Kimono Color Studies

Sketch Noir is Live

Sketch Noir now has its first entry.

The New Design

Welcome to the newly redesigned Art of Zachary Knoles!

It was finally time to update the old portfolio, time enough, really, that a complete overhaul was in order. And along with the new design comes a new look (and URL) for the blog -- which I promise I will endeavor not to neglect in the coming days/weeks/months.

The old URL (acebullet.blogspot.com) will now be home to Sketch Noir, where I'll be posting a series of black and white sketches and comics along the same line as my original Ace Bullet short. The first entry there will be coming in the next couple of days.

As for this blog, I'm not quite sure, exactly, what I want to use it for (more drawings? more writing? pictures of my cat?) -- I just know I want to post more, and more often. So let's start there and see where it takes us.

SF Animation Festival

Saw three feature-length independent animated films this weekend at the San Francisco Animation Festival.

This film is an absolute delight and deserves to have the distribution it may never get.

This film is the best Bill Plympton movie yet.

And this is the best animated film of the year.

October Surprise

She said yes!

Cogswell Session, 7/10

I finally made it to figure drawing! These last few months have been busy, to say the least. I'm glad I finally have time again -- I've missed this.

Cogswell Session, 4/16

I don't often make it to these sessions on time (I get off work at exactly the same time the session begins), so I usually miss the warm-up set. At Cogswell, this set is a furious sprint of 10-second poses, followed by slightly longer 20-second poses, and finally a series of luxuriously long (or so they seem) 1-minute poses.

Anyway, this week I made it on time, and I thought the resulting pages made for a pretty interesting visual progression:



Below are also the best of the rest of the session's drawings, featuring about an equal dose of brush and watercolor, as I fitfully attempt to capture this model's unusually stunning poses.

Cogswell Figures and Cafe Sketches

I've only just this week discovered the wonderful Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, which, in addition to having great food and lots of people to sketch, also happens to be located between two independent bookstores -- Kepler's Books & Magazines (for your regular book shopping), and Feldman's Books (for your rare/used/out-of-print book needs).

Let's just say I'll be making this a regular stop during my lunch breaks.





Also, drawings from this week's Cogswell session. This time, the model brought a couple of musical instruments and actually played while modeling. First a guitar, and then later an alto saxophone:

Cogswell Session, 4/02

Figure drawing at Cogswell. For some reason, I insist on painting these little watercolor sketches, even though the longest poses are only five minutes. Halfway through the session, Dave put a light on the model -- I don't know if he was going to anyway, or if he was secretly taking pity on me.

Though, what I really need is a way to instantly dry the page between poses, so that I can start on a new drawing without fear of messing up the previous one!

Cogswell Session, 3/26

Drawings from yesterday's figure drawing session at Cogswell. Most of these with a Japanese calligraphy brush (1-2 minute poses), and then a couple of watercolors (5 minute poses).

Blue and Yellow

Nobody will fix me

This lonely broken utility box dangles from a wire near the telephone pole outside my office. It looks dangerous, but apparently it's been like this for over a year, so I guess it won't start any fires.

Coffee coffee coffee

Another one today, from a Starbucks.

More BART Sketches

For a fleeting couple of days, my daily commute was to San Francisco and back. In that time, I did a lot of sketching of people on the train, or people waiting for their trains. Now, sadly, I'm back to a driving commute and have to settle for people in coffee shops (as in the third drawing).

BART People

Sketches on the BART train.

Green Coat

Another watercolor sketch from my Stanford visit.

Stanford students

Sketches of students from a visit to Stanford University, earlier this week. These were drawn with a Japanese calligraphy brush, and then watercolor.

Sepia Watercolors

A couple recent watercolor sketches:

Halo Dudes

This started as a speed painting, and then I just kept adding more details.



The source is a Halo 3 screenshot, snapped at just the right moment in the grenade-throwing animation so that it looks like two guys (in full space marine body armor) shouting, "WHAT'S UP, FELLAS! Master Chief in da HOUSE!"