Category: Sketchbook Pages

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages

Santa’s Name is James

Icky Shrimp Taco and Signed by Santa James
(left) Cactus Taqueria Diners with Xmas decor; (right) Santa Sketch Signed by Santa James

Cathy had the brave idea to sketch at the San Francisco Centre mall. I say “brave” because for some of us, entering an upscale glitzy mall during the holidays requires much girding of the loins. It was fun sketching on BART on the way there, but when I entered the mall I felt like I’d walked into a science fiction movie.

Noise! Shiny stuff! Expensive stuff! Way too much stuff! Escalators winding around and around, floor after floor, up to a huge domed ceiling where Santa and my sketch group were supposed to be. But it turned out there are two domes and I was on the wrong side of the mall.

Finally I made it to the correct dome where movies were projected on the dome ceiling, music was playing and Santa was sitting on a throne in front of a backdrop that said “The Picture Perfect Holiday Made Possible by Microsoft.” When they took your picture with Santa they cropped out the Microsoft bit.

Santa James and I
Santa James and I

After I sketched Santa I went up to get my free photo with him. Isn’t he the most perfect looking Santa? I asked him to sign my sketch and he did, “Santa James.” He maintained that cherubic smile all evening through dozens of crabby children and silly adults getting their picture taken with him. One group of 4 teen girls all talked on their cellphones while their picture was taken.

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Sketchbook Pages

Is Your Style a Mistake? How to Find Your Style as an Artist

Caffe Trieste before the band, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Caffe Trieste (she's saving seats with her backpack) before the band (then six people crowded around those 2 tiny tables, sitting on laps), ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Caffe Trieste was crammed with people when we went to sketch  and listen to the wonderful Randy Craig Trio—probably double the little café’s legal limit. The title of the post: “Your Style is a Mistake…” comes from a  Robert Genn quote that I noted in my journal below:

People at Trieste and Genn note
People at Trieste and Genn note

How to Find Your Style as an Artist

In an interview, Robert Genn was asked, “How does an artist find their own style?” His answer was brilliant. He said (paraphrased here) that typically what makes your style yours, what makes it unique, is the thing you do “wrong;” it is the way you break the rules intentionally or just don’t do something “correctly” that defines your style.

In other words (mine), quit hating and start embracing those wonky lines that won’t behave, that paint applied differently than those artists you aspire to emulate or the hard edges or soft focus or pale washes… Keep studying and learning and practicing, but appreciate what you can do now and cherish those quirks. (Talking to myself here!)

Randy Craig Trio guitarist, ink & watercolor
Randy Craig Trio guitarist, ink & watercolor

You don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful and neither does your art. As a matter of fact, “perfect” art (in my opinion) is boring art.

When you make mistakes, think about how you’ll do it differently next time, but also look for the bit that worked even if it’s just a small passage. For example in the sketch above, the music stand didn’t work at all, nor did the singer I cropped off on the right, but I did a much better job with the guitar this time than I did last time I sketched at Trieste.

Categories
Sketchbook Pages

Pseudo Summer Continues: Weird Weather Poll

Peet's 4th Street Patio, ink & watercolor
Peet's 4th Street Patio, ink & watercolor

So here it is December and we’re still having beautiful sunny days that barely require a hoody to keep warm. It’s great being able to sit out on the patio at Peet’s and sip coffee (decaf these days) and sketch. But it just feels weird. Where’s the rain, the cold, the frost, the storms, the cozy days indoors?

Is your weather weird too? Take the poll below.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at Saul’s Deli

Waiting for my dinner, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Waiting for my dinner, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

When we sketch at Saul’s Deli, a favorite during the dark winter Tuesday nights, I often feel overwhelmed by the complicated architecture with diamond patterned floors and maybe 70 booths and tables. So I started with something easier: what was on the table. Immediately I screwed up the ellipse of the glass but am learning to say, “that’s OK” and just move on.

Saul's people, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Saul's people, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

After I ate I started drawing people. The place was packed since it was Thanksgiving week and there were many guests in town. I asked the waiter if it was a problem we were hogging three tables and he said we were doing him a favor by lightening his load.

Guys with hidden people
Guys with hidden people

These guys were having a good time and I enjoyed drawing them. Then for some reason I drew some other people on the same page but tried to hide them when I painted it since they didn’t belong there.

More people eating and talking
More people eating and talking

I messed up her lips and tried to fix it and made it worse. I’ve noticed my sketching has suffered a bit lately from neglect as I’ve been working on some 16×20 oil portraits and all my drawing efforts have been on the paintings. It’s amazing how quickly I lose sketching fluency without daily practice…so I’m back to it now.

