coins with square holes. The coins are marked with a yellow house, an invisible face, a strange oval thing, green icing, and a peachy “DADDY BAD!” warning. Around the stash float two grey locks, two pink hearts, two smiling faces, two purple something-randoms, a blue-red spike ball, three purple hats, four windows, and a tomato-tomato head. This time, coloring didn’t last beyond the weekend…then again we didn’t go up to Mount Charleston to play in the snow this week.

  • Parking Garage Apartment Parks

    15 years ago, I presented my thesis project, so let’s relive the past!

    It started in the Spring of 2007 when I was studying abroad in Rice’s Paris exchange program. For thesis prep, I explored the idea of increasing density in Southern California which suffers a simultaneous lack of housing and paucity of public parks. Looking back, I suspect my brain was a mix of wonder at living in a real metropolis and a nostalgia for home.

    I focused on the suburban city of Alhambra when I visited my grandfather that summer. I sited the project on a parking lot in front of Ralph’s Supermarket, proposing a big new structure along the street. I added new shops at grade level, moved all retail parking below-ground, and built a multi-story suburban landscape of apartments on the upper floors of the parking garage (the gimmick is that you get to park next to your apartment!). The remainder of the old asphalt parking lot was converted into a large public park, daylighting the buried storm culvert and connecting the adjacent school and church.

    I’ve always been a luddite as an architect, so I finally learned Rhino and rendering for this project, only to never use these skills again. This was also the last time I made a physical model in my career. And as with most other architecture students, this thesis got me a degree and hasn’t seen the light of day outside of the occasional job interview.

    There are more images and the thesis book for download on my online portfolio.

    A series of diagrams showing the relationship of the project to the site. In the 00's Rem Koolhaas was king and Rice was more of a diagram factory than a design school.
    A series of diagrams showing the relationship of the project to the site. In the 00’s Rem Koolhaas was king and Rice was more of a diagram factory than a design school.

    PS. After writing this, I texted some old classmates who I haven’t contacted in years, it was fun catching up!

  • 10 Cups

    an ignoramus tickles the Tarot

    Black ink (Flair Pen) drawing in a yellow steno pad. Collaboration with with the kids. Colored in Pixlr.

    A black ink sketch on lined paper with a rainbow of ten goblets with a green girl square monster, cyan space star, pink donut, and a blue red spike ball. Blue clouds float above with a red warning “Daddy Bad” with a mushroom house and random shapes from the future. Under the rainbow is a vase with space flowers, a square daisy, two gold clouds, and an alien puppy with five legs, two tails, and a pair of antennae.

  • 6 Swords

    Alt text: A black ink sketch on lined paper with an purple six armed sharp thingy with a central donut hole rimmed with golden trim. Colorful peanuts and pecans accompany the beast, interspersed with little yellow pennants and brown squiggles. A light blue swirl floats on the eastern border while a squadron of red marshmallows marches south on the west side.

    Black ink (Flair Pen) drawing in a yellow steno pad. Collaboration with with the kids. Colored in Pixlr.

    I’ve got a few too many projects in my mind, and one of them is to draw my own tarot deck as part of the #weekendweirdness hashtag on Post (someone else started it, but I’m the lone torchbearer at the moment).

  • Twig Monster

    Black ink (Flair Pen) drawing in a steno pad. Friday Night Collaboration with with the kids. Colored in Pixlr.

  • The Future

    My wife bought oil pastels for the kids. The girl chose the theme.

    I pulled out dip pens with ink that have been dormant for two decades.

    Been a minute.

  • Sushi

    Chicken Fried Steak

    Shrimp Tempura

    Exotic Home Cookin’

    Southern-ese

    Collard Greens and Sushi

    Grizzly Pear

  • Pink

    On a balcony,

    A girl in pink pajamas

    Plays with palm fronds