Figs on Photoshop Manual, Pencil and watercolor, 6x9
These organic figs were disappointingly tasteless and so they became still life subjects instead of eating objects. I’ve been using the heavy Photoshop manual (seen under the figs) as a weight on top of the the Fabriano Venezia sketchbook when I scan it. My new copy of Photoshop CS4 doesn’t come with a manual, although there is one online that can be downloaded and saved.
I’m one of those weird people who actually read manuals. When I get a new application I always read the manual first, to find out what the program can do and then I refer to it when I need to figure out how to do one of those things.
I don’t like reading on the computer but I refuse to pay another $55 for a manual that should have been included in the first place. In the meantime, the old manual makes a very nice paperweight or doorstop (or still life holder). 824 pages! And I read/skimmed the whole thing when I got it.
This morning I made my annual birthday pilgrimage to Fat Apples for a Baked Apple Pancake along with dear friends and family. Then I sketched this little family of California Towhees [update: not robins!] who are living in the small tree outside my bedroom window.
Mom and Pop Towhee take turns guarding the nest, feeding the babies and shopping for groceries. When one returns with a juicy white worm to feed the babies, the other flies away to gather the next round of grub (literally?). The robins enter the tree from the house side where the branches are more open, which gives me a great view from my bedroom window (except that it’s too shadey in the tree to see their features clearly).
My cats sit on the bed and watch the constant activity all day: the best Kittie TV ever. Sometimes I join them and have been amazed how hard these little birds are working to keep their babies fed.
Fabriano Venezia Sketchbook & Photoshop CS4
This sketch is in the Fabriano 9×6 sketchbook that has been giving me such pleasure when sketching and such pain when scanning. But now I have a solution. I just got the fantastic, super fast, hugely improved new version of Photoshop CS4. After scanning each page of a spread separately, Photoshop will automatically assemble the pages perfectly together as layers/masks in one file, getting rid of the bad stuff, while lining them up perfectly. For other adjustments, Auto Levels does a great job now, better than all the manual tweaking I’ve done in the past. And a bit of the Dodge tool cleans up any remaining shadows. The new streamlined user interface and adjustment panel are huge timesavers and make image adjustments so much easier and faster.
It was a bit of a splurge, but at $199 (after the $100 off Adobe offers on on any version of Photoshop CS through August) it was so worth it. A happy birthday to me present!
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!
Except for doing these sketches while watching the NBA Basketball Finals last week, it was a pretty rough week, with no energy for art or blogging. I kept putting the TiVo on pause to sketch, enjoying drawing with a Pilot fountain pen and then adding a bit of water to make the line bleed and turn into an ink wash.
NBA Finals: Aiming for a free throw, ink
Then I started trying to capture a little more action, drawing in pencil.
NBA Finals pencil sketch
I enjoy watching basketball playoffs and seeing these 7 foot tall, extremely buff, and mostly really cute guys with charming smiles, maneuver their massive bodies like ballerinas, leaping through the air, dodging and dancing around each other, or just storming down the court like a locomotive, charging the hoop, hanging from it when they dunk the ball in, or tossing the ball from across the court and watching it swish right in (or not).
I took so long with pausing the game to sketch that I had to fast forward to the last five minutes to see who won so that I could go to bed before midnight.
Sunday was a glorious day in the Bay Area; sunny, breezy and in the 70s. A perfect day for some “Sketchercize.” I packed up my sketching gear and hiking poles and headed on foot through my hilly neighborhood and up to the El Cerrito Memorial Grove and the Hillside Natural Area above it; nearly 80 acres of nature with spectacular views.
I intended to walk for at least 30 minutes before sketching but was stopped after 10 minutes by some seed pods hanging from a tree, glowing red and green in the sun that I had to sketch. Next stop was for some California poppies along the road. Then the view of the giant hill that I’d be climbing came into view so I added that with an “X” marks the spot where I was going, all on the same sketchbook page.
View of SF Bay and Golden Gate Bridge from hiking trail, 5.5x9"
At last I reached the top of the hill and hiked along the skyline trail until I reached a bench where I could sit and admire the 180 degree view–a great reward for the 2 mile, mostly uphill hike. I ate my apple, sketched and then began the trek back home, which just happened to pass by Payoff #2: Baskin Robbins, where I got an ice cream cone to eat on the way (a bit counterproductive, I suppose, but quite yummy). I pasted the cone wrapper in my sketchbook when I got home.
The first hydrangeas of the season provided an opportunity to try out ink and watercolor in the Fabriano Venezzia sketchbook I posted about yesterday. First I drew directly in ink and then tried painting the flower on the right by wetting the paper there, and painting into it. I didn’t like the results and tried lifting off the paint with a tissue and was pleased and surprised that it came right off, leaving only a slight stain. Then I painted back into the damp area and got the results I wanted and completed the rest of the painting working very loosely.
The painting was easy compared to trying to get the image in the sketchbook scanned or photographed for posting. The image above was the result of clamping the edges of the sketchbook to photograph it (see below) and then using Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool to “erase” the clamps and then using the Levels and Dodge tools to clean up the shadows caused by the paper buckling and some reflections from the light source.
