Category: Sketchbook Pages

Maidenform

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
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Well, I don’t know what could be more ordinary and every day than an undergarment or more odd than publishing my underwear on the internet… but I was so tired today after a really busy day yesterday that I couldn’t muster the energy to look further than my laundry basket for a subject to sketch. I asked Michael if he could tell what it was a picture of and he guessed “Um….Onions?” Oh well…I know it’s not great but it felt good to spend a little time at my drawing table and get something posted after a couple days away from the computer.

Alison’s wonderful sister is visiting San Francisco from Australia and I had the pleasure of spending the day with her yesterday. I picked her up at her hotel in North Beach (not a beach–it’s the “Old Italy” part of San Francisco, former home of the Beat poets), spent a few hours at the new DeYoung Art Museum in Golden Gate Park, then drove out to Ocean Beach where we took a stroll on the beach. The weather was lovely, much nicer than the last time I was there last summer when it was foggy, windy and cold. Then we headed back to North Beach where we spent an hour browsing in the City Lights Book Store. I bought two good books to bring with me to Mexico in two weeks. When we got hungry we walked to nearby Chinatown for a delicious dinner, then back to North Beach to say good-bye.

After all the driving yesterday, including getting quite lost a couple times thanks to really bad directions from MapQuest which I vow I will never use again, today was about staying home and taking it easy.

People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Meeting and Subway Sketches

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 17, 2007
5 Comments on Meeting and Subway Sketches

Two craggy old guys sitting in front of me at the California Watercolor Association meeting tonight. The guy didn’t really have writing on his neck but it was a good spot to take down notes on upcoming watercolor shows to enter. It was an interesting meeting: Golden Acrylics had a representative demonstrating and teaching about the use of their paints and mediums with a free goody bag for everyone at the end of the meeting.

Two lovely young ladies at a meeting at work today (though my drawing doesn’t do them justice). The meeting was to envision where our organization will be in 2012 (five years) and where we’ll be–if still there, in what role, or doing something else. It’s great to get the support to pursue our own dreams as well as to help build and contribute to our organization whose mission is to improve literacy and learning for adolescents.

Two commuters and two babies on BART.

All are ink in Moleskine sketchbook.

Tags People, Subway drawings

Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

More Soap (EDM #101)

Watercolor & Ink in Moleskine watercolor notebook 6×9″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I keep my dish soap in this squirt bottle originally meant to mix and apply hair dye. The glass plate is on loan from my sister. When I saw it at her house I begged to borrow it to paint it. I wanted to include it in yesterday’s soap picture.

I was supposed to be doing other stuff tonight but was getting really grumpy not being able to draw or paint so after helping my son with his resume, I abandoned the art business stuff I “should” have been doing. I drew this quickly with ink (hence the goofy edges and lines) and then added watercolor, thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time all day. Well, that’s not true. We did have some fun at work at lunch today, talking about our favorite “guilty pleasure” tv shows, but the rest of the day was just work, work, work.

To end this post on a happier note than the above whining, I’ll mention two things I’m grateful for.

1. I didn’t have a headache or a backache today and I noticed that several times during the day, making me feel grateful each time.

2. Yesterday I realized that even though I get frustrated with my lack of skill when painting with oils and acrylics and want to be good at it NOW, in a year, if I keep practicing and studying, I’ll probably feel pretty comfortable with them and maybe even competent. Or maybe I’ll realize I need another year of practice and I’ll take it. Same with drawing…if I keep at it, in a year, I’ll be a lot better at it than I am now.

Simple stuff, but it makes me happy.

Tags Pen and Ink

Acrylic Painting Every Day Matters Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Soap: EDM #101

Acrylic in HandBook Journal 5.5 x 5.5″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

The week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw a bar of soap. My original idea was to line up all the different soaps in my house, from dish soap to laundry soap to bath soap and make a grid and paint them all. But by the time I did all the errands I’d been putting off, time was short. Also, I wanted to play with the fluid acrylics I’d bought last weekend and hadn’t tried yet. So I settled on one soap, one bowl and tried painting with the acrylics as if they were watercolors.

