Kenya, Greece, and Turkey

Kenya

The Acropolis, Athens

Ancient Ephesus, Selcuk 

The Hagia Sofia, Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Boat ride on the Bosphorous River that separates Europe and Asia

A few of weeks ago, my wife, oldest daughter and I went on a mission trip with our church team to Kenya for 10 days. The first part was a medical mission in the outskirts of Nairobi. The other half was providing livelihood like sheep, hens, etc. and feeding of almost a thousand people in a camp for those who were displaced by violence in the Great Rift Valley. It was a life-changing experience to see the needs and how these beautiful people cope up. Before going back home, we spent a week-long vacation with a few friends and visited Athens, Ephesus and Istanbul. Here are some of the photos. Enjoy.

CTN Animation Expo 2010

Photos (Clockwise from left): During my talk on "The Power of Thumbnails"; Good ol' Mark McDonnell; Kim Mackey; Dan Daly; Mitch "Skelanimals" Bernal; Joe Gilland and Jay Schuh. 

Colleagues with me at the Sony booth: James Williams, Judy Thomason, Mike Kurinsky, Luc Desmarchelier and Ken Maruyama.  Other friends and colleagues I saw: Jill Culton, Robh Ruppel, David Colman, Craig Harris, Ed Ghertner, Peter Mohrle, Ronnie Del Carmen, Lee Gramling, Nicolas Villareal, Betsy Bauer, Tuna Bora, Christopher Denise, etc. Overwhelmed by so much talent present in one single event and reviewed close to a hundred portfolios in a couple of days. Very nostalgic weekend for me specially seeing my  ex-Disney Feature Animation Florida colleagues. Looking forward to next year.

Again, special thanks to Tina Price and her crew for making this year's animation expo a success. More power to CTN.

Winter Trips Photos

VALLEY OF FIRE, Nevada








YOSEMITE, California

Cast & Crew Screening of "Cloudy..."

Cast and crew screening at Mann Village Theatre and after party at Sony Pictures back lot for "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" last Monday. I will post my artworks from the movie starting tomorrow night, Thursday. Movie opens this Friday (watch it in 3D)!
(Top l-r:) Pete Oswald, Armand Serrano, Sylvain DeBoissy and Carey Yost.
(Bottom l-r) Antonio Cannobio, Dominique, Janet DeBoissy, Sylvain DeBoissy, John Butiu, Bing Serrano, Armand Serrano.
Photos courtesy of John Butiu.

Memories: Disney Florida Layout Crew

Happy new year! Browsing through my old photo files, I found these memorable photos of the Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida layout crew. Above was taken at the inauguration of the "brand new" animation building right after Mulan c. 1998. (l-r): Tom Humber, Richard Livingston, Kevin Proctor, Jeff Dickson, Norbert Maier, Armand Serrano, Bill Hodman, Andy Harkness, amd Arden Chan.
This was taken right before were done laying Brother Bear out. It was at the Coronado Resort in Disney World after a layout lunch. (l-r standing): Richard Livingston, Scott Kersavage, Robh Ruppel, Andrew Hickson, Joanne Tsuzanos, Craig Grasso, Bill Hodman, Andy Harkness, Tom Dow, Tom Humber, Billy George. (l-r seated): Mike, Franc Reyes, Jeff Dickson, Brian, George Villaflor, Armand Serrano, and Kevin Proctor (not in photo: Peter Deluca) c. 2002. Great crew...miss them all.

Proud Daddy Ad

If you have the Graco Baby catalog, You'll see my daughter Ella's photo on page 48. You can also view the online catalog here just for this month.

Big Bear and Third Day Concert

I took advantage of the President's day weekend and took a couple more days off to take a long overdue vacation. Since I celebrated my birthday two weeks ago, my family decided to spend a couple of days at a cabin up in Big Bear here in California to catch the last snow of the season. It was sunny and beautiful. No celphones and internet but I brought the very essential Xbox 360 and spent until 3:30 am playing Halo 3 and Ghost Recon 2. Photo above was taken from the patio of our cabin facing north overlooking Big Bear Lake.
Then to conclude my "birthday vacation", my wife Bing bought us tickets to one of my favorite Christian rock bands, Third Day at the House of Blues in Sunset Strip, Hollywood. They definitely rocked the house and there were also moments when they turned HOB into a sanctuary of worship. Awesome. For those of you in Florida, they will have a concert at the House of Blues at the Downtown Disney in Lake Buena Vista on February 29. Check thirdday.com for more concert details.
Anyway, it was a good time off...now I'm back to work.

Canyon Country Fires

You all have seen on the news the fires here in Southern California. I live in Canyon Country and had a first hand experienceof some of the scary moments during this buckweed incident that started rapidly Sunday afternoon. We were not evacuated but had to stand by just in case. The first five photos were taken from my backyard Sunday night. We're looking at the Whites, Plum and Sand Canyons which are approximately only 3-4 miles away from where I live. Last two were taken yesterday. That's Saugus area near Castaic. Fortunately, it's quiet now on our front but let us all continue to hope and pray for many whose lives and properties are directly affected by this calamity.

Another Proud Daddy Ad Again

If you picked up your newspapers this morning, more likely you came across this Old Navy flyer. It's my youngest daughter on the cover and it's national, too. She's also in Old Navy shops nationwide at the toddler section. Sorry guys, can't help it. I'll definitely post an artwork soon.

A "Proud Daddy" Ad Again

We went to the Old Navy shop in Valencia yesterday and were greeted by my youngest daughter's ad on the toddlers' section for sweaters (she's the curly haired one on the left and right). She did a two-day shoot for this two months ago in Culver City and didn't expect for it to come out in stores till fall. Sorry guys but can't help to post another proud daddy ad. Take care you all.

Another Proud Daddy Ad

Happy new year to you all and it's good to be back here in LA. I'm starting up this year with another proud daddy ad. My youngest, Ella did her fourth print ad and second for Babystyle catalogue. I know I know I'm bragging again but hey what the heck, this is my daughter and I'm very proud of all my kids' accomplishments. This was shot just before Christmas and here're the URLs if you want to see the online catalogue:

http://www.babystyle.com/
http://www.babystyle.com/content/baby/main.asp
http://www.babystyle.com/common/dProductFrame.asp?ClassID=3933
http://www.babystyle.com/common/dProductDetail.asp?pmid=21157&dept=1&sc=2306

I believe this will run until spring. Enjoy.

Just A "Proud Dad" Ad

My youngest, Ysabella, recently completed photoshoots for Children's Place and Baby Style catalogues. Here's a Children's Place ad on the August issue of Parenting magazine. She's the one on the left. My two other kids, Hannah and Luke, attend Santa Clarita School of Performing Arts in Newhall, California. If your kids or you know someone who wants to do no non-sense acting lessons and living north of Los Angeles, I would highly recommend this school. You can check out their site here.

Red Rock Canyon

Here are some photographs I took on a visit to Red Rock Canyon in Nevada last Wednesday with my family. Amazing rock formations and the pallette against sunset. Check out the family at the lower right corner on the the third photo for scale.

Grand Canyon Trip

My family with some friends took a trip at the southern rim of the Grand canyon in Arizona late last week and here's a couple of photos I took from that "grand" experience. Because of the epic size and scale of the place (fig. 1) the background always looks like a flat painted billboard on a lot of my photos (fig. 2 & 3). The whole place was such an awesome sight to see.