Albany Bulb Beach and Golden Gate Fields, 8x10", oil on Gessobord
Today I spent the afternoon painting in the bright windy sunshine at Albany Bulb across the way from the Golden Gate Fields racetrack. I could hear the announcer calling the races while I painted. And I was visited by numerous dogs and curious children and the occasional art critic.
It felt so good to be out painting again–it had been too long. The only downside was that I was painting in the bright sun because I was too lazy to walk back to my car to get my umbrella. And it was so windy the umbrella probably would have blown away anyway. When the canvas and/or palette are in the bright sun it’s really easy to mix all the colors too dark.
So of course when I got home and took the painting out of its box everything was too dark. Although I’d taken photos, they were pretty boring so I mostly worked from my memory this evening to to make some corrections and add a bit of artistic license.
Waiting for his stop; waiting for her owner; ink and gouache
He was waiting for his stop on the subway ride and she was waiting for her owner to come out of the book store on Solano. I used the gouache to hide the guy’s nose that I added by mistake. (It wasn’t visible at this angle but he turned his head and I said, “Oh, there’s his nose,” and sketched it in, and immediately saw it was wrong.) The gouache also nicely hides the false start of the dog and the waiter (see last picture below) too.
North Berkeley Fire Station, copic sepia ink
The North Berkeley Fire Station is round. The fire truck barn is a large round concrete building with pillars and attached round buildings where the firemen (and women) live when they’re on duty. At the bottom left of the sketch is the very back of the waiting fire truck, with flag flying, just returned from one call and ready and waiting for the next.
Waiting waiter, ink and gouache
This waiter was on a break from the Inidan restaurant in front of which I was sketching. Although he was only about 20 feet away, he was so engaged in his phone call that he didn’t seem to notice me sitting on my little sketching stool, frantically trying to catch his gesture before he walked away. There’s another quickie of the waiting dog on this page too.
These were all from last Tuesday night’s sketchcrawl. I sketched in pen on site and then added the gouache at home.
Here’s a few sketches of doors from last week’s North Berkeley sketchcrawl around Euclid and Crystal above the Berkeley Rose Garden. I was really tired and not terribly inspired, but it was a nice evening nevertheless.
Near Berkeley Rose Garden #1, ink & watercolorNear Berkeley Rose Garden #2, ink & watercolorNear Berkeley Rose Garden #1, ink & watercolor
This week we headed to Spruce Street in North Berkeley to sketch “Normandy Village,” a 1920s blueprint copy of a village in rural France. For some reason I did all of the village sketches on one spread in my sketchbook so I’ve separated them to post here. I started with these funny gargoyles on one of the cottages, experimenting with a Penstix Indian ink pen that bleeds a bit when water is added.
Normandy Village on Spruce Street #2, ink & wash
After the gargoyles I walked back into the little village and sketched the towers. While I was balancing on my 3-legged stool on the cobbled road, some residents drove up to unload some stuff from their car. A young man showed me his large pencil drawings he’d done at school that day and said he was an illustrator and a “Concept Artist.” Actually he’s a student at SF Academy of Art but with that kind of confidence will likely go far.
Normandy Village Gnome house, ink & watercolor
While most of the cottages in the village look like Hobbit houses, one of the “Village People” as the residents are known, is a gnome collector. Her kitchen window is lined with small gnomes, and the backyard just visible through the archway above, is loaded with gnomes large and small. This one was resting in a chair.
A friendly couple who lived in one of the apartments in this building came out with a plate of produce scraps to put in the recycling bin near me. We chatted about drawing and which was more difficult, drawing people or architecture. I showed them the trick for getting angles approximately right when sketching.
When it got too dark and we were walking up the hill to our cars we saw this home below and realized that in the open on the top of the hill here there was still enough light to do one more sketch
Last sketch on Spruce Street Sketchcrawl #4, Ink & watercolor
For our Monday night sketchcrawl we met at the Berkeley Rose Garden, sketched a bit, and then took a stroll along Euclid Ave. At sunset we sketched at the foot of the Rose Walk Path steps where two women residents of the cluster of Maybeck cottages there had a cheerful chat in front of a large Japanese maple while we sketched them.
Hollyhocks, ink & watercolorBerkeley Rose Garden views, Ink & watercolor
Inside the rose garden I sketched the trees and the person reading in a bright spot of sun. The hollyhocks on the right were our last sketching stop since it was totally dark by the time we finished them.
