Occupy Wall Street Freestyle

I joined my friend past weekend for an awesome night of freestyle by Symphonics at The Bowery Poetry Club. Inevitably, the hottest jam dealt with the protest. The guys on stage rhymed webs out of _occupy____oc_oc_occupy_ to the funky beat and jazzy, buttery chords. I had the iPad on my lap and "freestyled" this iDrawing.

Drawn on my iPad

NYSE

A small  detour tonight led me to the New York Stock Exchange building. It's so beautiful, especially at night. The barricades and police clusters remind that Occupy Wall Street is just a few blocks away.
See Full Reportage Here >
 

Occupy Wall Street :: NYC Liberty Square : Right To Assembly

I finally made it to Liberty Square to see what is happening for myself. Occupy Wall Street  started a month ago and is now a world-wide movement. It was peaceful, relaxed and ambiguous. I walked through the crowd making drawings, looking to collect sentiments and moods. I found that majority of people there didn't really know how to feel about what was going on around them. Some said to me they felt the protest should be happening in Washington, not here. Some said it's like the 60's are back.  It seemed as though the main event was photographing and video taping. Every other person around me had some kind of camera or recording device in their hands. The police were surprisingly kind-one lady cop even said to me "am I in your way?" when she saw me drawing behind her. I couldn't believe it!

"Mike Check! Mike Check!" Human microphone sound amplification system: one person shouts a phrase and the crowd repeats. A bonding experience. And an exercise in trust. How do you know that the next speaker is going to say things worth repeating out loud? All the speeches, by the way, were read off smart phones, not paper.

cameras everywhere!

The "Occupiers" lounged on mattresses. One of these two guys was on a laptop, the other was smoking.

Oh, the characters you meet!

"Occupy Lego Land" guy said to me: "Just trying to put a smile on everyone's face"

What people have to say. *some are actual photos of posters.

What people have to say. *some are actual photos of posters.

What people have to say. *some are actual photos of posters.

My friend Audrey Hawkins posted a great blog entry on the event with her drawings. Take a look.

UPD May 2012
Some of these drawings live on in Augmented Reality as part of arOccupyMayDay by Mark Skwarek

San Francisco :: Japanese Tea Garden

A day's worth of playing with abstraction - shifting shapes and colors - at the beautiful Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco.

Torii Gate

Lantern

Pagoda

Ravens

San Francisco :: Sausalito : Travel Posters

 One day trip to Sausalito in July...

Rocks, Sail Boats, Mountains

Houses on a hill

Relaxing by the fountain

San Francisco :: The Golden Gate Bridge

...man, was it windy! As I walked on the bridge, it swayed and thumped under my feet. The cars and buses zoomed by within inches, and the annoyed bicyclists tried to make their way through the crowd of tourists. The wind was pounding so hard that it made me completely disoriented and somewhat deaf for the entire day that we spent at the Golden Gate Bridge. The pages of my pad kept trying to run away with the wind, and the soft pastels on paper quickly turned to flying dust. I finally hid underneath the bridge amidst wild flowers and was able to relax a little and take in the beauty of the surroundings. Here are a few of my "windy" studies of the bridge.

San Francisco :: Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma

...The play of light and shadow, the vibrancy of hues, the glitter and the twinkling...Only in Californian heat of July will you see such color...Dream a little dream.

 

Learning After Effects Animation :: My First Clip