My website & other updates

My website and e-mail are currently not working. My domain name expired during my absence and someone has purchased it. This is dissapointing news. I have to figure out a new domain name, so that means my website address and e-mail will be different. For now, I am using arinh13@gmail.com as my current e-mail.

As far as the future is concerned, I have decided to work for the CCC a little bit longer and will be moving up to Fortuna in Humboldt County. This will allow me the opportunity to explore my other interest: environmental and ecological work. I have not given up art, but I feel I have dedicated a good lot of time to it and after my experience in the mountains, I feel the need to be outdoors. I plan on continuing doing art of some sort and will try my best to post here. I hope everyone is well and I wish you all the best. Thanks for checking out my blog.

From the mountains I am come

Hi everyone. I have come back from the mountains after having participated in the CCC/Americorps Backcountry Trails Program. For the past 5 months, I had the awesome opportunity to live and work in the wilderness. If you're 18 - 26, I highly reccomend checking out the program: http://ccc.ca.gov/backcountry/bcpage.htm
I was on the Stanislaus Crew- we started in Big Basin State Park along the ocean in the redwoods, and moved into Stanislaus NF (just north of Yosemite), working out of 3 camps. Our final camp was 14 miles in the backcountry next to Emigrant Lake in the Emigrant Wilderness. My heart will now always lie with the mountains. I miss the mountains, the people on my crew, and the work greatly. I tried my best to keep a sketchbook. Here's a selection of watercolors and sketches that I did throughout the season. On the weekends, we were able to go backpacking and explore other parts of the forest. This is when I had time to paint with my little pocket watercolor set. I hope you enjoy. If you'd like to view photographs from my experience, click here.

Watercolor done viewing Cherry Lake in Yosemite

Quick watercolor of view from Relief Resevoir

Tree near Relief Resevoir

View of the east side of the Sierras

Maxwell Lake with a view of Bigelow Peak

View of the face near our home during a stormy day.

View of Emigrant Meadow & Emigrant Lake- our home.


@ the end of Emigrant Lake

View from Snow Lake

<>View of Lake Vernon, Yosemite
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Sketches of Peter Lewis @ orientation

Sketch of Convict Lake

Our Jungle Can

This was the design for the front of our t-shirt that I did which was never used. The ink was going to be white on a dark color.

To The Wilderness Yonder

"To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in the undermining of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed." ---Theodore Roosevelt

And so I am off to spend 5 months in the backcountry doing trail maintanence and conservation work with the California Conservation Corps. I am bringing a sketchbook with me, so hopefully there'll be plenty to post when I get back! Take care everyone! Thanks for checking my blog.

Encinitas Sketches

When I get stir crazy I've been riding my bike to explore Encinitas. . .I usually end up at the beach. Here are some sketches.


^Reminder: don't paint with sunglasses on. . .the sun was so bright!

Playing Around & Practicing

Just playing around with this one (can you tell who I had on my mind?)


Practicing head drawing. . .I've done this portrait about 5 times. . .I think this one is the most successful though not entirely finished. It's of Vachel Lindsay. I wanted to practice on heads of people that inspire me.

SkOoL iS kOoL

This is the last week of school. . .the entire term flew by faster than lead snapping off the pencil you've been spending 10 minutes trying to sharpen. I am so glad to have found the atelier. . .I feel that I have grown a bit in the short time I've been taking classes. . .and this is such a great feeling compared the the stagnancy I felt prior to coming here. You got to keep moving in order to grow. . .moving forward that is. I'm glad I made the move here. . .though there are some developments I will share later.

Here are the drawings (all in various stages). Once again, thanks goes out to the teachers whose input is reflected in all of these drawings.

Life Drawings:


^ I was really happy with this one as it is one of the more complete drawings I have been able to do this semester.






Some 20-Minute Layins:


Figure Quicksketch:
^This page isn't designed nicely like the ones you see in the wall. . .but it's one of my earlier attempts at their style of quicksketch. On it is some feedback from Jeff and Doug.

Head Drawings:

^This was a bad drawing day. . .but what really helped me was Doug's suggestion to just have fun and experiment with rendering on a day like that. Usually frustration really gets me on a day like that. . .but turning it into an opportunity really helped. . .I'll try to keep that in mind each time a "bad drawing day" comes up.