It was fun and interesting. One thing I learned is that acrylic is basically a glue and if you get any kind of crud or cat hair on the paper it will become permanently glued in place. Also you can’t erase pencil after you’ve painted with acrylic. It’s ridiculous how fast the stuff dries. I guess you have to develop a second sense about spritzing the palette all the time.

I’m ready for some big, juicy, free painting next. After all the lettering and detail in the watercolor I finished and posted yesterday I’m tired of tiny, tight painting. It’s back to work tomorrow but hopefully this weekend I can go a bit wild with paint and loosen up.

Tags Acrylic Painting

Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

An Art Lesson on BART

Ink in small Moleskine

This morning I got on BART and spotted the guy on the left at the end of the car in his knitted Cat-in-the-Hat hat, except that he looked more like Mr. Natural from R. Crumb Comics than the Cat. I only had a couple minutes to draw him and then a bunch of people got on and I couldn’t see him anymore so I started drawing the hand of the guy sitting beside me holding a tiny iPod.

After a few minutes he smiled at me and then started helping me, pointing out where lines that I was drawing as curved were really straight and where I needed to add shading. My stupid pen ran out of ink so I pulled out another, with brown ink. He recommended I try UniBall pens (which I like but hadn’t used for sketching). He was clearly a talented artist and a wonderful teacher — his recommendations were right on and offered with great gentleness, kindness and caring. I asked about his art and he told me was formerly a graphic designer but now worked for Apple in “technology not art” and only rarely does his own art anymore and then only digitally with a Wacom tablet and Painter.

I’d been surprised by how crowded the San Francisco BART train was since I’d been quite late leaving for work. It was already around 9:45 but many more people than usual were getting on at each station. My “art teacher” turned to his friends behind us and as they chatted about Apple products I realized that all these people were on their way to MacWorld, which was opening today in San Francisco. I was sad to bid him farewell when I got to my stop. He was the kind of person I would love to have as a friend or a teacher and I’m sad I never even found out his name.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Animals Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Fridge sitter

Ink & watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook

This is Busby’s favorite perch. He sits on top of the stereo speakers that are on top of the fridge, somehow flying up there via a leap onto the counter, then the microwave then the fridge, then the speakers. The speakers are separated so some of his belly is suspended between them. I tried to teach him not to jump on the counter, but teaching cats anything has always seemed pretty hopeless.

Today was another cat fun day. Sometime last night while I was sleeping Fiona (not pictured…this is Busby) stole a package of dried split peas off the kitchen counter, carried them under my bed (where she also stores other booty such as Q-tips and pushpins and my favorite Smart Wool socks) and ripped open the package, scattering piles of those fun little pea pellets everywhere. I vacuumed them up (have to remember to empty the vacuum bag) and the rat-a-tat-bam-bam-bam sound of them being sucked up scared Busby so much he went and hid most of the morning. He’s found a really good new hiding place — I searched the whole house three times and never found him.

I was working on finishing an oil painting today. I don’t know why I force myself to finish things that have no chance of being successful, but I do learn from the process and every now and then I manage to rescue a painting and make it work. In this case I’m getting the chance to learn how to exploit the brushstrokes and thick rich paint that show in oils instead of trying to make oil paintings flat and smooth and detailed like watercolor. It’s amost as hard a transition as starting to use white paint. It’s just really foreign after years of painting with watercolor.

Tags Animals, Cats

Drawing Flower Art Photos Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Starting Over

Graphite in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook
(To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes)

I’ve been struggling with an oil painting of this image …

and finally realized that it wasn’t working because I hadn’t first done a value study and compositional sketches. So tonight I set aside the painting and started over with this sketch to simplify the image and study the values. I took the photo on a rainy day in December when the sun suddenly broke through and lit up these roses I’d just clipped from the garden that were still blooming despite the December storm.

As much as I love to draw, sometimes I’m impatient to get to the fun, juicy painting and so I skip the preliminary studies. Once in a while that approach works, but more often it ends up feeling like I’m wandering and lost in a maze, with no end in sight.

