Category: People

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Art theory Oil Painting Painting People Portrait

Quinceanera Party Boy and When to Stop Painting

Quinceanera Party Boy, oil on panel, 14x11"
Quinceanera Party Boy, oil on panel, 14x11"

When I saw the photo I’d taken of this boy at the Legion of Honor where he was posing for his sister’s Quinceanera party photos, I knew I had to paint him (see my original blog post about that day). He is such a beautiful boy.

When to Stop Painting
Lately I’ve been focusing all of my art time on oil painting, and discovered something that might be of interest to other painters.

One night I’d been painting into the wee hours, trying to “fix” a painting. I’d put on paint, step back, then scrape it off. When I realized I didn’t know why I was doing anything I was doing, I went to bed, frustrated that after hours of painting I’d accomplished very little and in fact, probably just made things worse.

The next day I was driving to a plein air paint-out using my GPS to get me to cross streets near the destination (a little park with no address). Once I passed those cross streets, my GPS began scrolling the words “Driving….driving….driving” on the screen because it no longer had any directions for me—I’d passed the target with no further plan.

That’s when it hit me: When I’m at the point with a painting where I am just driving….driving…driving (or dabbing, scraping, dabbing) I need to STOP.

Without a conscious and specific intention (make this area cooler, warmer, darker, lighter, bigger, smaller, sharper, softer, etc.) and an overall goal, it’s just like trying to reach a general idea of a destination by driving mindlessly and randomly, hoping I’ll get there. Not too likely.

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Drawing Faces Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

All Day Meeting Sketches

 

All Day Meeting Sketches #1, pencil on notebook paper
All Day Meeting Sketches #1, graphite on notebook paper

 

We had an all day staff meeting today at our co-director’s home. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with each other, celebrate our accomplishments over the past year and plan for the huge amount of work we’ll be doing over the next year. It was also a chance for some sketching.

The gentleman above rests his finger just below his nose when he’s listening with concentration. (Just had to explain since it looks like he’s doing something else).

 

All Day Meeting Sketches #2, pencil
All Day Meeting Sketches #2, graphite

 

I really like the way the woman’s foot in this sketch turned out. She’s quite petite but I think I should have made her legs bigger since they were closer to me.

It felt inappropriate to take out my sketchbook (even though I know I listen well while drawing, I didn’t want others to think I wasn’t paying attention) so I drew in the same cheesy notebook I was using for notetaking. Of course everyone knew I was sketching anyway…

Last year we had our annual all staff meeting in a stuffy conference room. It was so much nicer gathering in a home where we could eat pizza in the backyard and sit in comfy chairs in a pretty living room and kick our shoes off.

 

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Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Life in general Painting People Photos Places Sketchbook Pages

Workshop, Weddings, Wheels at Legion of Honor, SF

Legion of Honor, SF, Ink & watercolor
Legion of Honor, SF, Ink & watercolor

My plein air painting group held a workshop today at the beautiful Legion of Honor in San Francisco’s Lincoln Park at which Ed Terpening demonstrated.  After an hour some people set up and started their own painting but I watched the full demo so had only enough time for this quick sketch. At the critique Ed pointed out the problem with the size of the guys in the foreground compared to the cars which made me laugh.

Ed is one of those rare artists who can paint while at the same time explaining the how, and why of what they’re doing. I learned so much! I’ve enjoyed following Ed’s blog, Life Plein Air for years and it was a real pleasure to meet him in person.

Afterwards I tried to walk over to the museum to see the Impressionists in Paris show (wonderful!) but was prevented by this craziness:

There were about a hundred noisy, smoky mopeds, coming up the hill and then circling around and around, more and more of them. Finally they left and I made it across the street and directly to the museum’s café for a much-needed latte. While I sipped I sketched the view out the cafe’s french doors (except they didn’t have Ed’s name above them):

Cafe view under my notes about the workshop in sketchbook
Sketch under my notes about the workshop in journal

I took notes during the demo on a page in my journal that had an unfinished sketch done with green pen which is what that green mark is under Ed’s name.

