Picante was quite crowded on our Tuesday night sketchcrawl. Sonia arrived early and saved us a booth but since I was last to arrive, my seat faced the wall, without a view of anything to draw. I decided to wait until after I ate to find a spot to stand and sketch the tortilla maker. She was amazing, in constant motion, pulling dough from the bowl, rolling a ball, placing it in the wooden press, squeeze, put on grill, move the tortillas around, squeeze another.
Fish Tacos and salad, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
My dinner was delicious: fish tacos served on Maria’s freshly made corn tortillas and drizzled with avocado sauce. Yum! Picante is one of the best Mexican restaurants in Berkeley with a friendly, festive atmosphere and delicious food made with high quality ingredients.
Autumn leaves just turning. I love the way their shadows also reflect their colors. Ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Thanksgiving is an autumn harvest holiday, celebrated by eating as much of the harvest as possible in one day. It’s also a time to consider all we have to be thankful for. When I published blog post #1000 last week, that milestone also made me pause and reflect on gratitude.
One important thing I’m grateful for is you, my wonderful blog readers/friends who give me so much encouragement and support and who so often say exactly what I need to hear when you leave comments.
Autumn leaves with colorful shadows, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Thank you for your inspiration, humor, advice, encouragement and for taking the time to share a few moments of your day with me. I treasure the friendships I’ve made via blogging. Some have led to in-person friendships, others have remained virtual, but all are incredibly valuable.
Along with the rewards gained from sharing my work and my thoughts, blogging has helped me to improve and grow as an artist and has led to many artistic and personal discoveries along the way.
I feel so lucky to live in a time when artists around the world can share, inspire and learn from each other. So I offer up a thousand thanks to all of you!
A few blog stats: Since I started JanasJournal in May 2006, I’ve published 1,103 posts, which received 10,120 comments, and almost 1 million “hits.” Meanwhile WordPress’s excellent spam catcher has caught and deleted 90,000 spam comments. Whew!
Small Water Dragon Lizard, ink & watercolor, 10"x7"
On a previous sketch night at Petco, I chose pretty little birds as my subject. This time I went for the creepy, crawly things. This little lizard was very cute and I imagined he wanted to go home with me. I’m sure my cats would have enjoyed him very much. The baby corn snakes (bottom corner above) were really weird. They moved as one and appeared like a multi-headed scramble of strings.
Female Mice, $3.49
These little mousy girls were also cute, but it’s just so odd seeing animals being sold as pets that would otherwise be considered vermin. Sketching caged animals in the pet store is always disturbing to me, but is also an interesting drawing challenge.
Rats eating and licking water from their water bottles
The rats seemed pretty happy in their glass box, with no need to earn a living and food, shelter and entertainment available on demand. They were interesting to draw but the smell in the rodent area was quite unpleasant (to put it nicely). Fortunately it was time to meet up and share our sketches which we did in the scent-free aquarium accessory department.
The scent of bay leaves perfumed the air as I sketched the John Muir House in Martinez. I love details and although I hear often that “good” art demands simplifying, I give myself a treat and break that rule whenever I please.
I intentionally drew the house with the top smaller than the bottom because that’s how it appeared to me, sitting close and looking up. Later I realized the palm trees also appeared to tilt in towards each other at the top. Drawn parallel, they make it look like the house is tilting back away from them. Oops.
I took a break between drawing and painting to explore the house and climb up to the attic lookout/bell tower. The view from there incongruously includes not only the lovely grounds with fruit tree orchards and gardens, but also the nearby freeway. You can see my friend Cathy’s sketches of the John Muir property (and the freeway) on our Urban Sketchers blog here.
On the John Muir Trail in High Sierras, photo copyright Robin Bouc
John Muir is known as the father of our National Park system; he convinced President Roosevelt to protect Yosemite, Sequoia, Grand Canyon and Mt. Rainier as National Parks. My son Robin has been hiking the High Sierra John Muir trail in sections for several years now and has taken some amazing photos, including the one above. You can see more of the photos he took this year in the remote wilderness on the trail here, and here (including his cute dog, Nilla who was one tired pooch on that trip!)
