I took my two favorite 12-year-old girls to Tilden Park for a Friday afternoon outing on a rare sunny day in this horrible summer of fog and wind. My plan was to relax and read on the beach while the girls played in the water and then take them to the carousel and the Little Farm Nature Area.
Sketchy people, Lake Anza
After a little picnic the girls gleefully headed into the water, I reached for my book and discovered I’d forgotten it. Fortunately I had my journal so instead of reading a book I drew in one.
Wrong lifeguard stand and more sketchy people
My first attempt at drawing the lifeguard stand got the perspective all wrong so I used that page for more sketches of people.
The girls were having so much fun in the water, swimming, chatting, and fooling around that I couldn’t get them out until 5:00. I promised that if we have another sunny Friday this summer I’ll take them again. But this time I will remember my book and, if it’s warm enough, my bathing suit!
“Here Comes the Fog” is an all too common saying around here. It can be a hot, sunny day like this one at Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica. Then the fog comes rolling in, the sun disappears, and you need your jacket instead of your bathing suit. It was one of the first things I learned when I moved to the Bay Area: never leave home without a jacket, no matter what. (Painting available here).
Watercolor & Gouache preliminary study
This was a quick study in my sketchbook from the photo I took when I visited the beach in June. I used watercolor and gouache to ease back into that day at the beach.
Pyramid Brewery Tanks and Tipplers, ink & watercolor 7x5"
We’d sketched at Pyramid in the evening before, (here and here) but this was the first time it was light in the brewery area. We could see the network of pipes and vessels where they brew the beer through the giant windows.
I’m not sure why I decided to do two sketches on one page that night. I guess I was feeling a little stingy with the paper. I did a couple more scribbly sketches of people that weren’t worth posting.
Our waitress was so kind and patient, not minding that four of us took over a large booth for two hours only ordering a few things. We left a good tip and thanked her. She said she was a musician herself and understood.
Barbara's Chickens All Grown Up, ink & watercolor 7x5"
The first time I got to sketch Barbara’s chickens they were these cute little chicks. Now they’re full-grown laying ladies and hilarious to watch as they run about with their tiny bird brains. Barbara has built the most amazing Chicken World for them in her yard, where they can run free and eat bugs and organic greens, safe from predators (raccoons are a big problem here), or snuggle in their cozy nesting house.
Gertie the Dog and Tate the Bunny
The last time we sketched in her garden I sketched Gertie from the front. Here she is from the back. She is a wonderful, loving, and very furry pooch. Then I started trying to sketch the bunny Barbara was babysitting for her daughter. The bunny was so twitchy, didn’t hold still and so fluffy as to be seemingly amorphous. But I knew there were some basic shapes in there somewhere so I kept trying to find them.
In the sketch above I finally did find the basic shape of a bunny. In the first attempts below, not so much. (I love that phrase “not so much” even though I’m sure it’s become passé by now, along with “Really?”, “You think?”, “How’s that working for you?” and “Meh.” Don’t know where those came from but I still like them for their sarcastic yet humorous tone.)
Bunny first attempts; completely at a loss
Above are the first attempts at the bunny, in which I became totally frustrated but didn’t give up. I’m glad I got to draw him since shortly after our sketch night he passed away from a recurrence of a serious illness he’d fought several times before. I hope he has found a home in bunny heaven as nice as the one he had with Barbara’s family.
Randy Craig Trio at Caffe Trieste, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
On a rainy Tuesday night (in June! it never rains in June here!) we met at Caffe Trieste, a small very “North Beach” coffee house in Berkeley. The place was packed, but Micaela arrived early and saved a great table for us. Soon the wonderful Randy Craig Trio squeezed their equipment into a corner and started playing, accompanied by a woman singer.
Gelato at Trieste, ink & watercolor
I loved getting to sketch accompanied by live music! The musicians were great and their choice of songs was really interesting and brought back memories of the records my dad used to play, including a great rendition of Twisted, made famous in the 50s by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross (seen here playing with Count Basie at the Playboy Club):
and later by Joni Mitchell. We ended up staying later than our usual Tuesday night 6:30-8:30 because we didn’t want to leave while the band was playing (and we probably couldn’t have squeezed out between the crowded tables anyway).
Warm up sketches, the singers and the audience
So I used the extra time to add to the warm-up sketches page above. They’re nothing special, but as my boss often says, “Good enough for jazz!”
Along with an end of journal self-portrait, I always put an “If Found” notice and silly self-portrait at the beginning of each book (phone number erased for privacy). I started doodling something I was carrying under my arm that turned into a very fat cat (or is it a pig?) And yes, I do wear Pippi braids and bright green shirts sometimes.