But if I start with a study or two first to determine what really interests me about the image, how I can simplify it, where I want the focus to be, where the lights and darks are, what I want to exaggerate or de-emphasize, and what colors I’m REALLY seeing, then I have a much better chance of success and hence a lot more fun with the paint. I might still get lost along the way, but I know my destination and how to get there.

I wonder if I should have one leaf overlapping the front of the bottle. If you see any compositional problems or have suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them. Sometimes I find it so hard to see the problems in my own work. Just looking at now in the post I can see I need to lengthen the stem on the top left rose as it looks a little too short to me.

I’m going to start over, using my new sketch as a reference so I can focus on the light, and the colors in the bottle which was what interested me in the first place. If I don’t get tired of it, I might try it in oil, acrylic (bought some acrylics today) and watercolor, just for fun.

Tags Pencil drawing, Photos

Animals Drawing Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages

Busby “Buzz” Berkeley – Illustration Friday

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 5, 2007
11 Comments on Busby “Buzz” Berkeley – Illustration Friday

Pencil sketch/study for monotype. Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook.
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I’d been planning to work on sketching my cat Busby, also known as Buzz, to prepare for doing a monoprint of him today so it was convenient that today’s Illustration Friday cue is “Buzz.” Here he is! My next step is to do the drawing again with brushpen and ink, trying to work out making it just black and white. I want to see how extreme I can take it — how few lines and shapes are needed. But that will be tomorrow because…

Tonight is the opening party for my brother-in-law Tim’s show of his photos about building (and burning) the temple at Burning Man (photos) last year. So it’s off to the Lucky JuJu Pinball Art Gallery in Alameda, CA to party instead of painting. Here’s one of Tim’s temple photos:

Photo by Tim Englert

Subway and Cafe Sketches

Today was back to work and back on BART. These folks (above) were my entertainment on my morning ride. These sketches are all in my little Moleskine.

I sketched these people (above) at Saul’s Deli after dinner while waiting for Michael to return from the men’s room.

These folks were at Peets. I like walking up there from my house, getting a latte, doing a quick drawing and walking back home. It’s a one-mile walk and a pleasant destination. I had trouble with the guy’s wife because she kept talking and moving. He just sat there without moving anything except for his wonderful bushy eyebrows.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Cartoon art Dreams Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Stage Fright (Dream)

Ink & Watercolor in Aquabee 9×12 sketchbook
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I woke this morning at the apex of a terrible anxiety dream…but with a slightly different take than usual. First I should say that I have terrible stage fright and cannot sing to save my life. My family used to slam doors shut and turn on the radio to avoid hearing my awful singing along with my pretty bad guitar playing when I was a teen and it never really improved.

I’ve had this dream many times, where I find myself on stage, about to sing or play guitar or both, and realize I’m completely unprepared. In last night’s dream I’d been selected to perform as “Jana and the BlackAttack” and was supposed to be leading some sort of soul/hip-hop group at a very prestigious and large theatre. I was calm and relaxed about the whole thing, trusting that the event organizers knew what they were doing in selecting me. I took a seat in the theatre, watching the opening acts. Then it was time for me to go on stage and the MC was stalling and worried since I hadn’t yet appeared backstage. I walked out onstage, noticing there was a steaming pot of potato-leek soup available for performers and stage hands. I picked up the mike and then…

I realized I didn’t know what songs I was singing, what the tunes or words were, where my band was….basically I realized I was ME. I didn’t want to let the organizer down or ruin my reputation by walking away. Then I realized I had no reputation to lose: I’m not a singer, I’m an artist and I woke up, heart pounding.

Gee, do you think I might be having a little performance anxiety about my painting…(I was struggling with oil painting before I went to bed) or even more likely, about the one-woman show of my watercolors in March that will be held in the lobby cafe of a newly restored art deco THEATRE?!!!! I thought I wasn’t worried about the show but the sleeping mind never lies….or does it?

Tags Pen and Ink, People