Drawings

More than 100 LA artists will converge on the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, for a monstrous live drawing and fundraising festival. Patrons will witness five hours of live drawings and have the opportunity to purchase the drawings, with proceeds going to the nonprofit organization Outpost for Contemporary Art. There will also be silk screenings, live DJ sets, food vendors and more. Center for the Arts, 2225 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock. Noon-6 p.m. $10. http://www.centerartseaglerock.

PITTSBURGH - Clayton Kershaw soon could become the richest pitcher in baseball history. But Kershaw was upset that he had to talk Sunday about his ongoing negotiations with the Dodgers, whom he blamed for leaking information to Fox Sports. The previous night, Fox Sports reported that Kershaw and the Dodgers were "making progress" toward agreement on a seven-year contract extension. According to the report, which cited unnamed "major league sources," the deal being discussed would be worth more than the record $180-million, seven-year contract between the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander, who in March agreed to five-year extension through 2019.

After painstaking deliberation, deep thought and much eraser gnawing (cynics might say dithering), every cartoonist in the free world weighed in on the Afghanistan war escalation last week. But it's one thing to draw up a plan, quite another to execute it. Pat Oliphant delivered a spectacularly expansive and daunting mountainous quagmire-scape. Steve Sack's grim reaper counted down to an arbitrary flag-draped deadline. And Adam Zyglis re-raised a wartime classic, planting the president's buildup banner on some pretty shaky ground.

Jan Juliani was standing behind the counter of the Santa Monica College library about noon when a group of terrified, screaming students sprinted through the entrance. One was running backward, shouting: "He has a gun!" Juliani knew exactly what to do. Recalling a lesson from a recent workshop on how to respond during "active shooter" incidents, the library assistant, 34, headed for a set of double doors that led to a storage closet in the back office. Other library workers followed her. Shutting the closet door seemed to take forever because of resistance from the pneumatic closer.

Fifty pencil drawings of Eichler homes in Orange will be exhibited next month inside a classic Eichler being restored to its original 1964 condition. Architect Jeffrey Crussell's artwork will be on view Feb. 20 to March 20. You can request an invitation by e-mailing crussellj@earthlink.net . Info: www.crussellfinearts.com.

The characters in Dasha Shishkin's wonderfully odd drawings at Susanne Vielmetter have phallic noses, Little Orphan Annie's blank loops for eyes, and sometimes tails and horns like the children populating the psychic terrain of Henry Darger. They are mostly women, lithe, high-heeled and elegant, in environments that have some elements in common with shops and clubs, and just as many -- stray beasts, nudity -- that don't conventionally belong there. The atmosphere in these beautifully strange tableaux is opulent, decadent, vaguely deviant.

'Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference' Where: J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles When: Dec. 8-Feb. 28 Contact: (310) 440-7300, www.getty.edu Also "Drawing Life: The Dutch Visual Tradition," J. Paul Getty Museum to Feb. 28. "The Golden Age in the Golden State: Dutch and Flemish Prints and Drawings," Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; Dec. 5-March 29; (626)

England --A series of erotic drawings by the late John Lennon have been put on display for the first time since being seized by police 15 years ago. The 14 drawings, which show Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, making love, are being exhibited at Beatle City, a museum. Produced during the couple's honeymoon in 1969, the drawings caused a storm of controversy when they were exhibited at a London gallery in 1970 and police closed down the display.

Central Park is almost synonymous with New York. But historians have long wondered whether the city's signature park was originally conceived the way it looks today. Were the ornate colorful tiles underneath the Bethesda Terrace a vision of the original designers? What about elegant black lamps that dot the park? Now historians might finally have some clues about the park's design. Illustrations for features of Central Park and other public places in New York have resurfaced, and the city has gone to court to get them back.