Apparently the Legion of Honor is a place people go to take wedding and Quinciaños photos (even though their ceremonies weren’t actually held there). I noticed five different groups being photographed and took my own photos of a few. Since I used a zoom lens you don’t see the tourists and museum goers that were all around them:

Wedding #1, Very serious and stoic
Wedding group #1, So formal and serious
Getting the flower girls ready
Wedding Group #2: Flower Girls
The Quincianera and her court of honor
Quincianera and her court of honor getting ready for photos

The Quinciañera is a Latin American tradition for celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday. Formerly a religious celebration, it has become an obscenely expensive event that can match weddings in cost and extravagance, including ball gowns, banquets, limos, huge parties, photographers, bands and more. I wish they’d save their money for college.

After their photos they left in a huge stretch limo as long as a bus but made out of a Hummer.

Priceless expression (great hat, too)
What is he thinking?

Nobody looked like they were enjoying themselves much in any of the groups. Except maybe the photographers, but they were getting paid to do their art.

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Places Urban Sketchers

Popcycle SF – Treats on a Traveling Tricycle

Popcycle SF in Downtown Oakland, ink & watercolor
Popcycle SF in Downtown Oakland, ink & watercolor

I almost passed up this sketching opportunity as I hurried home from work but realized it was worth postponing dinner for and walked back. Here was this cute guy selling gourmet popsicles out of a pretend ice-cream truck that is really just a large tricyle inside a cloth-covered frame, playing rinky-tinky ice cream truck music.

I asked the proprietor, David Meisenholder, if he would be there for a while so I could sketch him. He’d been about to leave but was nice enough to wait while I sketched him (and he even made a few more sales).

The pretend, miniature “truck” is a brilliantly creative work of art, the kind of thing that makes your mind sort of expand and contract all at once, and is perfectly executed down to the little pretend headlights and grill on the front.

This is a new venture for David and his partner; you can see photos of the Popcycle’s “Maiden Voyage” here and you can find his locations via Twitter.

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings Urban Sketchers

Subway Drawings: BART Riders

Shaky train, shaky pen; ink with digital coloring
Guns Before Butter; shaky pen & digital coloring

This lady carefully marked up her cheesy crime novel, “Guns Before Butter” with her pencil as she read.  The train ride was really bumpy and so my ink line got pretty squiggly. I switched to drawing her after a big guy with a bike got on and completely blocked my view of the man above her.

Two guys in green, ink & colored pencil
Two guys in green, ink & colored pencil

I experimented some more with the brown craft paper sketchbook, drawing with a black brush pen on BART and (above) adding white pen and colored pencil at home.

More Brown Paper People
More Brown Paper People

And below, some ink drawings done on BART with watercolor added at home later.

Waiting patiently, ink & watercolor
Waiting patiently, ink & watercolor
Elderly Asian couple, ink & watercolor
Elderly Asian couple, ink & watercolor
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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketching at the Berkeley Pier

Fishing & Strolling the Pier, ink & watercolor
Fishing & Strolling Berkeley Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor

It was the hottest August day in the history of San Francisco, smack in the middle of the coldest summer since 1975. So for our Tuesday night sketch-out we headed for the cooling breezes coming in off the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate Bridge (in the center of the picture above, to the right of the San Francisco skyline). We weren’t alone. The pier was full of people strolling and fishing and enjoying the rare warm evening.

Men's Bathroom on the Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor
Men's Bathroom on the Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor

Although my sketch buddies selected a more scenic perspective from the same vantage point (which you can see on our Urban Sketchers Bay Area blog here), the men’s bathroom and shoreline rocks glowing pink and orange in the sunset attracted me instead. Apparently I was holding my sketchbook at a strange angle as I was drawing and painting (or else the world temporarily tilted) causing the wonky slanted horizon and bridge.

The sky turned indigo blue as we walked back down the pier towards land, and a huge full moon rose over the hills. Then a group of half a dozen kayakers with little headlights on their boats paddled right under the pier and out the other side below us. It is special sights like this that make getting out in the world to sketch so special.

Categories
Art supplies Berkeley Book review Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Places Shop windows Sketchbook Pages

Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore: Mockingjay District 12 Window Display

District 12 at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore, Ink & watercolor
District 12 at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore, Ink & watercolor

Since I’d read, and surprisingly enjoyed, The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins’ first book in her dystopian futuristic trilogy, I understood why this display was in the Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore window: it was advertising the third book in the series, Mockingjay.

