bryan etch city art

Frosted Flakes Etch

2011-12-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

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Thought it would be fun to do some cereal box etching, so here's my first attempt: Frosted Flakes. This is the first time I've ever done a sketch in a vertical orientation, which is far more difficult than etching horizontally. Less head tilting involved the normal way...

Etch-a-Christmas in New York

2011-12-25T21:15:00.000-08:00

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Merry Christmas! +1 happy new years

20 Etch-a-Sketch Challenge

2011-10-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

I have a friend in the Etch-a-Sketch community who goes by the alias "Princess Etch-a-Sketch" (aka PikaJane). I came across her work about a year ago through Google and found her to be one of the only other active etch-a-sketch artists that's working seriously to add to what's been done. As an exercise in speed and productivity, we decided to sketch twenty things in twenty days; and to make it easy to achieve, we imposed a 5-minute time limit on our daily sketches. Each of us came up with a list of twenty things and then we chose ten from each others lists, making up the final settled upon twenty. After the twenty days were through, we could then post the results on the internet, just like what you see here...

Twenty Day Etch-a-Sketch Challenge!

Day 1: The United States of America (suggested by Jane)

Bryan's USA (pictured left)
Bryan: I did this etch by candle light. My power, like most of lower New York and southern New England, was taken out by Hurricane Irene. I felt like Abraham Lincoln etch-a-sketching in the dark.
Jane: I like how the first etch-a-sketch is candlelit. You can still tell what is on the screen, but it does have a classy feel to it.
Jane's USA (pictured right)
Jane: I tried drawing the individual states and could not get through it all in 5 minutes. Good thing too, because I would not have had enough room anyways. The states near the right start looking pretty wonky.
Bryan: I thought about sketching them all but didn't want to get caught up. The states finished here are great. You're missing the most important part, though.

Day 2: Planet Earth (suggested by both, used by Bryan)

Bryan's Planet Earth (pictured left)
Bryan: I wanted to do something a little different, so I went with the half-globe view, like you would see from a space station or something. This etch, like the first one, also features mainland USA.
Jane: I like the view chosen for earth more than mine. Definitely makes for a more interesting composition.
Jane's Planet Earth (pictured right)
Jane: Not too pleased about how this one turned out. Oh well.
Bryan: Planet Earth looks just as it should, good to see the east coast in there.

Day 3: Mt. Rushmore (suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Mt. Rushmore (pictured left)
Bryan: An America theme seems to have emerged early on. This one I screwed up on by putting Lincoln's head too far to the right, I must have lost track of what I was doing and there's no erasing in this challenge so I had to go with it.
Jane: I didn’t think about how patriotic some of our choices were. Go America! An old roommate of mine just gave me an etch-a-sketch of the same color scheme. Regretfully it does not work too well.
Jane's Mt. Rushmore (pictured right)
Jane: The faces turned out alright. I did what I could in 5 minutes.
Bryan: Nice work capturing the likeness of Washington and Roosevelt. It's difficult to capture a likeness in a rush.

Day 4: A Castle (suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's Castle (pictured left)
Bryan: I decided I wanted to do a Lego Castle series etch, regardless of the fact there's no way I could possibly finish an entire lego themed etch in 5 minutes.
Jane: I like the idea of combining two childhood toys that both exude creativity.
Jane's Castle (pictured right)
Jane: Cinderella castle: Disney World. This etch-a-sketch has kind of sucky line quality.
Bryan: I like this one, the roofs came out well enough that you can easily tell what it is.

Day 5: Elephant (suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's Elephant (pictured left)
Bryan: One of my worst 5 minute sketches. Attempted to sketch Hong, the painting elephant. I flew through this and sacrificed quality for speed. Hong's elephant painting did no justice to the real elephant's talent. Hong probably could have done a better etch than this.
Jane: I actually like the elephant. The head has a lot of character to it, and I was not even focusing so much on what it was painting. Even though it is difficult to discern what is on his canvas, I wasn’t too concerned with that, as I was assuming that the elephant did not have a high degree of painting skills. The overall composition is nice since it is mainly diagonal.
Jane's Elephant (pictured right)
Jane: Possibly my favorite one from the bunch. The classic optical illusion!
Bryan: Optical illusion really put this one over the top. Great work both artistically and creatively.

