"A Charlie Brown Christmas"

I LOVE Peanuts, and being that t'was the holidays, I went and recently bought "A Charlie Brown Christmas." I believe I have seen it when I was very young, but I don't remember much, so it was like seeing it for the first time. It is beyond amazing. Having been first aired in 1965, it still holds up as an example of masterful story telling and character development. Hats off to our man Schulz, animator/director/former Disney artist Bill Melendez and the melodious jazzy genius of Vince Guaraldi.



"I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?" -Charlie Brown







Charlie Brown flips out upon realizing his own baby sister has succumbed to the commercialization of Christmas.

Lack of posts due to lack of internet In good ol' Stockton

Well, I have been here in Stockton for the past week, spending time with family for the holidays. It's been good times and free food. The only thing is that our internet connection in only dial-up, so access is slow and not worth it once you get online. I've been online seldomly, only when I make the occasionaly cafe trip. Rest assure, there will be more posts when I return to San Jeezy. But for now, here is a little something illustrated by me and written by friend and fellow artist, Chris McKane.



I randomly drew this, slid it across the table to Mckane and said "make him say something funny."

Gone sketchin'

Here's a spread I did in my sketchbook today at Barnes and Noble. ENJOY!

Brought back due to popular demand!

This is dedicated to my pal, Saul "The General" Ruiz.

Andrew in the Midst of Predatorial Chaos

This started out as a caricture of my lover, er, I mean friend, Andrew; but I would open my sketchbook from time to time and add to it...

To make up for lost blogging..

My friends have given me death threats regarding my lack of activity and flamingo dominance on my blog; so here is a modest barrage of sketch book pages done not too long ago...more to come, stay tuned...

Batjan Returns

Winter break is finally here, which means it is time to blog like I have never blogged before! "I want you to tell all your friends about me..."
p.s. updated flamingos coming soon!

flamingoin fine!

I ventured to the San Francisco zoo today and did some sketchin! Most of my drawings were turdy but I got some cool quick watercolor sketches at the end. GOOOOOOO PLANET!

"The Widow Ching"

Our Visual Development class was given the assignment of designing "The Widow Ching", a non-fictional female pirate who commanded a fleet of 2,000 ships in the late 18th to early 19th century. Below are the character ideations followed by more developed character sketches..

"Gone but not forgotten..."

This piece is part of a series of artworks I call "The Giftship." More on the actual series later...I created this illustration as a birthday gift for one of my friends. It is a collection of vignettes that represent the finest moments of our friendship. The style was inspired by Bill Watterson's immaculate comic strip, "Calvin and Hobbes." Like "C and H," the content itself is glazed with cuteness and innocence, however the story behind the images displays a more latent poignancy. I put a lot of heart into this project and I was very happy with the result. It really sums up how I feel about moments and memories: their ephemeral quality is what makes them so special...geeze, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my femininity is at 11 right now.

Figure drawing frenzy!!!

Now, what everybody wants: full frontal nudity...

If I were to describe figure drawing in one word it would be "sublime"...or "boner"...Sheldon Borenstein once said that we are all born with millions of shitty drawings, and the only way to improve as an artist is to simply get rid of them. Of course, once in awhile a decent gold nugget will squeeze out amid the pile o' crapola. The page above is one of those nuggets.

BREAKING NEWS: JANUEL GETS BLOG

random words: contrived, sock puppet, mugluckluck, gumdrops, and splooge...