Hollywood

It was inevitable.  As I've made my way sketching down Sunset Blvd., I just needed to make a short detour to sketch the Hollywood that millions of tourists come to see, so how could I resist?

 I've always loved the stars on the Walk of Fame that lines Hollywood Blvd. for several blocks, and Vine as well.  Near the fabled corner of Hollywood and Vine, life goes on as usual while tourists look for their favorite stars' stars...and a hopeful future star checks his messages...

 At Sunset and Vine, looking up the street towards Hollywood Blvd.,
the mix of old and new Hollywood...

 The biggest draw for tourists in Hollywood is still
Grauman's Chinese Theater...where costumed characters mix with visitors and some who look a bit lost...The red carpet above was left over from a Cirque du Soleil street performance the night before.















On Sunset, the Cinerama Dome sits across the street from the Los Angeles Film School, with Hollywood hopefuls coming and going...

 A Hollywood neighborhood cafe...

At Hollywood Blvd & Highland Shopping Center elephant towers rise up next to a massive gateway inspired by D. W. Griffith's 1916 silent film, Intolerance. As it turns out, the real location of the Intolerance Babylon set is where the Vista Theater now stands (show previously here)...
Vista Theater

Sketching at L.A.'s museums...

Some sketchbook sketches from some recent museum visits...

at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art during a recent Worldwide Sketchcrawl with the L.A. group...sketching in the courtyard, and the new installation--Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass--looking west and east...

 ...and across the street, "The Wall Project"--10 original Berlin Wall segments brought to Los Angeles by the Wende Museum to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.  Several artists were invited to paint 5 of the segments:  Kent Twitchell, Thierry Noir, Farrah Karapetian and Marie Astrid Gonzalez.  I was very moved to realize I was seeing a portion of that Wall here in my home town.

Sketching the La Brea Tar Pits
in Hancock Park, next to the George C. Page Museum...

sketching art and life at the Getty Center...Rene Magritte's "Delusions of Grandeur" in 2 views...

 the huge floating maze that sits

at the center of the wonderfully eccentric garden designed by artist Robert Irwin...the fountain in the courtyard, and some earlier views of people eating and relaxing next to the marble-clad block walls...