Day 6: Board Game Logo (suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Game Logo (pictured left)
Bryan: I settled on Scattergories, figuring we would both go for Monopoly and just like in Scattergories, I didn't want to have the same answer as her. I made this sketch a little too small and didn't have time to include the text.
Jane: I was briefly thinking of Monopoly but decided against it as well. I was also thinking of Scattergories though, and I think it would have been very ironic if we both chose it.
Jane's Game Logo (pictured right)
Jane: Blokus. Good game. Go play it.
Bryan: I've never played Blokus, but it appears as thought the logo is sketched perfectly.

Day 7: You Etch-a-Sketching (suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's Self Etch (pictured left)
Bryan: I sketched my hands sketching the day 2 etch, planet Earth. It's a complete disaster and makes it appear as though I can't draw hands.
Jane: The one main concern I have with day 7 is the hand is going through the right knob. Other than that, I think it's cool you incorporated a previous into this one. I decided to do a different pose because I have actually drawn a similar pose myself before and wanted to try something new.
Jane's Self Etch (pictured right)
Jane: I took a picture of myself with a webcam, using my foot to take the photo so that I could hold the etch-a-sketch with both of my hands.
Bryan: This one was very impressive, it came out looking detailed and sharp. None of Jane's timed sketches seem to come out looking rushed.

Day 8: Tyrannosaurus Rex (Suggested by Jane)

Bryan's T. Rex. (pictured left)
Bryan: Tried to do something a little different so I went with an 8bit t. rex. It came out okay.
Jane: 8 bit! Nice! I imagine it took longer to make it 8bit than if you would have drawn it normally.
Jane's T. Rex (pictured right)
Jane: Favorite dinosaur (next to diplodocus).
Bryan: Great proportioning, another impressive 5 minute sketch.

Day 9: Facebook Layout (Suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's Facebook Layout (pictured left)
Bryan: Didn't have time to finish this one, as there's a lot of blank space on the facebook page. Again, I had trouble finding the balance of speed and precision.
Jane: I like the direction this facebook layout page was going! I can almost see the facebook logo in the upper left which is really impressive. And it even looks like you wrote news feed! I just scribbled semblances of words.
Jane's Facebook Layout (pictured right)
Jane: Haha, this is already dated. Classic.
Bryan: I likely wasted too much time on the top bar/facebook logo whereas she put her time into putting all the boxes in the right place.

Day 10: Spaceship (suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Spaceship (pictured left)
Bryan: My little sister's friend had left this really unique Hello Kitty pocket etch at my house for me to sketch on, but in the meantime I wanted to mix it into this collection because it's pretty different. I did a UFO in the desert, but the line I used to connect the ship to the ground was off-centered. With etch-a-sketches, there's always a line connecting one thing to another. I wish I had centered that connection line and played it off like a UFO beam, the kind they use to pick up cows and rednecks.
Jane: I love the spaceship etch! Especially because it is on a hello kitty etch a sketch, haha.
Jane's Spaceship (pictured right)
Jane: Obviously, no reference was used.
Bryan: Nice scene, even included an American flag! Good work squeezing in
more patriotism.

Day 11: US Coin (Suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's US Coin (pictured left)
Bryan: After much debated, I settled on the back of the Buffalo Nickel over the Bicentennial Quarter. Looks like I finished, but I didn't have time to work in "United States of America".
Jane: I was thinking about choosing the buffalo nickel too! I like how it turned out. I spent about 6 minutes by trying to work in all the type on my bicentennial, so I cheated on mine.
Jane's US Coin (pictured right)
Jane: To this day I like to collect bicentennials.
Bryan: More USA themes sketch. The bicentennial quarter came out great. Very good detail with everything fit in just right.

Day 12: Video Game Controller (Suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Game Controller (pictured left)
Bryan: I wanted to do something fun so the N64 controller seemed like the obvious choice. It looks like it shouldn't be possible to use it properly. Favorite multi-player system.
Jane: Nice choice for video game controller! I like the shadowing. Goldeneye is still the only shooting game I play.
Jane's Game Controller (pictured right)
Jane: Had to make an old school homage to the NES. I play it every day after school. Trying to beat contra without continues (but still using the cheat! I'm not THAT good!!!)
Bryan: I want to play old school nintendo every day.

