Access Palm (pen)

This is a Palm behind our language school. It towers above everything else. You can't help but notice it.

Power and Tops (pen)

A power/telephone pole and rooftops in our neighborhood. Sketched in Malang, Indonesia.

Godzilla Restaurant (pen)

This is a corner "restaurant" called Godzilla. It has a plethora of small booths set up inside and you choose which one you want to eat from. There is only one cashier that takes the money for all the booths. We love to eat here, mainly because it is only two blocks from our house. My entire family of five can eat here for $6… LOVE IT!

Neighbors House (pen)

This is our neighbors house we see everyday when we walk out our front door. The kids always say they want to live there. When we turn around in their driveway, they say, "I like turning around here, it makes it look like we live here." This is but a portion of the actual house.

Istana Dieng (pen)

We went back to the pool at Istana Dieng today. We invited some of friends to go as well. It is so relaxing. There is so much foliage and exotic plants and trees. It truly looks like an oasis. This is a view from the middle of the pool on an "peninsula". There is an island part that you can walk over a bridge to. A water slide for the kids as well as a shallow pool that is raised about three feet above the rest so the water from the shallow pool flows over a nice smooth wall into the deeper part that you see below. Then around the "peninsula" part it gets about six to seven feet so you can lap swim. There is a pool bar that serves food and beverage that you swim up to. Also, they have a very nice lazy river that goes under stone bridges and has beautiful exotic plants as over hang all the way around. It is usually empty so we have the entire pool to ourselves. The weekend gets really crowded.

The dark part in the background is tinted glass that goes to the gym.

Grave (pen)

This a grave from a graveyard just a couple of blocks from our house. The tree you see is only found in graveyards here. They are white and very crooked. They will plant hundreds of these trees in the graveyards (depending on the size of the yard). I will sketch an entire tree another time. It was starting to rain. most of the graves look like this one and are not taken care of as well as the ones in the states (at least not in this yard). This grave is not very old at all maybe 20 years, but it looked like 100 years old. Not entirely sure why there is a hole in the middle, but I do know they will burn little fires or incense in them.

Books on chair (pen)

This is another attempt at using a pen. My bible, journal and eye glasses case on the arm of a chair in our front room.

1st pen and ink

This is my first attempt at pen and ink. I have always been scared of pen and ink because you cannot erase. For me, it's more precision work…. I'm not a precision kind of guy, so more concentration is required :)

This is the sofa in our front room. It looks out into our front "yard".

Tree across the road

I just liked this tree. It is our neighbors tree in front of our house.

Traditional Market

I have been wanting to go and sketch the market near our house and this morning was a good a time as any. There were so many people there, as usual, but I was unable to get them all. My endurance and patience has to build up.

Still learning so much and have so far to go.

Mt. Sumeru (Meru)

This is the view from the top of our house. We love to go up there and sit. The wind blows and cools everything down. The "mountain" in the background is actually the most active volcano in Indonesia. Mt. Sumeru. On just the right day, you can see it puffing. One day I will venture up to the top (or at as far as they will let me go).

We are actually surrounded by extinct or dormant volcanos. Four more to be exact.

Sketch Crawl Day

Saturday (May 15) was world wide Sketch Crawl Day. It was started by Enrico Casarosa in 2004. People around the world participate in this event. This was my first and I have to say, there are some extremely talented people participating. I have a link to the left of my blog that will take you to Urban Sketchers (the mother group of Sketch Crawl). You can see some of the talented people out there. You have to chosen to get your work posted on this particular site. So maybe, with a lot of hard work, I will get chosen one day.

The below sketches are of my Sketch Crawl Day. Sorry they will not get larger when you click on them. My external hard drive seems to have crashed, so I had to pull these from Flickr. I managed to get them on there before it crashed.

Some friends texting and drinking at a local cafe called Bali Cafe.

A corner view of the soccer stadium here in our city. Gajayana Stadium.

A couple at the same cafe. Bali Cafe

A store/restaurant on the side of the road in our city. There are literally hundreds of these type stores here. They will line the streets.

One of the really cool things here, is they have people who help you park. Everywhere you go, someone will help you park. This is great, due to the amount of traffic that is here. They will stop traffic so you can back out into the streets without getting hit. This one is at a mall here.

Istana Dieng

This is a pool close to our house. It is beautiful!

Below is one of two lions heads that has water spewing out of their mouths into the pool. there is also a lazy river with exotic plants and trees hanging over.

A seal statue at the shallow end of the pool which also spews water out of its mouth.

A girl reading by the pool. It is a very relaxing place.

Still practicing

Alicia watching tv. I'm still learning the human body and how it moves.

Masjid Al-Amien

This is a Mosque (Masjid Al-Amien) behind my house. At the very top is a set of megaphones that makes it seem like it is right in my livingroom when the call to prayer is in full swing.

View from above

This is a view from our roof looking at our neighbor. Houses are built against each other. front to back side to side.

Java Dancer

My wife and I visited a nice little coffee shop in our city called "Java Dancer". It has open walls to the outside, kinda like a tiki hut.

Above is a couple that was having a great time with each other laughing, and talking and texting. It looks like the guy is miserable, but he only posed like this for a sec or two, but I liked the pose so I used it. The girl had stopped to text so he sat his hand on his chin to wait. I did not draw her on the phone, it was too quick so I used another pose.

This guy was sitting here talking with a friend who was out of the picture. This guy looked the most relaxed with a cigarette in hand and coffee on tap.

Starting somewhere...

Since we have moved overseas, six months ago, I found myself trying to find something familiar. I ended up coming back to my love of drawing. It has been many years since I really sat down to draw. I have never really "sketched" before, so this is something new for me. I would usually sit and "draw" and it would takes hours upon hours to get something on paper and sometimes I would never finish. I have come to absolutely love fast sketching.

Below is some of my recent work I started about two months ago…. I had to start somewhere, so stop laughing :)

The dresser in our room.

The curtains in our room.

My shoe

View of our neighborhood from our roof.

A local ancient Candi (temple) in our neighborhood. Candi Badut.

My first attempt at sketching a person. This is my wife playing Farmville

A bridge going into our nieghborhood.

My hand at adding color.

My second attempt at sketching a person. This is my youngest daughter sleeping on the couch.

My third attempt at sketching a person. My oldest daughter on Facebook.

My fourth attempt at sketching a person. Our pembantu (helper), Lasmi, preparing supper.

My fifth attempt at sketching a person. This is my youngest again. I was trying a different style of sketching.