Sketches from the Audra Mae show at the Hotel Cafe last night: Moody place, isn't it? Pages like this make me think about just burning every sketchbook I own, so the evidence of my less-than-stellar quicksketch skills will be lost forever. But then I get ones like this, and think maybe there's hope after all.
Read Morebook expo
And I also don't know how to even tell the story without sounding like a name-dropping ass -- so I'll just list the highlights: Mark Smylie giving me the complete set of his Artesia graphic novels for the low price of gas money; Talking with Jeff Smith about what a nice person Colleen Doran is; Spotting Wil Wheaton across the hall as he was walking with a man who turned out to be John Scalzi; Slash being yards away from me as he signed books; Sherman Alexie doing a drawing in my copy of "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", because I gave him a drawing; Having the man I was chatting with at the bar turn out to be Marty Davis, who taught at Watts when I was there, and spending the next couple of hours geeking out about art; And finally meeting Neil Gaiman in person, and discovering I had inadvertently given him something related to Chapter 5 of The Graveyard Book.... I probably still sound like an ass. So many wonderfully kind, brilliant, and talented men were there that I thought I might faint or swoon at several points during the day.... But here's two very small and quick sketches I did as studies of Neil, during the breakfast panel: I didn't think to take a photo of the one good sketch I did in ink, before I gave it to him.
Read Moreblack & white grisaille; birthday weekend
Looking at it after some sleep, I'm not sure about the tooth cylinder dimensions -- it seems like maybe I should make the distance between the nose and the bottom of the jaw taller -- but then, there is that shadow on the jaw, which is making it look smaller than it really is.... But in spite of his hotness, I still nodded off a couple of times during the film; that whole 2.5 hours of sleep the night before and six hours of driving was not a good combination. The Art Cave's appliance insurrection continues: now it's the washing machine that won't pump water, and an outlet in the living room that refuses to power anything.
Read Moretribal bellydancer digital quick sketch
Here's another one of Sabrina, who stayed to pose for the night's digital illustration class.... The little quick sketches are rough for me; I usually need much, much longer to get anything that looks like a form down. If I can just get the form to roll and the values correct in that short time, I consider it a win.
Read MoreOrphan Works Act of 2008 should be thrown off a cliff
In short, the bill would define an 'orphan work' as any copyrighted work whose author any infringer says they're unable to locate in what the infringer decides is a 'reasonably diligent search.'... It's way, way beyond the current fair use standards for visual art. Here's the Illustrators Partnership of America overview: The Orphan Works Act defines an "orphan work" as any copyrighted work whose author any infringer says he is unable to locate with what the infringer himself decides has been a "reasonably diligent search." In a radical departure from existing copyright law and business practice, the U.S. Copyright Office has proposed that Congress grant such infringers freedom to ignore the rights of the author and use the work for any purpose, including commercial usage.
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