Day 13 A Bug (Suggested by Bryan)

Bryan: Went with an extra creepy one. It kind of looks like a centipede, not sure what it is exactly. It's the bug you don't want to find in your apartment.
Jane: Eeeeeeeeeeew! It turned out great enough to gross me out. Success!
Jane's Bug (pictured right)
Jane: Ladybugs are perhaps one of the only bugs I can tolerate. Thought it would be appropriate to use my spider etch-a-sketch for this.
Bryan: The Halloween pocket etch was a nice touch!

Day 14 Delorean (Suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Delorean (pictured left)
Bryan: Cars are difficult. Jane went with the side view on this one, which looks a lot cleaner than the crazy angle I went for. I could have used another minute or two to fill in some details on this one. It didn't help I attempted to sketch the Back to the Future 3, steam-era rebuild hood.
Jane: I like how you chose a more challenging angle for the delorean. I’m sure dealing with all those parallel diagonals was hell to work with, but I think you did a great job, considering that I still instantly recognized it as a delorean.
Jane's Delorean (pictured right)
Jane: "the way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?" -Doc Brown
Bryan: "You mean to tell me this thing's nuclear?!"

Day 15: Koala (Suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's Koala (pictured left)
Bryan: Koala bear. This was done as a replacement for a different one that I changed my mind about wanting to do (The giant flying dog-monster from the Never Ending Story). Koala bears are much easier than flying dog faced monsters.
Jane: Oh man, your koala bear came out wayyyyyy nicer than mine. It’s so cute!
Jane's Koala (pictured right)
Jane: Hate how this turned out.
Bryan: I know this one is probably your least favorite from the bunch. I have a few of my own I'm not too excited about.

Day 16: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (Suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Ninja Turtle (pictured left)
Bryan: Best weapon of all the turtles, reaches halfway across the screen in the games. Dude kills foot soldiers like nobody's business.
Jane: I LOVE your Donatello. You’ve always been really good at getting miniscule details like that, and you framed him really well. Good choice of reference, my friend.
Jane's Ninja Turtle (pictured right)
Jane: Gotta represent Leonardo!
Bryan: Leonardo. Looks just like the cartoon. Very good illustration work.

Day 17: Pac-Man Game Screen (Suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's Pac-Man Screen (pictured left)
Bryan: Like the facebook screen, this one wasn't possible for me to complete in time. I put in all the details I could but the clock was racing against me. I nearly ran out of time before I could throw Pac-Man himself in there.
Jane: Dang, you even started drawing the dots? You are far more ambitious than I. I was rushing to just try to get the barriers done on time. What you have so far looks really good.
Jane's Pac-Man Screen (pictured right)
Jane: This was especially difficult because of the precision necessary.
Bryan: Pac Man game screen came out wonderfully, really good detail and I'm impressed you managed to not only work it all in there, but get the spacing right as well. Nice cherry bonus!

Day 18: Christmas Tree (Suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Christmas Tree (pictured left)
Bryan: As a New Yorker, I like to take every chance I can get to do a NYC related sketch. This is New York's most famous Christmas scene.
Jane: Someday I’d like to go see that Christmas tree myself. I like how you took the concept on a personal level.
Jane's Christmas Tree (pictured right)
Jane: No reference used. Had a lot of fun with this one.
Bryan: This reminds me of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, but not the lame one, the good one at the end.

Day 19: American Gothic (Suggested by Bryan)

Bryan's American Gothic (pictured left)
Bryan: Not my best work, I should have worked harder on the man's face and eyes, because he came out looking like a cartoon or a muppet.
Jane: I like how you zoomed out. I think zooming out was a good solution for this one because you didn’t have to worry as much about detail. I still instantly recognized it, despite the fact that you feel like the man’s face didn’t come out as well as you wanted it to.
Jane's American Gothic (pictured right)
Jane: Took about 6 minutes for this one. I like how the woman turned out more.
Bryan: American Gothic is one of my favorites from your twenty sketches. You did a great job on the spacing and facial expressions. I bet if you had more than 5 minutes [edit: 6 minutes.. cheater] to work on this one you could have gotten pretty close to the original.

