Mystery Giveaway link

Go check out my other blog for a chance to enter my first mystery giveaway for 2012!

Upcoming Drawing Class at Cary Art Center

From the Teen Scene Winter catalog: Teen Manga Sketchbook (age 12-15)
Design and sketch character and creatures typical of Japanese comics using pen and ink, markers and colored pencils.
Instructor: Alberto Lung
57827 Sat Jan 28 1-3 p.m.

2011 Holiday Gift Guide and Jet Pens Giveaway

Visit my other blog to check out my 2011 holiday gift guide for artists and leave a comment there for a chance to win a Jet Pens $10 gift certificate.

Met the Cameron Village Regional Library Anime Club - Upcoming Classes at the Cary Arts Center

Thank you Nicole for introducing me to the members of the Library Anime Club. It was very nice meeting you all. Now I will have to look up "Black Butler" and the other funny anime that you highly recommended (was it something sounding like "Orion"?). Hope everybody was inspired to continue to work regularly with your sketchbooks after our short drawing demo session. The links listed on the column to the right include several art materials tips, drawing and paper craft templates, and my list of recommended reference and drawing technique books. That should keep you busy until our first official "Manga Sketching Workshop" sometime in the Spring.

Cary residents might want to keep an eye out for my upcoming "Cartoon Sketching - Manga Style" 3-lesson series in the Winter catalog of the Cary Arts Center. Starting on February from 4:30 pm-5:30 pm and 6:00 pm -7:00 pm every Monday after school, we will cover tentatively:

1. Fantasy Creatures.
2. Superheroes.
3. Dragons and monster design.
4. Ninja sketching school.

We also got a 2-hour Manga Sketching Workshop for Teens planned for the last Saturday of January 2012.

Lego Fest at Raleigh Convention Center

Lego is the classic educational toy that can be enjoyed by the whole family as proved by the enthusiastic crowd attending this year's Lego Fest at the Raleigh Convention Center.
Ninjago had the entire team in life-size scale models guarding the spin-jitsu play area.
The accurate Hogwarts model was particularly impressive. It even featured the Chamber of Secret under the castle.
Meeting the legendary Boba Fett.
Close encounter with the Batman.
Sponge Bob was quite popular with the kiddies.
Captain Rex from Clone Wars. Lego kits with their variety of themes and limitless free-style applications make for nice creative gifts for the young at heart and inquisitive minds.

Spent a fun evening at the Cary Arts Center Family Friday Open House

Just got back from the Cary Arts Center Open House. It was a fun evening drawing about 60 manga-style cartoon portraits in 4 hours for guests and volunteers. That means I managed to speed sketch 15 caricatures/hour, so I am pretty pleased to have beaten my average speed of 12 caricatures/hour. Though gotta admit that my left hand feels a tad numb as I type this post. I need to remember to take a few breaks every hour in future events. My brother managed to take a few photos of the evening, so I uploaded them to Flickr: photo 1, photo 2, and photo 3.

The bulk of the requests were ninja, mermaid, fairy, dragon rider, and cute animal sidekicks. A few guests even managed to go through the line 2 or 3 times to get additional cartoon versions of themselves drawn. Thanks to all the kids and parents that stopped by the sketching table, and hope you find some inspiration from your souvenir portraits and start or continue to develop your own sketching skills. With the general positive reception to this Manga-Style Cartoon Sketching event, I believe we'll be able to quickly fill upcoming drawing classes for kids and teens in the Cary area.