County Fair Taco Seller, ink, acrylic, watercolor, 7x5"
I finally started working on a series of 16×20″ oil portraits, mostly of people who work in my neighborhood shops. It took a long time to figure out how I wanted to approach the paintings and in the meantime I made several preliminary sketches in my journal.
This blue series began as a way to cover a really ugly page in my journal. To cover the mess, I mixed some Golden Absorbent Ground (gesso-like, but designed to prepare surfaces for watercolor painting) and some ultramarine blue watercolor. I didn’t mix it very well, as you can see from the streaks, but I actually like it this way. Drawing with a pen worked well on it too. When taco girl (above) dried, I painted in her very red hair.
Kim the Barista, ink & acrylic & watercolor
I covered two more pages in my journal with the remaining blue Absorbent Ground. Something went a little wrong with my drawing of Kim’s eyes (above) which don’t quite match in size or location. Oops. I sketched Kim before (see pics here) when I was taken by the scene’s resemblance to Manet’s “Bar at Folies Bergère.”
Elliot, Meat Manager, ink and acrylic
I felt a little embarrassed to ask Elliot to let me take a photo of him behind the meat counter but I had to. There is something old-fashioned about him that always makes me picture him in a Norman Rockwell painting. I had a little problem with one of his eyes too, but his oil painting is coming along nicely.
Taco Girl and Kitchen on Fire Spread in Journal
This is the spread in my journal where this series started. The Taco Girl oil portrait is half done. It will be a while before I finish and post the oil paintings but I am enjoying working on several at once, so that while a layer of one dries another is ready to work on.
And I’m so happy to have figured out how I want to paint them: I’m painting how I paint! More about that in another post.
I breezed through this little pamphlet-bound potato chip box journal in a few weeks. Since Roz Stendahl just posted about her problems binding this paper, I thought I’d share my results with binding and sketching on this paper.
Since my sketchbook was small, pamphlet-bound (stitched down the middle only) with just 3 holes, I didn’t have trouble with the pages cracking like she did in her case-bound journal. I found the paper too rough for drawing with a fine point or fountain pen and settled on a Faber-Castell Pitt Medium pen. I also experimented unsuccessfully on one sketch with a white gel pen.
Last Page Spread, Chip Journal, 6×7.5″
I do like the paper for quick sketching and I’m going to continue experimenting with it. Roz says it’s good for gouache. I’d like to try it using black line and wash with white gouache for highlights. I used it for oil pastel and wasn’t happy with the results.
Boy Scouts Waiting to Parade, ink & watercolor 5x7"
I was supposed to go to a plein air paint-out but woke up in an ornery mood with a headache and decided to stay closer to home. Kensington, a nearby community of hills, big houses and trees was having their annual Harvest Parade so I drove the mile or so up there and perched on a low wall outside the combination drugstore/post office. These boy scouts above were fooling around on the bench beside me, waiting for the call to line up. They were constantly moving but I somehow managed to draw them as if they were holding still.
Ready to march, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Across the street in front of the Sugar Cone Cafe in the hardware store parking lot staging-area, people started lining up. The El Cerrito High School Gaucho’s marching band practiced their flute and drum routines, cub scouts hug-wrestled, and a girl in a fairy costume twirled.
Once the parade started moving I followed along the six blocks to the library/community center destination. It was a charming, small-town event that had everyone smiling.
Kitchen on Fire: Tools of the Trade, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Don’t worry, nothing’s burning! “Kitchen on Fire” is the name of a cooking school in the heart of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto. We ended our sketching evening there when it got too dark to draw on the street. The chefs were cleaning up after an evening class and were nice enough to let us hang out and sketch until they finished. I’ve heard classes there are a lot of fun.
