Category: Sketchbook Pages

Tilden Botanical Garden

Serpentine Cone Flower
Ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
Click here to see enlarged

Today I went to Berkeley’s Tilden Park Botanical Gardens with Richard. It’s a lovely, serene place filled with California native plants and trees from giant redwoods to wildflowers. He hiked around the hills, fields, bridges, creeks and wooded areas, enjoying the quiet breeze and birdsong. Most of the flowering plants had already done their big blooming in the spring but these coneflowers grabbed my interest so I sat down on the grass and did this quick sketch while Richard, a photographer, took close up shots of flowers.

Then we decided to move on to Blake Gardens. Richard had never been there and there were many parts of the estate I’d never explored, so we hiked all around there too, finding amazing jewels of nature and design at every turn. We took lots of photos but since time was limited and we wanted to see everything, I didn’t do another drawing. Now that I’ve seen the full scope of what’s there I think it holds promise for unlimited painting opportunities.

Tags Pen and Ink, Plein Air

Animals Landscape Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Patterson House at Ardenwood Farm

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date June 27, 2007
18 Comments on Patterson House at Ardenwood Farm

Ink and watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor sketchbook
Click here for enlarged view

This is the Patterson House at Ardenwood Farms, an historical, working Victorian farm in Fremont, California. They have a blacksmith shop and people dressed in period costumes using the tools of the time to cook, churn butter, wash clothes, and other chores; a horse drawn train, farm animals and historic farm equipment. We’d planned to go sketch all the sights and activities on Thursday but when I phoned Ardenwood they told me there would be 250 campers there that day and the next. She recommended we come today when there were no groups scheduled so we did. Unfortunately she didn’t mention that everything was shut down on Wednesdays–no docents in Victorian clothes, no activities, nothing. The only thing to see was the house and a few farm animals.

Michelle and I wandered the property, noting where things would have been happening if they weren’t closed. We decided to draw the house, which was very enjoyable. I drew directly in ink and then added watercolor. Then we visited the barnyard animals, watched the funny goats, some mating bunnies, and drew this solitary bunny:

Ink in moleskine sketchbook

Tonight I went by myself to Ashkenaz Music Center since nobody else wanted to join me to hear the most amazing musical group, The Fishtank Ensemble. They are a unique and extremely talented group of musicians who play a combination of Gypsy, Eastern European, Klezmer and Jazz with some unusual instruments, including a Japanese Shamisen, a musical saw, several different violins and other string instruments, accordian, standup base and a female singer with an extraordinary operatic voice. It was fantastic! I’d heard them live on the radio on an NPR program a few weeks ago and had been trying to find their CD locally and was amazed when I drove by Ashkenaz and saw their name on the marquee for tonight. What a treat! And they had their CD for sale which I bought.

I think I’m finally getting into this vacation thing–going to a musical concert on a “school night” is great!

P.S. Does the picture of the house look overly contrasty or washed out on your monitor? I’m still having trouble getting my monitor to properly display the intensity of the color and contrast. I’m afraid I’m toning down the image in Photoshop to make it look right on my monitor which tends to mamke everything look very strongly colored. So then it looks good on my monitor but I have no idea how it looks on anyone else’s.

Tags Animals, Ink, Pen and Ink

Figure Drawing Gouache Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Learning to Vacation

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook – Peaberry’s Coffee in Oakland’s Rockridge District, land of yuppies with strollers
Click here to enlarge

Today was my first official day of vacation. There’s something about a week off that makes me want to hoard every moment and then I start worrying about it ending before it’s even gotten started. It usually takes me until the very end of vacation to get into the swing of relaxing. I’m so grateful that the physical pain in my back and hip is gone. Tomorrow I’m going celebrate feeling good and being free.

Today I had a wonderful hour and a half of massage and bodywork that my sister treated me to for my birthday and then I took an hour long walk along College Avenue in the Rockridge District of Oakland/Berkeley and had a latte at Peaberry’s Coffee (above) where I listened to the guy in the foreground rant for 20 minutes to a very patient woman about how he brought dessert and cheese to a dinner party where the hosts didn’t put his dessert out and stole the cheese for themselves and never said thank you. Then I drove over to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and exchanged a couple CDs at Amoeba Records. I really like one I brought home today: Rodrigo Y Gabriela–sort of flamenco/rock guitars from Mexico–wonderful!

