That’s what I drew while I was on the phone. Not on hold but trying to connect with a human being. Instead I entered automated phone system hell.

It's that time again. Time to pay the state and federal government their cut of my money. First I'm going to pay California's sales & use tax then I'm getting on Turbo Tax to file my income tax. It aint much. After covid, every event was canceled and I barely made any sales in 2020.

Tonight I finally finished smoothing out every letter of every state of my US map design. The map was drawn by hand in Adobe Fresco on the iPad using the Apple Pencil. If you looked closely you'd see all the jagged lines. To fix that I spent the last few days tracing every path using the Smooth Tool in Adobe Illustrator. It not only smoothed the lines, it also removed a crap-ton of unnecessary anchor points. In the end I brought the file size down from 2.9 MB to 896 KB. 

I didn't spend much time on the map today but I did finish North Dakota, New Mexico & Colorado. All that's left is: Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, California, Oregon & Washington.

Almost there. Still cleaning up the design by smoothing out the paths and removing unnecessary anchor points. This sucker is 12 states away from being print ready.

Today I learned about the Smooth Tool in Adobe Illustrator CC. It smooths out jaggy lines (paths) and gets rid of a lot of unnecessary anchor points which is what I need for the drawings I make on the iPad. Using the Smooth Tool, with a mouse, on my US map would be a nightmare so I downloaded Astropad which turns my iPad & Apple Pencil into a graphics tablet & stylus to control my laptop. This sped up the process significantly and I’ve now cleaned up 22 states. I’m almost halfway done.

My body is sore as hell from yesterday’s hike and the scrape on my right hand is bothering me because the bandaids keep falling off where I bend my wrist. Aside from that it was a good day. I did a bit of active recovery and went on 3 mile walk at Hellyer Park. I hope I start feeling better tomorrow and that it’s not a case of delayed onset muscle soreness. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I went out with the intention to finish hiking the remaining trails at Joseph D. Grant County Park today and being 100% done. I came pretty damn close. I started at the Grant Lake Parking lot and walked almost a mile on Mount Hamilton, where they were laying down fresh new asphalt, to reach the Washburn Trail trailhead. Then I walked to the barn. From there I hiked up to Tamien Trail and got lost at the end of that trail before coming back to Washburn. That’s when it got cold and overcast. I hustled the rest of the way on the Cañada de Pala and Los Huecos trails because it was getting close to closing time and I was afraid my car would get locked in the parking lot over night. Because I was in a rush I slipped coming downhill and scraped my right palm. It stung and got a little bloody but it wasn’t bad. It hurt more using the hand sanitizer when I got to my car. It was past closing time and luckily the gate wasn’t closed. I didn’t want to press my luck so I left. I’m gonna have to come back and do that remaining 1/10 of a mile on the Yerba Buena Trail in a few days and be 100% done hiking all of Grant Park.

Nothing exciting to write about today. I just did laundry, answer emails, and a few other to-do’s. I drew and colored this random character a few minutes ago just to say I did something artsy fartsy

I went to Ed R. Levin County Park for the first time on Sunday. I wanted to hike all of the Agua Caliente Trail but I had to turn around, with less than .6 miles to go, so I could be out of the park by closing time. It was beautiful. Saw lots of animals including 2 snakes, one on the trail and the other in the dog park being escorted out by security. I can’t wait to come back. I’ll probably start hiking all the trails at Ed R. Levin when I’m done with Joseph D. Grant.

I didn’t really do anything productive today. At night I went for a drive on Mount Hamilton Road past the Lick Observatory. I had never been that far and was tempted to drive all the way to Patterson or Livermore but that would have taken 2 hours to get there and it was already past midnight. Besides, it’d be much better to drive during the day to enjoy the views. The coolest thing I saw tonight was the abandoned car (pictured below) that looks like it might have been burned and a coyote on the side of the road but it was too dark and my camera couldn’t capture it.

I finally finished a logo design for a friend after 3.5 months. I kept getting busy or sidetracked with other projects and she let me know she needed it sooner, rather than later, so I did the final touches today and knocked it out. This is only a portion of the design. I’m going to wait till she reveals it before I show off the whole thing.

I submitted this mockup for an artist call in Palo Alto for a temporary mural to be installed on a construction site fence. I did a site visit a couple weeks ago and even though the construction hadn’t started, and there was no fence, I knew I wanted to make something fun, eye catching and somewhat functional and informative. I didn’t come up with anything till I was hiking at Alum Rock Park a few days ago and thought of the arrows. If my design gets selected (there will be a total of 8 artists) I’ll give the design another overhaul to give it more of my flavor and make sure the directions and locations are accurate, depending on which street they assign me. The final image will be printed on vinyl then placed on plywood that will sit on barricade stands to make a fence. Wish me luck!

My buddy and I went on a hike at Alum Rock Park this morning. We saw deer, ducks & fish as well as some cool human-made stuff. Tonight I did some new sketches based on an idea a few days ago for a possible future project. More on that later.

I got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine this morning. I didn’t have any reactions besides my arm getting a little sore on the injection site. My appointment for the second dose is in 4 weeks. I hear that one might be a doozy.

The day started off awesome. It started with a walk at Lake Cunningham with my buddy then followed by some day drinking downtown. I can’t hang like I used to because when I got home I passed out and woke up hours later thinking it was the next morning. I’m a little bit hungover but still feeling good.

I also got news that all people, 16 and older, living or working in Santa Clara County are now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, days before the rest of the state becomes eligible. I signed up and got my appointment set for later this morning.

The website to schedule an appointment is https://vax.sccgov.org/home

My legs were no longer sore and I was feeling good so I went on hike at Alum Rock Park. The South Rim Trail, from the No Horse Bridge to the Sycamore Switchback Trail, reopened after being closed all of last year so I hiked that. I saw some wildlife feasting, drew in my sketchbook a few times, and found spring water bubbling out of a hole in one of the parking lots. When I got in my car to leave I felt something on the back of my neck and found it was a little green worm. Gross!
At 7.43 miles, and almost 1,000 ft of elevation, this was a great warm up for my upcoming hike at Joseph D. Grant County Park. Hopefully my legs aren’t completely dead tomorrow.

My legs are pretty sore from yesterday’s hike. It was only 4.23 miles with not much elevation gain but since I haven’t hiked in over a month I’m a bit out of shape. I was hoping I could jump back in and go do the last hike at Grant Park, which is more than double what I did yesterday, but I’m gonna need to train a bit and hike other trails before doing that last stretch. Depending on how I’m feeling tomorrow I might go hike somewhere else to keep this momentum going.

I went on my first hike in over a month. I went to Grant County Park to finish the Smith Creek Trail and crossed the water this time. I slowly and carefully stepped on the big rocks and made my way across the creek without falling or getting my boots wet. When I reached the end of the trails I sat down beside the creek and drew in my sketchbook for half an hour. I drew one of the big rocks sticking out of the water. After a month of no hiking I’m a little out of practice and will need to hike other trails to prepare for my final hike at Grant to be 100% complete.

After 2 days of pulling all nighters working at my brother’s studio I took Thursday off to get some rest and do a little self grooming. I hadn’t trimmed my beard in almost 2 months.

I’m all done installing the 3D wall panels at Redwall Studio! I went full vampire mode and worked at night and slept during the day. It came out pretty badass. Check out the notes I made before I began installing the panels on the wall.