Figure Invention:

This class has been so helpful. . .Erik really breaks down the difficult task of figure invention, making it seem more simple and manageable than I ever thought it was. We've been working on figures for one of our own illustrations. I don't know if I am going to finish this one through- I'm not sure how I want to do it and how I want it to look anymore. I've been looking at a lot of inspiration. I also don't feel that my character as far as design goes is where I want it to be. But it's the best I can do right now and I am pretty happy with it so far.

Cool Site

I ran into this site today while looking for inspiration/reference: http://www.old-picture.com/

It has good quality large historical photos (pretty darn good for the internet that is)- anything from Indians and Cowboys to Presidents and Generals. I was looking for Indian reference and ended up getting sucked into looking at all the faces long dead. These are the people who shaped our world. . .who left footprints, no matter if we can readily see those footprints or not. Here's a cool photo from the site:


I've got more stuff to post once I take the time to scan them in. Mostly school stuff I guess, but at least I am drawing. This is a tough time. And, I would like to update my website. . .so I shall be working on that. It really needs a total overhaul, but I'm just going to add some more recent stuff (more recent than 2003!) for now. I looked at it recently. . .and boy. . .old art does not age well! Yikes. . .Anyways, hopefully that will be done soon.

Where I Am Headed

Here is a succession of life and head drawings. Through the whole process, I have been trying to get used to the pencil (it's different from what I've used before), absorb new techniques and ways of drawing, try to merge my own way of drawing with these new techniques, and try not to lose what I liked about my drawings originally. It's to say the least, a difficult task. . .but then again, nothing worth achieving comes easy. These drawings reflect that struggle. I have to acknowledge the teachers there who have been so helpful. Some of these drawings reflect their input as they are ever so generous with their time and feedback, readily willing to sit down and do overlays and draw on your drawing to help you see and draw better.

Where I Started

Here are two drawings I did just to guage where I was at and to compare for later on: these reflect my prior teachings, drawing style, and ability. Before Watt's, I hadn't done longer than a 20 minute pose in years.

Back to School: Watt's Atelier

Hi everyone. I want to post some of the work I have been doing in school to show my progress and what I have been up to. Time flies when you're having fun. . .though moving 3,000 miles to a new place is never easy, I have found attending Watt's Atelier to be a rewarding and enjoyable experience so far. I can't believe my first term there is already more than halfway over. It's such a positive creative environment, the teachers are awesome, and I am learning a lot. I wish I found this school a long time ago. Earlier this week, I was thumbing through an old sketchbook and found a list I had made of things I wanted to do about a year ago. One item said "Get better at art." and next to it was scribbled "Check out Watt's Atelier." I had run into it on the internet, and when I saw the description, I thought "gee. . .wouldn't that be nice to move back to California and do this." And so here I am.

Also. . .check out the school's website: I highly reccomend it if you're looking to learn true representational art, if you're trying to improve on the ability you already have, if you're also interested in illustration and entertainment arts, if you just want to get "good." This is the best way to go about it. . .

"The West-Going Heart"

It has only been 2 months since I've been back to my birth-state. I am no longer Californian. I have a little New Yorker in me. . .I have maybe even a little New Jersey in me. I have the cold Atlantic crashing into the warm Pacific of childhood dreams.

I had a west-going heart and took the train across country when I moved. I had flown over the U.S. enough in the past three years- it was time to see the glorious details of everything I flew over. So, with the decision to move, I decided to take the opportunity to travel across on land. It was an experience I highly reccomend to anyone who is up for a traveling adventure and doesn't have to get somewhere real fast. It gives you the opportunity to appreciate the varied beauty of these great united states. . .it gives you the opportunity to slow down, meet people of different walks of life, and enjoy the act of traveling.

My train trip consisted of 4 trains. I first took the Lakeshore Limited 22 hours (we were 4 hours delayed on the tracks due to freight traffic) to Chicago. Then I took the Texas Eagle 4 hours south to Springfield, IL. I spent 3 days in Springfield visiting all of the Lincoln sites. I am so glad I made the stop here as I not only had the opportunity to learn more and be closer to my hero, but also discovered new creative kin: Vachel Lindsay, the poet/artist known for his performances of his poetry in the early part of the last century. Leaving Springfield, I took the Anne Ruteledge 9 hours to Kansas City, MO. Then I transfered to my final train, the Santa Fe Chief- 38 hours to Fullerton, CA.

While on the train, I did little watercolor and ink sketches of the scenery passing by.
Here are the sketches. . .I hope you enjoy.

Alien Invasion

Here's the alien project all finished up. . .for baby Veronika. This is a somewhat 3-D piece~ the top part was cut out of plywood by hand.