Day 20: A Zombie (suggested by Jane)

Bryan's Zombie (pictured left)
Bryan: I used my metallic, green background etch for this sketch of a corpse rising from the grave. 20 day sketch-off complete!
Jane: Awesome etch a sketch choice for the zombie!!! That is the perfect green for it. I love this one. The gravestone is a nice touch.
Jane's Zombie (pictured right)
Jane: Thought it would be nice to wrap up the series with a zombieland clown.
Bryan: As if zombies weren't creepy enough, you took it a step further and went the clown route. Very nice work!

Final Comments

Bryan: I'd say this was a good exercise, my only regret is how long it took to compile, re-size, upload and blog all our images and comments. That part took far longer than the twenty days we were actually doing art, so that sort of backfired, but I'm still happy to have completed this awesome project. I'd say my favorite etch of Jane's would have to be the self portrait. When I told my friends about this etch-off and showed them our progress, they were very impressed by that and thought it raised the bar really high, which probably caused me to churn out my worse etch in panicked response (the "me-etching-me" sketch). Jane's elephant also came out amazing. While I do feel I can do much better than this, overall, I think we proved our abilities.
Jane: I’m going to have to say my favorite one of yours is the Donatello. It came out wonderfully, especially given the allotted time. You mentioned to me earlier that you wish you took more front-on shots, but I like how your pieces are at different angles. I know the lighting is not the best for some of them, but since we only spent about 5 minutes apiece on them, lighting was not too much of a concern. I’ve always appreciated how you would find interesting new ways to photograph your etch a sketches. I’m still all over the method you went about shooting the first one. I know you didn’t have another option, but I think it’s cool that you have a story behind the way it was shot. It gives it more substance.

/end

Be sure to check out Jane's art over at her DeviantART page!.

San Francisco Update #2

2011-10-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

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Been nearly a year since I posted any progress on this one, but I finally put some more time into it. Bad photo quality but it's still pretty early in the process.

Facebook Etch #50: Self Portrait

2011-06-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #49: Mallory

2011-06-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

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My brother's Integra

2011-06-18T18:30:00.001-07:00

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Facebook Etch #48: Andrew

2011-06-18T17:55:00.001-07:00

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Facebook Etch #47: Ashley

2011-06-17T17:35:00.001-07:00

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Facebook Etch #46: Zach

2011-06-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #45: Tiana

2011-06-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #44: Heather

2011-06-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #43: Abel

2011-05-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #42: Nathan

2011-05-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #41: Kristen U.

2011-05-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #40: Ivy

2011-05-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #39: Holly

2011-04-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #38: Eric

2011-04-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #37: Rick

2011-04-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #36: Lauren

2011-04-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #35: Shawn

2011-04-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #34: Kari

2011-04-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #33: Tim

2011-04-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

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This was given to my friend Tim at his 30th surprise birthday celebration. Background shading technique developed by my online etch-a-friend, Princess Etch a Sketch. Check out her work, she's fantastic!

Facebook Etch #32: Nicole

2011-04-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

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Elocin is a vampire, with a plastic dog shield.

Facebook Etch #31: Chantelle

2011-04-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #30: Casey

2011-04-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #29: Joe DMH

2011-04-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #28: Joe C

2011-04-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

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Joe C has been my most difficult subject since I began this project. I've probably wasted an entire day trying to capture his likeness. He is nearly impossible. Within my past few etches, I've been picking up new strategies for getting things right, so I decided it was time to go back and give Joe C another visit. I also wanted to use the old camo pocket etch, which has been out of commission for months (it hardly works, I didn't think I'd ever use it again). While this portrait may not be the exact spitting image of Joe C, I do think it resembles him and that's fantastic in my book. If I can capture Joe C, the previously unetchable, then I have no fears going forward. This project is serving its purpose.

Facebook Etch #27: Meg

2011-04-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #26: Becca

2011-04-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #25: Tony

2011-03-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

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Facebook Etch #24: Katie

2011-03-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

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World's Fair Pocket Etch

2011-03-25T11:32:00.001-07:00

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Robot-Frank.com

2011-03-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

Before I was an etch-a-sketch enthusiast, I ran a comedy website about a fictional robot, hell bent on destruction and revenge, named Robot Frank. It's been a few years since I've done any real work on the old robot site, but lately I've been inspired to get it back up and going again with a new design. Now it's fresh and new again and I'll probably even create some new content for it in the weeks and months to come. Check it out!