A bicoastal legal battle has erupted over who owns 17 drawings by Martín Ramírez, whose artworks, created while he lived in California state mental institutions until his death in 1963, now fetch six-figure sums. Is Maureen Hammond, a widowed, retired schoolteacher living in Needles, Calif., a multimillion-dollar art thief who tried to dispose of ill-gotten gains through a Sotheby's auction? Or was Hammond, 69, the appreciative and legitimate recipient of a gift of Ramirez's drawings from a psychologist who befriended the artist and was the first person to arrange for their display during the 1950s?

WASHINGTON - Delivering weapons and ammunition to beleaguered Syrian rebels will take weeks, White House officials acknowledged Friday as the administration's decision to supply arms set off a debate about how far, and how fast, President Obama's plunge into the conflict will take him. The move, after months of hesitation, has been widely viewed as a possible turning point toward far greater U.S. involvement in the 2-year-old civil war. But the...

Despite havinig the home-field advantage, Mexico could not manage more than a 0-0 tie with Costa Rica on Tuesday night in a World Cup qualifying game at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. It was the fifth tie in six games in the qualifying tournament for Mexico, which is tied with Costa Rica for second place in the standings with eight points each. The United States, which beat Panama, 2-0, leads the North and Central American and Caribbean group with 10 points. Spectators threw objects at Costa Rica captain Carlos Ruiz late in the second half.

A new federal report recommends taking a voluntary approach rather than government regulation to reduce the noise and safety risks of low-flying helicopters over neighborhoods across the Los Angeles Basin. The study by the Federal Aviation Administration stems from requests by members of California's congressional delegation to address concerns about chopper flights over homes, businesses and landmarks, such as the Hollywood Bowl during performances. The report immediately drew fire from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank)

Judging by the hundreds of letters we received on L.A.'s mayoral campaign (and other races) between the March 5 primary and Tuesday's election, Angelenos weren't exactly thrilled watching the candidates engage in political fisticuffs for nearly three months. Many letters were laced with exasperation, expressing disappointment over negative campaigning. That mood was reflected in a letter published Thursday by San Pedro resident Marie Matthews, who lashed out at the candidates for calling her house "constantly.

Yahoo Inc., fresh off its $1.1-billion deal this week to acquire personal blogging site Tumblr, got in line Friday to pick up video streaming site Hulu. The late bid by the cash-rich Internet portal giant came on the same day that the Santa Monica company received bids from private equity firms KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Management, said people familiar with the matter. For its bid, Silver Lake teamed up with powerful Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor, said the people, who did not want to be named because the bidding process was confidential.

After years of campaigning, and months of debating and handshaking by the candidates, the time is finally upon Los Angeles voters to choose their next mayor. Polls are set to open at 7 a.m. for an election that that has  drawn record spending and will see either the first woman or the first Jew elected as the city's mayor. Despite those milestones, both candidates have tried to turn around what could be record-low voter turnout with campaigning in the final days and hours.

Final design drawings have been approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency for the first of three phases in a $9-million, mixed-use development to be built on the northwest corner of Adams Boulevard and Hoover Street in the Adams-Normandie 4321 Redevelopment Project.

At first glance, the dozens of blueprints and drawings of model homes, floor plans and futuristic automobiles on display in the community art gallery of Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg's office in Van Nuys appear to be the work of professionals. Closer inspection, however, reveals that the work is not by professional draftsmen, architects or artists, but by students at Cleveland High School in Reseda.

And now the Powerball jackpot is back to a paltry $40 million. Thousands of California players woke up Sunday morning disappointed to discover that, in fact, they did not live in the small town of Zephyrhills, Fla., and did not win $600 million. By Monday morning, lotto fever had cooled. Lottery officials have said that jackpots over $200 million tend to draw casual players who don't normally play when the jackpot is $40 million or thereabouts. "It sounds ridiculous to say, but if the jackpot is $56 million, it just doesn't motivate people the way a $656-million jackpot does," Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state lottery, said in reference to a record-setting Mega Millions jackpot.