The Hunger Games trilogy is about a boy and a girl struggling to survive an annual contest where teenagers from 12 impoverished districts are forced to fight for their lives in the ultimate televised reality show, with the winner bringing honor to her district. When a reliable friend recommended this young adult novel, I was highly skeptical on so many levels. But I found it to be a good read (or listen really–I borrowed the book on CD from the library).

Goorin Hats, Berkeley
Goorin Hats, Berkeley

Before sketching Mrs. Dalloways, this little brown craft-paper sketchbook from the UC Davis college bookstore (a gift from my friend Pete Scully) was perfect for warm-up sketches with a brush pen. College Avenue is full of interesting, upscale little shops like this hat shop.

This previous sketch of Mrs. Dalloway’s is one of my favorites. It’s a wonderful bookstore with a special focus on books about gardens.

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Drawing Faces Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Photos Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages

Self-Portrait and My Lady Gaga Makeover

Self Portrait with Sketchbooks and Tea, ink & watercolor
Self Portrait with Sketchbooks and Tea, ink & watercolor

When I set up my old mirror to sketch the self-portrait I end each journal with, I could see my sketchbooks on the shelf behind me in the mirror, along with the cup of tea behind the mirror.  When I finished the sketch I pasted this photo of my Lady Gaga Makeover on the opposite page:

Me with Lady Gaga Hair
Me with Lady Gaga Hair

I found Instyle’s Hollywood Makeover website when I was looking for new hairstyle ideas. You upload a photo of your face, line it up, and select a hairstyle (from a huge collection of celebrity photos) which then appears on your face. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time!

Once you select a hairstyle (and even change the hair color) you can choose face and eye makeup, creating a complete makeover, which I did. If you register on their site you can save and download your makeover photos and it’s all free.

Jennifer Garner Hair Makeover
Jennifer Garner Hair Makeover

I brought this more reasonable makeover photo to my hairdresser, who rolled her eyes since the original model (Jennifer Garner) has thick, straight hair and mine isn’t. But with the help of her scissors and blow dryer, I did get something close.

Of course now my hair has gone native again, back to curly, since that’s so much easier than trying to turn it into something it isn’t with gels and blow driers and clips and pins and staying out of the wind and fog.

If you try the makeover site, please share the results! Or at least enjoy the laugh!

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages

Peet’s Coffee after Manet’s Bar at Folies Bergère

Peet's Coffee after Manet, Ink & watercolor
Peet's Coffee after Manet, Graphite, ink & watercolor

When I walked up to the woman at the counter at Peet’s to order my coffee I started babbling that she looked just like someone in an Impressionist painting. She humored me and asked for my order. I ordered my latte, went back to my table, and Googled  “Impressionist Bar Painting” on my iPhone. It didn’t take long before I found it.

Manet, Folies Bergere
Manet, Bar at Folies Bergère

I showed her the image on my phone and asked if she’d pose for me like the woman in the painting and she agreed. I don’t have permission to post her photo so all I can show you is my sketch, which is a study for a larger painting.

Needless to say, I left a good tip for my coffee (and modeling services). And fortunately there wasn’t a line of people waiting for their coffees.

I can see that I need to go back to Peet’s to sketch and take more photos so that I can replace the computer monitor on her left with something more beautiful. Or maybe it’s appropriate to be there? But it sure isn’t as pretty as Manet’s oranges and flowers in crystal.

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Dreams Faces Life in general Painting People Portrait Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

My Dinner with Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, watercolor
Bob Dylan, watercolor

I dreamed that Bob Dylan was having dinner with my friend Michael and he invited me to tag along. They talked seriously about music trivia for hours in the old wood-paneled café.  I was surprised at how much better Dylan looked in person. I was going to tell him but decided it sounded too dumb. So I just sat there silently, trying to inconspicuously flirt with him.

Then my calico cat Fiona woke me up, making those telltale, pre-puking sounds cats make. I pushed her off the bed and tried to go back to sleep since it was still dark. Just as I’d finally fallen back asleep she started licking my eyebrow. I gave up trying to sleep and spent the day feeling dopey and too tired to do the oil painting I had planned.

Instead it seemed like a really good idea to wash off the entire background of the Big Tulip painting I thought I’d “finished.”  More about that later…now off to get some sleep!