Angka: A fabulous bird in the folklore of the Middle East described as having a human face and resembling a Griffin or Simurgh. It was said to inhabit the Kaf Mountains, where it devoured anything living it came across. It was so successful that it hunted everything to extinction, resulting in it's own demise.
(description by Carol Rose from "Giants Monsters & Dragons, an encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend and Myth")

Here's the only part I like. It's based in Philadelphia in 1976.

Here's a crazy job I just had. Doing a poster for the live action Disney movie "Invincible" starring Mark Wahlburg... (here's the good part) for a Korean Airline's Inflight Magazine. I know it doesn't look like Mark Wahlburg, but they said they didn't care. It's based more on the guy the film was made about named Vince Papale, he's way more fun to draw. I'm sure if Disney had any idea how their film was being marketed they'd have a fuckin' heart attack.

Someone contacted me about doing a piece for a show about drawing a 1950 Ford from memory. I couldn't sleep so here it is.

I saw this little bastard at Seven Seas Taco stand on Sunset

Mr. Fuzzums.

Here's something you'll only see if you live in LA, and even then not very often.
Jamie Lee Curtis and her son looking at an Animatronic Mastadon.

I didn't draw this but I wish I had. Jonathan pulled it off the internet while looking for a copy of Dracula on Ebay. Does anyone know who drew this and where I can get more? Someone tell me the name and location of my new hero.

Here's another.

Here's a little scene from our camping trip to Yosemite last weekend.

I think I'd rather be penetrated by teeth than a straw. Who's with me?

I bought a bottle of red ink today. What do you draw when you have a bottle of red ink? Vampires of course.

Sunday Morning at 8:30 we were driving by Wilshire and Crescent Heights and saw this... A Homeless Guy setting up an ironing board on the corner.
I'm pretty sure if we had driven by 30 seconds later we would have seen this...

This was the very last thing that happened to me before I left Norway. A perfect bookend to the Handjob (see previous post) that was the first thing I saw.
This concludes our tour of Norway, you now know just as much as a native born Norwegian, I hope you had a lovely time. Coming this spring... what I Like and Don't Like about Japan.

The Last of the Likes/Don't Likes. Next up... the last thing that happened to me on the way out of the country.

More Likes and Dislikes. Soon you will know exactly what it feels like to go to Norway.

More things to like about Norway.

More sketches from Norway. From my new drawing game called "Like/Don't Like"

One thing that strikes me wherever I go is how much we all have in common. For instance you can go anywhere in the world and people get pissed off when you draw them.

What Norwegians Look Like:

This is the view from the highest hut called "Fannaraken". It's clouded in almost all of the time and it looks like Mordor. It consists of 4 wooden buildings without electricity or running water and all supplies have to be heliocoptered in.
I set off a smoke alarm trying to dry some clothes by the propane heater because it rained all day while we were climbing up there and everything we had was soaking wet, people ran around and freaked out and I was very popular the rest of the night.
For the rest of the trip if we mentioned we went here we got royal treatment from all Norwegians. So if you ever go to Norway just tell people casually you stayed at Fannaraken and watch them fall all over themselves .

One of the best things we did in Norway was to go on a 3 day hike hut to hut, the final stop was at the highest hut in Norway at 6000 feet or so. This is a view of a glacier and some sheep we saw on the way up to the hut.

Just returned from a 3 and 1/2 week trip to Norway. Here's a photo I took that looks like a jigsaw puzzle from the 70's. I don't know the people but they were obviously posing and waiting for someone with a camera to come along so I obliged them. Really saw a lot on this trip, I did a fair amount of drawing so I'll be posting them pretty regularly (Chris) over the next week or so as i scan them.

Up at 3:30 AM again. Here's a new picture from an old show idea I'm dusting off to pitch again.

Jeesh, alright Chris. Here's a drawing from a funny painting I saw at the Norton Simon the other day. It was of an old man walking in on his wife having sex with someone else and she's laughing at him. Of course, my favorite part is there's always some horrid little poofball dog barking somewhere in there too.

and here's a color comp i did of a beautiful church on the corner of 19th and Elliot in Portland.

Here's the last of the German PSP posters.

Another one from the Getty.

I went to the Getty the other day and saw some incredible statues. here's my attempt at drawing a small portion of one of them. "Andromeda and the Sea Monster".

Here's some freelance I've been doing lately (that's kept me from posting more regularly). They're German advertisements for Playstation PSP. I originally thought they said they were going to be the size of a building, 20 meters by 40 meters but maybe I got it wrong. Or as Jonathan suggested, maybe the cars are very large.

Entry #2 from the Mythological Dictionary.
Aigmuxab (Aigmuchas pl.): Man Eating Monster that wanders the dunes of the Kalahari desert. Curious humanoid described as having it's eyes in the soles of it's feet so that it is obliged to stop and lift it's foot in order to see where it is going. Otherwise resembling humans except for it's large fanglike teeth.

These are Rachel and my pieces for the Fyn Stec Art Auction, if you don't already know about it, it couldn't be for a better cause so please visit the link on the side. There's been an incredible turnout of art for this, about 150 peices so far and thanks to Cindy Morrow for the Herculean task of collecting and processing it all! Please please everybody go there and bid on the opening night or online if you're not in the LA area.
You might even be lucky enough to go home with an incredible photo of a rural Chinese Opera Troop being towed by a Tractor that Rachel photographed on her Durfee grant, or unlucky enough to get a picture of a dogcreature devouring someone's eyeballs.