Ink in moleskine: at Berkeley’s Skateboard Park
Click here to enlarge

Yesterday I rode my bike to REI looking for a Klean Kanteen which is a lightweight stainless steel water bottle to avoid polluting the world with jillions of plastic water bottles and my body with the chemicals in plastic that are now found to be absorbed into the water and the body. They were all out. Riding home I discovered the Berkeley Skate Park (above)– like a whole bunch of concrete ski-slopes, jumps, rails, curbs and swimming pools where skaters try out their tricks (video) without endangering anyone but themselves.

Afterwards I did some figure drawing using a brushpen, adding gouache later to some of the sketches. Here’s a couple of them.

Brush pen in Aquabee sketchbook

Brushpen and goauche on hot press Arches paper

I’m also a little frustrated because I’ve finished all of my work in progress and it’s time to start some new work but I can’t seem to settle on what I want to do next. After a couple days of trying to make myself settle down and get to work in the studio I’ve realized what I really want is to just be outdoors, drawing and painting what I see, rather than working in the studio. So that’s what I’m going to do because it’s my birthday vacation and I get to do whatever I darn please, so there!

Tags Figure Drawing, Pen and Ink, People

People Sketchbook Pages

Waiting for an x-ray

2 unfinished sketches – ink in Moleskine
Click here to enlarge

Today is my birthday but instead of celebrating I went to see my back doctor and then to the hospital for a hip xray. They aren’t sure if my hip pain is sciatica from a flare up of an old herniated disk in my back or something wrong with my hip. While I was waiting for the doctor I drew the spine on the right hanging in the office but didn’t get to finish because he was right on time. Then while I was waiting for the xray I drew the waiting woman on the left but got called in before I could finish that either.

This morning Barbara took me out to breakfast for our traditional annual pilgrimage for a french apple pancake at Fat Apples but instead of our usual hike up there, we drove. I had to bring my shoes for her to help me put on because the pain makes it impossible to reach my feet. I’ve got my fingers crossed that this will be gone before my birthday vacation which I postponed to next week to be able to help with all the last minute preparations for several institutes at work but I’ve ended up working from home instead. It’s a little hard to go into the office when you can’t put your own shoes on! Thank goodness for my comfy new home computer workstation and for modern pharmaceuticals! My neighbors just brought me a lovely plant for my birthday and my sons are taking me out to dinner tonight. Now I just need some birthday cake and candles to blow out to make my birthday wish for completely recovery by Thursday.

Tags Pen and Ink, People

Digital art Dreams Sketchbook Pages

Dreams…

All were drawn in pencil and then ink in my dream sketchbook, then scanned and digitally colored in Painter.
Click here to see enlarged.

(Above) Dreamt that my painting group turned into a dance group.

(Below) Click here to see enlarged. Dreamt I was standing in line to sign up for a race. A big sweaty bald guy without a shirt kept leaning on me and I told him to stop it. Once we started running I realized I could fly so I did, even though I knew it meant I wouldn’t get the race t-shirt. Flying is so much fun!

(Above) Click here to see larger. Dreamed I was visiting New York City with my dad and we were walking the streets stopping into jazz cafes and listening to music. I had my flashlight to light our path. I was so happy being in New York I started crying with joy and decided to move there. His wife Linda was there, dressed like Jackie O and neat and trim. Then I remembered how expensive it is to live in Manhattan and that my dad died many years ago. But it was still a happy dream.

If you look at the images enlarged, please tell me if they’re too big for your screen.

Tags Painter Digital Art, Pen and Ink

Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Drawings

All are ink in Moleskine sketchbook.

This is the busiest week of the busiest month of the year at my day job. We’re holding five institutes in the next few weeks across the country and 10 hour days are norm.

As a result these drawings done on our subway system known as BART are the sum total of my art output this week.

I’ve been too tired at night to draw and too late rising in the morning to do dream drawings after not sleeping well.

But there’s just one more week to go and then I’m on vacation and it will be 12 glorious days of drawing, painting, rest, reading and relaxation. I’m planning lots of fun trips around the Bay Area to do mini-sketch crawls with art buddies.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Digital art Illustration Friday People Sketchbook Pages

IF: Suit (Birthday Suit)

The Illustration Friday challenge “suit” really didn’t grab me until I remember it was my birthday this month…

(above) I scribbled the idea for this on a handy notepad with pencil at midnight while I was waiting for my neighbor’s party to end so I could get some sleep. Then I inked over the outline today and followed the steps below to get to the finished picture. The color in the picture above comes printed on the notepad.