Newly bound journal; cover from old tablecloth
Above is my new journal, covered in a piece of cloth cut from an old tablecloth, stacked on top of the last journal, now complete. I temporarily added the silly butterfly sticker as a reminder of what I intended as the front and bottom of the book. And then in my usual Jana way, I accidentally ignored it and started sketching from the opposite direction. And it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
Even though I’ve gotten the binding process down to a 6-hour project per book (when done one at a time; haven’t tried batching them yet), I was looking for a way to save time and be able to sketch without having to bind my own journals. I have yet to find a store-bought journal I like as much as my own, so I wasn’t considering that option.
I came up with the idea of using an aluminum form holder filled with individual sheets that I could later put in an inexpensive art presentation binder in order, as if in a journal. I liked the idea I could keep different types of paper in the holder and set it up to use with my little watercolor kit.
As used, with sketch on left; palette & water container velcroed on rightClipboard for drawing on left, velcroed spots for palette on rightInterior of section that holds paper
While I like this nifty system, and have used it a few times, it just felt weird not carrying a journal containing a little history of what I’ve been seeing, doing and thinking (I don’t share the “thinking” pages here). So now I’m doing both, always carrying the journal above, and when I want a variety of paper, individual sheets, and/or a convenient surface for sketching and painting, I also bring the lightweight Form Holder. Mine is a small size, but a larger one might be really super as a laptop desk.
Page window template
Above is another nifty tool I had made at my neighborhood Tap Plastics for about $3.00: a little template made of very thin plastic with rounded corners that I trace around with a pencil to pre-draw borders on my journal pages. It helps me to have a window to draw within (which I sometimes ignore or erase if I want to work across the spread). Once I finish a sketch I go over the pencil line with black ink.
I drew the black lines on the template with a wet-erase marker so it can also be used as a viewer to see how and where what I’m looking at “should” fit in the drawing (though I rarely use it for that).
I neither know why, again in typical spatially challenged Jana fashion, I wrote “Top” on the template (why would it matter?), and even more perplexing, why I wrote “Top” at the bottom of the template. But it makes me laugh when I see it so I haven’t wet-erased it.
To put the finishing touches on a completed journal, I make a self-portrait for the last page. Since it was also my birthday, I wanted to incorporate my birthday flowers in the painting. So I hung a mirror with a yellow clip from one of my swing-arm lamps on my drawing table and put the vase of sunflowers between me and the mirror and then drew what I could see in front of me: the flowers in front of the mirror, with me and the flowers reflected in the mirror.
As usual for my end-of-journal self-portraits, I wasn’t willing to measure or try to draw and place features accurately but I think I did capture the feeling of me or the me as I was feeling.
In the next post I’ll show you my new journal and another idea I tried out for sketchbooking minus the sketchbook.
Red, White and Blueberries, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Happy 4th of July, whether it’s Independence Day where you are not. Why not make every day Independence Day and claim your right to freedom from whatever holds you back?
Today I chose the freedom of sketching blueberries in my sketchbook instead of struggling with other “work” I’ve been doing in the studio. I’m also trying to claim independence from the “shoulds” that are telling me I should be at a barbeque, roasting wieners, drinking beer, and waving flags.
It looks like the Bay Area will at last have a non-foggy 4th and if so I’ll be heading up to Albany Hill to watch the fireworks around the Bay Area. And now I declare independence from my computer!
Pacifica beaches are usually buried under a heavy fog bank but I watched the weather reports and picked the hottest, sunniest day of my vacation week to go. It was perfect! I hiked the length of Linda Mar beach (above, also known as Taco Bell Beach because of the Taco Bell literally on the beach). Then found a wonderful crazy, winding path over the hills that connects Linda Mar beach to Rockaway Beach where I hiked the length of that beach too.
At the end of the day I walked around the nearby Linda mar neighborhood where I spotted so many things that would be fun to sketch, but I was getting sunburned, tired and hungry so headed off to dinner and then the drive home, much easier after rush hour was over. I took the photos below as a reminder for another visit (and possibly some studio painting).
My friend Ikuko invited our Tuesday night sketching group to sketch in her lovely and lovingly tended garden. I picked a spot that was still in the last bit of sun and sat in a lawn chair to sketch and relax. For a change I tried to just be loose and free and it was really fun.
Ikuko's at Sunset, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
I was interested in all of the odd contraptions on top of her fireplace and the glowing light of the sunset on the bricks and the windows. I managed to fit almost everything I wanted on the page (with a little rearranging from real life; the mail box was below the frame but I liked it so stuck it in.) I was a little annoyed when I finished the sketch that I’d “messed up” the house numbers (the 2 is too big) but a week later, who cares!
Jana Bouc, Artist 