Pizzeria Etches

2011-03-02T14:04:00.000-08:00

Made these for inclusion in an ad/flier for local businesses. I'll post those soon also.

Botticelli's Birth of Venus

2011-02-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

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A friend of mine asked me to sketch this for him as a Valentine's gift to his girlfriend. Thanks to my friend Caitlin for photo help.

Bat Boy Escapes!

2011-02-04T21:53:00.001-08:00

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Thought this would make for a fun etch. Image based off of the greatest tabloid story ever told, "Bat Child Found in Cave!" from an early '90s edition of Weekly World News. I was a huge fan.

Archie Etch

2011-02-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

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Took a break from my facebook profiles, cityscapes and lego work to etch-a-sketch Archie. Just like how Lego ruled my 10 year old world, Archie was also pretty crucial.

Facebook Etch #23: Beth

2011-02-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

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Here's my friend Beth, looking out her apartment window.

Facebook Etch #22: J

2011-02-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

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Another profile picture that doesn't actually feature a person. Here we have my friend J, drinking and wearing a tiger mascot costume, owned by me (I own a lot of mascot costumes, purchased for use on my comedy site, Robot-Frank.com.)

Facebook Etch #21: Flash

2011-02-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

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I have a friend who uses a profile created for his dog to communicate with the outside world. I had planned to only do humans with this project, but fuck self-imposed rules, I guess.

Facebook Etch #20: Tommy

2011-02-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

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Often when doing these I'll do a very rough version beforehand of basically just the important features, whether that be the shape of the body or the facial layout. Doing this helps me to get an idea of how to size everything on the real attempt. Sometimes those early rough sketches end up with facial details I can't replicate when I'm trying really hard, which causes me to consider just making the rough sketch the final etches. That's what I did here; not because I felt I nailed anything in particular, I just wanted to do a quick etch in that haphazard style and this is what I ended up with.

Facebook Etch #19: Kaitlin

2011-02-01T19:15:00.001-08:00

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Facebook Etch #18: Kevin

2011-02-01T17:02:00.000-08:00

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Lego Castle Series: Treasure Cart

2011-01-31T11:45:00.000-08:00

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Here's the start of another new project, the Lego Castle sets. I didn't want to dive into the most complicated Lego scene, so I figured this tiny set would make for a good introduction. When I was 10, the Lego Castle series built a stronghold in my heart, so doing this was very nostalgic and I'll definitely be doing more.

Facebook Etch #17: Samie

2011-01-27T16:57:00.000-08:00

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Facebook Etch #16: Kristen

2011-01-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

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Facebook Etch #15: Thea

2011-01-26T18:57:00.000-08:00

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Catloaf

2011-01-26T15:18:00.000-08:00

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Facebook Project

2011-01-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

I know I should be working on my San Francisco cityscape, but when there's something you're more excited about, it can be difficult to put that something off. While I'd probably be best served putting all my effort into my major project (building a collection of full-sized city etches), I jumped head first into this huge new other thing, for no other purpose, really, than sharpen to my skills. I'm etch-a-sketching the profile pictures of everyone I know. Not just my best friends or family. Everyone. Okay, maybe not everyone. Right now I have a little over 190 friends. I'll do as many as I can 'til I get sick of it. I'm favoring people who have interesting pictures, as well as friends who comment and "like".

If you're a friend of mine and you're wondering if I'll get around to doing your portrait, here's a few things that might prevent me from getting to you:

You're not in your profile picture
Too many people in your picture. I might be able to capture one likeness, but the likelihood of getting two or three people right is much lower.
You have a very plain face. Or you're just impossible to capture. I attempt these people, but unfortunately, at my current skill level, not everyone is possible.

