Organic Orchestra




Checked out the Organic Orchestra at Electric Lounge tonight. Here are some sketches. Check the schedule. They have several shows this week and next with a different group of musicians every night lead by Adam Rudolph. There were at least double the musicians performing as what I managed to draw.

Watercolor Face


Here's a quick practice watercolor face. Nice to do some painting again. I'm approaching these in a manner similar to the pen sketches, with some of the color layering I had done with markers in early posts. I may start going back toward that even rougher style. Let's see where I can take it from here.

Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan


I've wanted to do a sketch of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for a long time, but wanted to wait till I could conentrate on it. Did a quick search on google video to see if any kind souls had added more qawwali and sure enough here are two amazing examples.
Nusrat 1
Nusrat 2
Did this quick watercolor so I could sleep. The second clip has him singing some of Allama Iqbal's poetry. I'll have to do a sketch of him and talk a little about that when I get a chance.

Raj Rang Part 1





Took a long lunch from work because I had to go see Raj Rang; a group of Rajastani musicians who performed a one hour noon concert at UCLA. These are all pretty quick sketches. I was so inspired that, well...hopefully the sketches speak for themselves. The pencil work was done during that hour as was some of the pen work. I did most of the pen work later on to finish the sketches. This is the first half. I'll post the rest later.

All My Sons

My friend Tim invited me to see a performance of Arthur Miller's play "All My Sons" at the Geffen Playhouse after work yesterday. It was very fun and quite an inspiring performance. It was too dark to draw, but I did scribble down enough to put this sketch together.

I also did a sketch of children from an Indian village from a photo off the net just for practice.

T. N. Krishnan Concert Part 3


During the intermission, I also met a very talented little boy named Kavi and his parents. It turns out that little Kavi is quite an amazing artist himself. He too had been drawing at a concert just the day before. He came over and asked me if he could sit with me for the second half of the show and watch me draw. I was very flattered, and who doesn't want a cool sidekick?! Turns out he plays the mrdangam too. He gave me some great encouragement while I drew these sketches focusing on T. N. Krishnan who had this wonderful intensity about him as he played with his son Sriram Krishnan. I tried to do fewer, more detailed sketches, rather than the quick stuff I usually do at live shows. It's so much fun to watch musicians perform and have a great time feeding off the audience and vice versa.

Lastly, I drew a closeup of the amazing Vellore Rambabhadran who along with Vinod Venkatraman kept me moving with their percussion. Anyway, just wanted to share some of the fun I had. Hope you like it too.

T. N. Krishnan Concert Part 2


It was a very special day, not only because there were several master musicians performing, but because it was also an extremely talented young violinist's introduction. Aishu Venkatraman started off the concert with her father Vinod Venkatraman on kanjira and Vellore Ramabhadran on mrdangam. I sat down right in front, because I love watching musicians play and of course drawing them. They spotted me real quick...I couldn't really pretend I wasn't drawing.

Another talented member of the family, Aishu's even younger sister Aparna complimented my drawing during the intermission. This sophisticated little lady told me that she was more talkative and not as good as her friend Kavi at drawing, but she did know how to draw a monkey. What could be a sweeter gift than this beautiful monkey she drew for me in my sketchbook! I love looking at her cute sketch even more than any of the pages I drew that day. Thanks Aparna!

T. N. Krishnan Concert Part 1

I attended a Carnatic Violin concert by T. N. Krishnan presented by Music Circle here in Los Angeles. The music was amazing and it really inspired me to draw. The people were also very nice and it just made for a very fun concert. Usually it's a bit difficult to focus and draw for that long in a stretch, but I had no problem here. The time just kind of flew by. I'll post the rest in the coming days. For now, I'll start with the stage before the performance began and this sketch of Harihar Rao, co-founder of Music Circle. Thanks to all for a great time!

Grass, flowers, tree


Went to check out the Klimt exhibit at LACMA on the way back from a Magical Metro Tour. Drew these flowers across from the Craft and Folk Art Museum (which has some beautiful Ukranian painted eggs) down the street. Klimt had an amazing way of painting extremely detailed fields of grass and flowers. I always find it interesting to see how different artists handle that kind of detail. I had his paintings in my mind when I sketched this.

The next day I drew this tree before attending an amazing concert. I did a bunch of drawings during the show which I'll post soon.

Rickshaw Driver


Here's to the rickshaw drivers of Lahore. Last summer, I travelled all around there in rickshaws. Currently there are new laws limiting where they can drive. They are required to change over to CNG or face heavy fines which they can't afford to pay. I understand and agree with the environmental issue, but I hope the government will help them financially to make that transition.

More faces

Practicing some more faces. Not sure which direction to push the typical model/movie star face. That and how to also scruff up cute kid faces (like previous posts) without losing the essence of it. I'll have to work towards that slowly...I like the first face most. It had features I knew what to do with immediatly.

Masjid Wazir Khan


I didn't manage to find Masjid Wazir Khan during my trip to Pakistan last summer. It's one of the places I wanted to visit, but did not have the time to track down. I drew this sketch off of a photo today.

I was going to draw various types of workers in honor of International Worker's Day (May 1st). I managed to sketch this coal mine worker from Pakistan. The back faced figure is from a small show I went to over the weekend.

Lastly, I sketched some Pakistani children's faces. It's very difficult to sketch the cute, innocent faces of small children. The lines are very delicate and it's all too easy to over do it. So here's some practice.