Categories
Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

Coconut Flour Zucchini Muffin Thief

Coconut Flour Zucchini Muffins, ink & watercolor 5x7"
Coconut Flour Zucchini Muffins, ink & watercolor 5x7"

I love zucchini muffins so was excited to find a recipe for grain-free version made with coconut flour. I got carried away grating zucchinis in my ancient Cuisinart food processor before realizing the recipe only called for 3/4 cup. Oops. But it turns out there are many other good uses for grated zucchini

The muffins turned out really well. I set them on a rack to cool and left the room. When I walked back into the kitchen an hour later I found muffins scattered about the floor with the tops chewed off and  surrounded by crumbs. Bad Kittie Fiona!

I should have known to hide them from the little calico carboholic instead of leaving them out to tempt her. She once stole a box of Ak-Mak crackers and somehow dragged it under my bed to eat them. She’s even chowed down on dry spaghetti noodles and Cheerios.

I rescued the rest of the muffins and set them on a plate to sketch (above). Then I ate one with a cup of tea. Yum!

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

Making Tortillas at Picante (and eating them)

The Taco Maker, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
The Taco Maker, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

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"
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.

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

A Thousand Thanks (well,1,003 to be accurate)

Autumn leaves just turning, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
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, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
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!

Categories
Berkeley Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Sketchbook Pages

Awkward Tea and Sketches at Imperial Teahouse

Imperial Teahouse Evening Sketch, Ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Imperial Teahouse Evening Sketch, Ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The title is true: both the tea and the sketches were awkward. It was a warm November evening during our weird extended summer and the doors to the patio were open. But that didn’t diminish the smell of frying food and the annoying sound of constant chopping from the small kitchen. I totally botched the perspective when I drew the tables. The little girls look like they’re floating but they were sitting on a bench, also drawn awkwardly.

Cup of tea with lid, ink, watercolor & gouache, 7x5"
Cup of tea with lid, ink, watercolor & gouache, 7x5"

At the Imperial Tearoom, they serve the tea Gaiwan style: the loose tea floats in a cup with a lid but no handle (foreground above). To drink it, you’re supposed to tilt the lid and drink from the cup using the lid as a strainer. Awkward.

I’d recently given up caffeine so selected some sort of ginger, ginseng and weed concoction. Fortunately it tasted yucky so it didn’t matter how hard it was to drink. I was really just there to sketch, but the sketches turned out mostly yucky too. I added gouache to the teapot above at home to try to fix the anemic painting I’d done on site and to the saucer below to try to hide all the trouble I had with ellipses that night.

Tea with floaty stuff in it, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Tea with floaty stuff in it, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

When I ordered my tea I didn’t see prices on the menu, just the teas to choose from. When I paid the bill, I discovered the stupid cup of tea cost $6.00!

Categories
Animals Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

Creepy Crawly Critters: Sketching at Petco

Small Water Dragon Lizard, ink & watercolor, 10"x7
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
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 licking water from their water bottles
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.

Categories
Food sketch Gouache Ink and watercolor wash Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages

From Tree to Table: Fig Bruschetta, Fig Tree and the Book

Grilled Fig Bruschetta table card, ink & gouache, 5x7"
Grilled Fig Bruschetta table card, ink & gouache, 5x7"

At the book publication party for my friend Barbara’s wonderful new book, From Tree to Table: Growing Backyard Fruit Trees in the Pacific Maritime Climate I decided to make one of the recipes in the book: Grilled Fig Bruschetta. But first I sketched a few of the figs (above) before cooking them. I used a blank note card because I wanted to stand it on the table with the food. But since it wasn’t watercolor paper, the paint just sunk in. I switched to gouache which worked great and was huge fun.

Fig Bruschetta on the table
Fig Bruschetta on the table

I’m not a confident cook, but the recipe sounded simple and very delicious: figs tossed in olive oil and fresh thyme and broiled, then set atop a toasted baguette spread with gorgonzola dolce cheese (soft, sweet blue cheese), and then drizzled with a bit of honey and a sprinkle of thyme.

They were fabulous! A perfect combination of flavors and everyone loved them. I’m glad I took a picture (above) before they were all gone. I served them on plates I made many years ago when I was a potter.

Baby Fig Tree Growing Bigger, ink & watercolor & rubber stamp, 7x5"
Baby Fig Tree Grows, ink & watercolor & stamp, 7x5"

This is the baby fig tree that Barbara gave me last spring. I’ve sketched its progress from stick, to growing three leaves to now (above) with three skinny trunks. I’m going to use the pruning section in From Tree to Table (and a little help from Barbara) to learn how to prune it so it just has one trunk, once it drops its leaves for the winter….if winter ever comes…we’re still having warm summer-like weather half the time and fruit trees are so confused.