Here's some of the friends I've already sketched (click to enlarge):

I'm aware this is all a lot less impressive without knowing these people and seeing their actual profile pictures, but here they are anyway. I only recently caved on my resolve to never etch-a-sketch people. Every prominent etch-a-sketch artist I've ever come across does mostly portrait work, so I never wanted to jump into what I considered flooded territory (although I don't suspect there really is any flooding in this medium). After doing a few small commissioned works for some people on reddit, I've decided it's time to improve my abilities, bite the bullet and just start sketching people. I've come to learn I can actually do it, and I was likely just trying to protect my art-ego by saying I would never go there...

I'll be posting these as I do them, I need to stop stockpiling work before blogging.

San Francisco underway

2011-01-17T13:24:00.000-08:00

Construction has begun on a new etch-a-sketch cityscape. Here's San Francisco after an hour or so...

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Pixelated Hombre

2011-01-08T20:59:00.000-08:00

I made this pocket etch for somebody on the internet tonight. I'll divulge more details about why in the near future, as I have a lot of new work to share. In the mean time, dig this:

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Based on this image.

Etch-a-Sketch Christmas Gift

2010-12-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine commissioned me to do an etching of his parent's home, the Vail's House on Peach Lake, NY to give them as a Christmas gift. I had a little over a week to finish it, as he was expecting to see them the day after Christmas. I finished it that day. Probably around 8-10 hours to complete. He said they enjoyed it, and that I saved Christmas (I added the last part.)

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Reddit Secret Santa etch

2010-12-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

This year I participated in Reddit's Secret Santa gift exchange. Everyone who signs up is assigned a random redditor to buy/make/gift. Once you find out which user you've been assigned, it's your task to look through their comment and submission history and determine what would be an appropriate gift for your Secret Santee.

Once I learned who I was going to be sending a gift to, I looked through their history and learned through a question and answer session he had conducted that he's a 3rd generation carnival employee, so I figured something carnival themed would be most appropriate. I thought an etch-a-sketch would be a good gift for me to send, so I created this Reddit Alien Carnival. He seemed to enjoy it, here's his post.

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Central Park pocket etch

2010-12-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

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Been a while since I posted a new etch. This one isn't my best, but it's finished.

Brooklyn Bridge pocket etch

2010-10-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

More NYC pocket etching. Here's the Brooklyn Bridge. This one probably took me about three hours. I may do a postcard run of all my NYC pocket etches, this would be the second of the series. More to come.

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Union Square today

2010-10-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

If you're in the Big City come visit me today, I'll be selling prints of my Etch-a-Sketch art for the very first time. Don't let me down, internet.

Empire State Building rough sketch

2010-09-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

Did this etch yesterday at the park, didn't have anything to go by so it's not exact. Starting on a new city soon.

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The Mountaineer Restaurant

2010-09-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

For the past three Summer seasons, I've been working at a restaurant in Lake George, NY called The Mountaineer. The place is owned by an 85 year old man named Bill, who likes to sing Bobby Darin songs on the megaphone to the guests. For the most part, he enjoys it more than they do, and it's probably bad for business, but I think he's a riot, so sometimes I like to create some art for him and his restaurant. This week is Classic Car week in the village, so I made this special for the occasion:

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I'm moving away, so as a going away gift I wanted to make him a custom vintage live music poster, advertising his performances at our restaurant/impromptu venue. So here it is. This is for you, Bill.

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Sydney Opera House, micro-etched

2010-09-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

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Years ago, before I started etch-a-sketching cities, I bought an etch-a-sketch pen in an arts & crafts store, which had a micro-etch affixed to the top of it, just like the one pictured here. I was happy with the results I was getting and the tiny little etch-a-pen piqued my interest, inspiring me to buy a full-sized version, which then became my New York City sketch. I found a two-pack of micro-etches on eBay last week. These are the results so far.

Record Shop

2010-09-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

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Here's a sketch of my local independent record store, DiVinyl Revolution, located in downtown Saratoga. A fun spot to find old records or cds and sometimes you'll come away with a gem. Far too few of these places left.

[edit 9.4] new better picture.

Etch-a-Cake

2010-08-28T16:21:00.001-07:00

Just a small update today. I'll be starting on a new picture tomorrow. In the meantime I have to empty the sand out of a new etch. I'll be documenting the process from start to finish, so watch for that in the days to come.

A few weeks ago I left one of my jobs and my kind and wonderful supervisor, Sally, baked me this beautiful Etch-a-Sketch cake as a going away gift. It was so awesome that I took a picture to show to the internet.