The Squid Boat, ink & watercolor, 9x6"
On Sunday I spent the afternoon on a beautiful sailboat on the San Francisco Bay. After our sail my friend Barbara and I found a dockside bench near a cafe to sketch before heading home. This funny little fishing boat was docked there and was a perfect subject for a quick sketch.
Cathy and I met at Shattuck and Vine to sketch, and started with this historic building, now a wine shop called Vintage Berkeley, converted from the former utility district’s Vine Street Pumping Station. Actually we’d started a little further up the street, but my sketch was terrible so no point in posting it.
By the time we finished drawing there, I was getting hungry so we looked around for somewhere to sketch and eat but that ate up sketching time too. We ended up at Dara Thai/Lao Cusine where we sat outdoors and sketched and I ate grilled calamari on shredded lettuce with cilantro sauce. It was warm, filling and delicious.
Dara Thai/Lao Cuisine, ink 9x6
I didn’t get to finish this sketch because it got dark and cold…and because I spent so much time drawing details in the fancy roof of the little shelter. Despite hearing from great art teachers, “Simplify, reduce details, draw only what you see when squinting, see how much you can leave out,” I love details. That’s just how it is.
But the funny thing is that because I got so absorbed in the details on that one roof, I didn’t have time to draw all the roofs of all the shelters behind this one, which would have filled the whole page with details.
Cathy and I met at Monterey Market on Hopkins Street in Berkeley’s Northbrae neighborhood for our Monday night sketchcrawl. The scent of ripe fruit was heavenly in their screened fruit patio, but the store was closing so we were soon out on the street.
Cathy sketching
I stood behind Cathy while she leaned on a bike rack to sketch the signs on the corner. Then we walked up Hopkins to the Country Cheese and Coffee Market.
Country Cheese, Sepia Micron Pigma, 9x8"
The scents were quite different here: damp cardboard and wafts of the day’s refuse from all the now-closed food sellers on this block including Magnanis Poultry and Monterey Fish Market. My butt fell asleep from leaning against a large metal box on the sidewalk while I was sketching. I could have sat on the chair but decided to sketch it instead. It felt good to start moving again. We walked around the block looking for inspiration at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery but since they were closed there wasn’t enough to see through the fence.
We headed up Rose Street and through the King Middle School play yard where people were throwing frisbees for their dogs in the sunshine at 8:00 at night. It was really starting to feel like summer.
Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame, helped start an “edible garden” on the school property and that’s where we did our final sketches, surrounded by beds of vegetables, flowers and fruit.
Edible Garden "campfire", ink & watercolor, 9x12"
We felt like we were at camp, sitting on hale bales arranged in a large circle under an arbor made of rough hewn posts and branches woven together. At the center of the circle, a huge “campfire” of flaming pink and red poppies blazed. I imagined how rewarding it must be for a class of young gardeners to gather there for lessons with their teacher, the beautiful results of their work growing all around them. What a wonderful learning environment!
On Monday night I completed another sketchbook and three years of sketch-blogging. Cathy and I had dinner at Cactus Taqueria on Solano Avenue in Berkeley and sketched the other diners. Then we started walking to see what else looked like fun to draw.
It was cold and foggy outside, and the lobby of the old Oaks Theatre looked warm and inviting so we walked in and asked if we could sketch. This confused the woman working there who had nothing to do but sit and chat with a younger woman. It was a Monday night and they were showing a French movie and it was a bad French movie and so there were few customers. She told the manager we wanted to sketch (with a tone of voice that implied we might be deranged) and he said it was fine.
Oaks Theatre Popcorn Machine, Berkeley, ink & w/c
We sat on carpeted stairs (the only place to sit except the already occupied bench) and sketched the popcorn machine directly in front of us. At first it seemed like a stupid, boring subject, but within minutes I was captivated by all the odd mechanical bits inside the machine. Oddly, despite the strong scent of hot popcorn, the machine was completely empty.
At first we sketched listening to the inane conversation of the two women which even they seemed bored by. They left and the manager came over and asked us whether drawing can be learned or if is just an inborn talent (definitely can be learned!). Then he wandered off and we listened to him being lectured to by a customer (inspired by the movie she’d just left?) about race, culture, history, and her philosophies on life, while he listened patiently, saying “OK.” I jotted down a few of her pronouncements on the sketch.
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About a year ago, I received an email from Croatian poet and author Sonja Smolec, asking for permission to use one of my watercolors on the cover of her new book of poetry, “White Lilac Love.” Of course I agreed, and was delighted when she sent me a copy of the book.