Freddy Hughes Band, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
The Cheeseboard Collective (PLEASE see wonderful sketches on their website here) has over 400 kinds of cheese and in the evening sells their pizza of the day to people who line up for it. They host bands who entertain the diners sitting on benches, at cafe tables or picnicking on the grass in the median strip of the street.
Be sure to watch this video long enough to see the two “Keep off the median” street signs and the guy using it as a back rest: pure Berkeley.
My first sketch of the evening was of this group of burly gentlemen below, enjoying their pizza crowded around a table in the dark, lit by streetlights and storefronts.
Eating pizza outside the Cheeseboard, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
I had a hard time with the sketch. There were actually 6 guys but they arrived one at a time, and kept changing places at the table outside the Cheeseboard. I had a whole story going in my mind about how they were Greek or Russian furniture movers.
I thought they didn’t notice me drawing them but when they got up to leave they asked to see. I was mortified since I’d done them no favors with my rendering. They were very nice anyway, recognized each other in the picture and laughed as much at themselves as at my sketch.
Then the guy on the left told me he was an artist who loves to draw and he was very encouraging. That’s the nice thing about sketching in public. Nobody ever criticizes your work, no matter how bad you think it might be.
Miller-Knox Park Sketches, Journal Spread, 11x7" (see enlarged individuals pics below)
We are having the most glorious Indian summer this October, with nicer weather than we had during the real summer. I always think of this hot, dry weather as Earthquake Weather because of the earthquakes and fires during other hot Octobers. And sure enough there have been several earthquakes the past week.
Little tree, from my car, sketch #1, ink & watercolor
When I arrived at Miller-Knox park for a plein air group paint out at 10:00, I decided to sketch the first thing I saw: this little tree. I sketched from where I parked my car. At the end of the paint out, when we returned to the parking lot, everyone was laughing at the dope who parked their car all wonky and it was my car they were pointing at.
Apparently in my enthusiasm to get sketching, I managed to park at such an angle that I went around the cement parking stop blocks, ending up half on the grass and half in the next space, none of which I’d noticed doing.
Lagoon view, geese in the shade
I took a walk and found a nice spot in the shade with a view of the lagoon and lots of white geese and Canadian geese. I lost the white geese when I repainted the shaded area so later added some white watercolor (which never quite works) to try to get them back. Since they’re in the shade, it’s OK that they’re not super white.
Lagoon and bridge view
In the Bay Area you can be in a stunningly beautiful park but have views of freeways or bridges in the background that remind you you’re still in an urban area.
People Picnicking in the Park
My last sketch of the day was of these folks setting up a picnic under the trees. This was one of those days when the weather was perfect, the scenery beautiful, and my pen and paint just worked.
The Delicata squash were so pretty I wanted to paint them. And then I wanted to cook them (a first time for me). Exploring new produce is an adventure. First draw it, then cut it open and see what’s inside.
Delicata cut, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
The texture of squash doesn’t really appeal to me too much. Especially the slimy parts before it’s cooked. But it makes an interesting sketching subject.
Delicata Cooked on Metal Pan, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
I like this sketch best, with the squash sitting in the reflective, stainless steel roasting pan. I ate a couple of their brethren with my dinner and then brought the leftovers to the studio to sketch.
I’m still not a huge fan . It was OK, roasted with some butter and a little cinnamon. But I think next time (if there is one) I will go for a more savory flavor, with lots of garlic instead.
UPDATE 10/23/11: My art blogger friend Jana Botkin shared these thoughts on squash and art that I had to share here:
A friend once said to me “Squash is the past tense of squish, and squish is not a food”.
We full-time artists could theoretically write off the cost of our groceries if we paint them first!
Garlic, oregano and parmesan cheese are almost the only way I find squash palatable. Without it, it is only palette-able!
Jana Bouc, Artist 