Techie notes:

I outlined the sketch in ink and scanned into Photoshop, using Levels to erase the background (paper had designs on it) and improve the contrast. Then I opened it in Illustrator and used “Trace” command to get clean outlines. I imported that into Painter, doing some more drawing and then creating layers defined as “Multiply” to paint it without losing the outlines. I mostly used the digital airbrush. Then I opened it in Photoshop to use the handy “Save for Web” option (Phew!) It took about 2 hours total.

This is my first project on my new electric sit-stand desk/computer workstation. It was a massive project requiring lots of computer and furniture wrangling in my studio to get it all set up and functional and some really late hours. That’s why I haven’t posted the past few days. Tomorrow I’ll post some pics of my new desk and write about the project, my ridiculous goof-ups, the fixes and the complicated but very groovy computer setup that my friend Richard, tech consultant extraordinaire, helped me plan and assemble.

Tags Painter Digital Art, People, Photoshop painting

Cartoon art Digital art Dreams Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Still Dreaming…

Dreamt I was at the movies with my blind husband (don’t have one) and another blind man and they were showing off by walking from side to side on the stage being tricky and funny.

Dreamt I created a company called “Subsidiary” that makes devices to make shoulders more comfortable while sleeping.

Dreamt Cody was a kid again and a funny old grandpa was in the kitchen showing him how to eat cereal from those little fold-open cereal boxes.

Dreamt my mom wanted to come live with me but I remembered I had a husband I had to ask first. Then I remembered I wasn’t married anymore but had a roommate (a former friend I don’t see anymore). I asked if she minded and she said she’d inherited a fortune and was going to be buying houses for 13 friends and I wasn’t one of them. Mom was sorting through papers in an envelope marked “Dec 06” that she’d found in her piles of junk stacked around her on her bed.

These are all drawn in ink in my sketchbook, then scanned and colored in Painter.

Tags Painter Digital Art, Pen and Ink, People

Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Ten Minute Trees on Memorial Day

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date May 28, 2007
13 Comments on Ten Minute Trees on Memorial Day

Click here to enlarge

All images ink and watercolor in Moleskine Watercolor Notebook

I got inspired to get back to sketchbooking after looking at Pete Scully’s watercolor sketches (scroll down on his site to see entries from May 9-13) from his recent trip to Santa Monica, where I was born. They reminded me how sketches of even the most ordinary sights of daily life can make exciting sketches when seen through fresh eyes (and with some talent and skill like Pete’s). I decided to just go around my neighborhood, doing 10 minute sketches of trees, trying to capture their various personalities and gestures.

The one above is viewed past the flag on my next door neighbor’s house looking across the street to a little house and its very big tree.

Click here to enlarge
Above is my little Bay Laurel tree in front of my house. I thought it would be nice to have bay leaves at my disposal but it’s a weird tree that stays green all year but grows sort of clumpy and doesn’t really seem that tree-like. My drawing doesn’t either–I think I made the trunk to wide for the leafy part. I guess I should have added a little background to give a sense of size but my 10 minutes was up. (I gave myself up to 10 minutes to sketch and 10 minutes to paint and used the timer on my watch.)

Click here to enlarge
Above is my other next door neighbor’s tree–some sort of non-fruiting plum tree that really is this color and while it was planted a year after my Bay Laurel it’s twice as big.

I didn’t get any further than my own front yard but thoroughly enjoyed myself, listening to the birds chirping and neighbor’s music playing through their windows on this first sunny day in a week.

Tags Pen and Ink

Cartoon art Drawing Dreams Sketchbook Pages

Dreams Illustrated

Dreamt I started a Japanese all-girl band as a way to promote a baseball team.

Dreamt I invented a combination yoga mat/lawn chair. In the same dream something was tickling me and it was big banner that said “Big Banner” tucked behind my pillow.

Dreamt there was an old lady who kept coming to my door every month trying to sell me food made from cabbage like coleslaw and kimchee. She always carried one worn out old brochure for the American Cancer Society, and the money she made from cabbage was supposedly donated to them. I was skeptical so I visited the ACS and was given a tour. (see next)

(immediately above) They had a room where they helped people quit smoking by letting them smoke one last cigarette. The woman showing me around sat on a weight bench while smoking a cigarette and suddenly fell asleep and fell on the floor. Later (above previous) all the employees were having a party and were all happily smoking marijuana.

Dreamt there was a horse pulling a cart with a horse in it and another horse behind that and they all turned out to be fraternity guys wearing horse suits.

***

The best part of remembering my dreams is discovering the goofy stuff my mind cooks up when I’m not looking.

Tags Painter Digital Art, Pen and Ink