A week ago I received an email from Sonja telling me that her publisher had held a bookcover contest and her book had won! The 73 poems in White Lilac Love weave a beautiful and tender love story with all the soaring emotions from hope to despair to true love along the way. One of the poems was so evocative and full of wonderful imagery that it inspired a painting (in progress — more about that later).
4th Street Jazz Festival- by Jana4th Street Jazz Festival-by Casey
Casey Toussaint and her son Paul are visiting from France and I had the pleasure of spending Sunday with them. After a quick visit to my house and studio, we headed down to the Berkeley Marina to cool off on an unseasonably hot day.
Casey & Paul on Berkeley Pier
We walked to the end of Berkeley’s long pier on San Francisco Bay with views of the Golden Gate Bridge (which Paul wanted to see) and there was a wonderful cool breeze coming in off the ocean. Then we had a delicious lunch at Skates on the Bay, where we had a window seat and watched birds nesting under the eaves and sailboats tacking back and forth on the choppy bay.
Casey & Jana @ Skates
On the way to our next stop (Dick Blick Art Supplies to pick up a large sketchbook to bring to the afternoon session of the figure drawing marathon sponsored by the Bay Area Models Guild at Merritt College in Oakland) we passed Berkeley’s Fourth Street boutique/foodie shopping area. We saw that the street was blocked off with a sign, “Fourth Street Jazz Festival” and decided to nix the figure drawing and sketch at the festival instead.
Casey sketching at Peets Fourth Street
We strolled the street and then settled at Peets Coffee for coffee and sketching where we did the two sketches at the top of the post. Casey works quickly, with wonderfully expressive lines, and got in a few more sketches from Peets:
4th Street people by CaseyMore 4th St people by Casey
After an hour or two we connected with Paul again, walked over to Blick’s for Casey’s art supply shopping and then headed to Telegraph Avenue and the University of California campus. Casey and I found a spot we wanted to sketch on campus so Paul headed back down Telegraph to Amoeba Records, a huge used CD/record store.
UC Campus building by JanaJana's sketch and buildingCasey's sketch of the building
When we met Paul back at Amoeba a couple hours later, I was hungry and we decided to head out for dinner. We all felt like Mexican food so I took them to Solano Avenue’s Cactus Taqueria. Paul was quite impressed by the size of the burrito he was served, and took photos of it. I learned that servings are much smaller in French restaurants and that it takes 5 or 6 years of serious study before someone can become a baker. He was surprised that here all one need do to beome a baker is to open a bakery and start baking.
Casey at UC Berkeley
As the sun was setting I drove them back to San Francisco. The fog had rolled in, ending the heat wave, and as we traveled across the Bay Bridge we had amazing views of San Francisco rising up out of the fog bank, sillouhetted by the setting sun. I drove really slowly across the bridge so Paul could take pictures and he got some great ones.
First, a quick note that I was interviewed for the fascinating Tools Artists Use website. Although it often ends up sending me shopping, I love to see the tools other people use to make their art. If you’d like to read the interview about my favorite art supplies and tools, just click here.
OK, so to celebrate the return of the my sketchbook, here are a few sketches from the past couple weeks that are happily no longer lost forever.
Old Sailor Man on BART, ink & watercolor, 8x6"
He looked like an old sailor man to me, wishing he was on a boat, not the subway.
While I was waiting for the ear, nose, throat doctor I copied the information from his wall chart and sketched the assortment of stuff on his shelf. I became fascinated with the names of the parts of the mouth and throat (I’m easily amused).
Waiting at the Doctor's Office, 4x6"
Defining Inspiration:
I noted in particular the “Epiglottis” and wondered if the word had anything to do with the word ” Epicurean.” Even more interesting was a depiction of an open throat, described on the chart as “Inspiration” which I supposed means “breathe in.” It made me think about inspiration in art and how, when feeling uninspired we try to force something to come out when perhaps it’s more a matter of simply opening and allowing it to come in, instead.
I had my sketchbooks out to share with my painting group buddies at the end of a nice Friday night dinner together at Jimmy Beans in Berkeley…
Judith at Jimmy Beans, ink & watercolor, 7x6"
so I added one more sketch (above).
Entranced by his cellphone on BART, 3x2"
And one more subway drawing. He was mesmerized by his cellphone but I see now that the sketch looks like he’s playing with his beard or rolling or a joint. (Are they still called joints?) I heard American Idol judge Randy Jackson call a song a joint on the show tonight, so maybe not.
Jana Bouc, Artist 