Thanks, Sally!

Philadelphia FINISHED

2010-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Three weeks, probably 15-20 hours in and Philadelphia is finished.

Philadelphia near complete

2010-08-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

It's incredibly difficult to photograph an etch-a-sketch, especially after the sun starts to set. This is the best I could get right now, hopefully the next one will be a little bit clearer. Still pretty happy with this etch, as I haven't made any major mistakes yet (knock on wood).

Philadelphia still under construction

2010-08-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see an end in sight, as there are now less things to etch than there are things etched already. Need to finish this soon so I can start on something new...

Pocket Etching at the Park

2010-08-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

Had a day off today, so I went to a park and sketched some scenery. Pocket Etch-a-Sketch's drag tool/pen isn't as fine-pointed as the modern full size etch-a-sketch, so drawing things in great detail isn't as easy. I'm not too excited about this etch, but I did it, so here it is.

Philly 5

2010-08-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

Fifth update featuring my current work in progress, Philadelphia. Should things continue to go well, I do believe this will be my best etch yet. But anything can happen, so we'll see...

Pocket Etch-a-Sketches

2010-08-10T13:21:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I like to use pocket etch-a-sketches to do a rough version of my next work. Here's a quick rendering of Boston I did to get an idea of how to space things out. I was going for speed on this one more than precision. Probably about 10-15mins.

New York is a pretty nice state to begin with, but the town of Saratoga is an oasis of greatness in the middle of New York. No other town takes as much pride in appearance as the upstate horse racing city. There's one storefront in particular that is always spectacular. Yesterday I sat on a downtown bench for a while and sketched a random city block. I didn't fit nearly as much into this pocket etch as I had planned, so I'll probably do something more recognizable there soon. This etch came out awful, but they're for practice, so it's all right. About 20-25mins work.

Philadelphia progress 4

2010-08-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

Did some more etching today while watching the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes I like to throw on a DVD to play in the background to occupy my mind while I tend to the tedious sketching. Here's Philadelphia, so far:

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Don't forget to follow the blog if you aren't already.

Finished etches.

2010-08-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

Here are all the etches I've done so far. The first one is New York City. I did this over 5 years ago and it still has the sand inside of it, so I've been keeping it level for a very long time. Now I drill holes into the back of the etches and sift out all the sand before I even begin the drawings. The New York sketch looks different than the others because it was done from memory, whereas the others are all done off of a source image. Growing up in the suburbs, this sketch is a summation of all the things you see while going in and out of the city, via car and train. I started the etch on Yankee Stadium and then worked my way out from there, which is why the quality of the rendering is probably the worst of all my sketching. I hadn't etch-a-sketched anything since I was a kid and I would draw my local A&P supermarket. I hung onto this NY etch for years and would show it to friends, roomate's friends and party guests at my happening downtown upstate apartment. People were always surprised. I didn't do another after this for a very long time. Took about 4-5 hours over about three days to complete.

New York

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I did this Chicago etch for a friend who lives out there who didn't believe I did the NYC sketch, so this became a half a year late birthday present. 14-20hrs to finish over a long period of time.

Chicago

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And finally, Boston. I posted my previous etches to my favorite social media website, Reddit, and got a great response, which inspired me to continue doing these. Boston is the first etch I did based on requests, and next will be Philadelphia, also by internet request. 12-16hrs.

Boston

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City Hall near complete

2010-08-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

I get pretty upset when major aspects of the etch don't come out exactly as I'd like for them to. Luckily City Hall went according to plan. No major mistakes yet, still very happy with this sketch.

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Photo quality isn't great, took this with my phone while my battery charges up.

Philadelphia early progress 2

2010-07-31T09:39:00.000-07:00

Starting work on my favorite Philadelphia landmark, City Hall. Had to stop at that point last night, as I was getting tired and didn't want to make any mistakes. I'll probably start back up on this Monday; the rest of my weekend will be dedicated to improving my skills at beer pong.

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Philadelphia early progress 1

2010-07-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Here's Philadelphia so far. Nearly two hours in. Still long a long way to go, almost ready to start working on the landmarks.

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A message to the internet.

2010-07-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

This post was sent from the future to the past. It missed and landed here.