Ready to photograph
I also tried scanning the page in the sketchbook but encountered the same problems I had yesterday with severe blurring plus shadow from the seam. I (want to) like this sketchbook, but preparing the images for posting is really a hassle. Even if I wasn’t working across the spread and just painted on one page I’d still have the problem with the shadow and blurring since it happens on the righthand page.
Scanned version, after major touch-up
Have you had this problem and solved it? I’d be so grateful for suggestions!
When I saw this woman reading on BART I had to draw her. She seemed to express the essence of dignity to me. She was carefully dressed and groomed, all in white, grey and black, with her hair covered in a white crocheted net and that wrapped with a perfectly ironed bandana, tied in a tiny bow in front.
This was my first drawing in my new Fabriano Venezia sketchbook that Roz had tested and praised and that I bought in a couple of sizes from Wet Paint. This is in the 9×6″ size. I left the first page blank to serve as a title page/table of contents later and did this drawing on the next page. I was totally in love with the sketchbook, writing a little rave review on the page of this first sketch about how wonderfully smooth and thick the paper was, and how nicely it worked with the Micron Pigma .01.
I was a little concerned about how much larger and heavier to carry around it is than the Moleskine watercolor notebooks I’ve been using, but thought it would be worth it. BUT when I tried to scan my drawing and the book didn’t quite fit on the scanner, cropping off part of the image, and the middle seam caused half the image to blur and have a dark shadow, no matter what I tried.
Then tonight I tried adding a watered down ink wash to her jacket, which had been black. The paper acted very strangely, not at all like I’d expected. I knew it wasn’t watercolor paper, and thus wasn’t sized, but now I’m now worried how these books will react with watercolor. I guess I’ll find out soon.
Here’s the same image with the ink wash that went all splotchy.
Less Dignity with ink wash
She was so carefully groomed, with everything perfectly ironed and smooth and now she looks much less dignified with her splotchy jacket. I don’t think the ink wash added anything positive to the drawing, do you? And I don’t think adding more ink to try to make it smoother or darker would be a good thing either.
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.
Three Years of JanasJournal.com
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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).
Pacific May Lilly at Tilden Botanical Garden, ink & watercolor, 4x6"
My plein air group met at Tilden Regional Parks Botanical Garden this cold and foggy morning. Since I wasn’t familiar with the park I explored a bit and then decided to sketch instead of trying to drag my painting gear around the hilly, pebbly paths. Since I only had my large Moleskine and a Micron Pigma .01 pen with me, I added watercolor later at home. The May Lilly above was so sweetly but delicately scented that drawing beside it was like breathing in a dessert.
Bridge & Creek, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
This bridge and creek was the first thing I sketched when I arrived, still arguing with myself about whether to go get my painting cart, whether to go home because it was too cold, whether to go home because I arrived late, how I should have brought my watercolors, how the scene was so complicated and so maybe I should just go home.
But as I drew, I started noticing interesting details, how dark and light shapes lined up, where one puzzle piece fit against the next, the design the water was making as it poured over rocks and down the creek, the sound of frogs and birds, and before I knew it that busy, chattering mind had shut off and I was having fun.
Manzanita Tree, Ink & watercolor, 5x16"
As I sketched this spectacular Manzanita, I began noticing how much like strong lean muscles the branches were, with their smooth, polished red surface. Then I found other human attributes: the knotholes looked like eyes while the bends in the branches looked just like elbows. This led me to consider the oneness of all things and I felt very connected to all the nature around me. During our critique at the end of the paint-out, we each take a turn showing our work and talking about our process. When I shared these thoughts someone laughingly asked what I’d eaten for breakfast! I was high on drawing, not Cheerios!
Cat Napping in the Buckwheat, Ink & watercolor, 4x6"
Walking to our critique, I spotted this garden kittie, having a nice nap in the buckwheat section of the garden and had to stop and sketch it. Nothing bothered this plump pussy who slept amidst the plants, little signs, wood chips and stones near the garden entrance. I added the whiskers with white gel pen.
As second place winner in the International Fake Journal Month contest, I won this amazing t-shirt from Roz Stendahl, the inventor of IFJM. I tried to sketch myself sketching myself myself wearing it. I didn’t do the t-shirt (or myself) justice, but I do like the way the bird and I both seem to have the same expression! THANK YOU ROZ! I love it! (My IFJM posts are here and here.)
I’ve been having one of those crises of artistic self-confidence in my drawing the past couple weeks. I’m not sure if the drawing difficulties are real or I’ve just somehow allowed that nasty internal critic out of his cage and back on my shoulder.
Boris the Dragonly Critic, ink & watercolor
I know the cure though: put him back in his cage and do a whole bunch of drawing until he is so bored he falls asleep for a nice long summer nap. And I’ll start by drawing HIM! Here he is now, safely back in his cage and starting to get very sleepy….
Jana Bouc, Artist 