Category: Sketchbook Pages

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Drawing Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages

Dad’s drawings: A tiny treasure found

In a recent post I mentioned that sometimes when I’m drawing I’m wistfully reminded of the wonderful cartoony sketches my dad used to do. I remember one time he drew me, all knobby knees and elbows and I loved seeing my image appear–it was like magic! I thought none of his drawings or paintings remained, having been angrily disposed of by his second to last wife (all right, his second wife, but it was all so dramatic and scandalous at a time when divorce was rare and he was moving on to his third and last wife.)

When I was helping my mom try to find an old photo album in her garage yesterday, we found a tiny greeting card-sized album containing mementos of her marriage to my dad–a few wedding photos and some cards and sketches he’d made for her when she was pregnant with me. I felt like I’d found an absolute treasure and was so pleased that she allowed me to take his sketches with me.

My dad died a few years ago around this time of the year so it’s really nice to be able to remember him now through his drawings and to share them with you on my blog.

(All of the following images by my dad, Howard Goldstein, can be enlarged by clicking on the image and then on “All Sizes”)

Below: Charting the labor pains “June 17, June 18” (I was born on June 19th.)
dad 2

Below: “RivaLee Enters A Room”
dad 3

Below: Talking to the doctor: “And then at 2:16 she had a harder pain but at 2:27 she…”

dad 1

These were all drawn in pencil on the back of paper that said “Enrollment Blank for the California School of Screen Process,” a mail-order art school business my father and two uncles ran for a while in the late 1940s. I guess by the time of my birth the forms had become scratch paper and the school was no more. According to the Enrollment Blanks, their school offered a diploma, a 10 page booklet on how to conduct a profitable business and “10 individual, easy to read, simple to understand lessons that will give practical experience” along with a “Complete Kit of Supplies: Paints, silk, materials, photographic supplies, frame, squeegee, stencil knife, tacks, hinges…in fact, all the materials necessary to complete the course.” Fortunately they all went on to have very successful careers in their chosen professions.

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Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Dining with Mom

Dining with Mom

Ink drawing in 6×8 Strathmore sketchbook. Drawn at the airport waiting for the plane home.

I made a one-day trip to Santa Monica to visit my mom and sister today. She took us out to lunch (my L.A. sister and her son are across the table from my mom and I–that’s me with my hand on my head trying to get small and hide) at Izzy’s, a nice Jewish deli.

While we were looking at our menus, there was a fly buzzing around our table. Now those of you who’ve been reading this blog for a while know that my mom is a bit of a character–the sort who has lots of nerve (or chutzpah as it’s known in Yiddish) to demand extra this, special that, and then takes home most of the stuff on the table (or who, when hospitalized, demands a new mattress and a room with a better view…and gets it).

So we’re all sitting there, trying to decide what to order, when my mom starts waving her menu at the fly, trying to make it go away. It doesn’t. So she takes her hefty menu and swats the fly against the window and SPLAT! She kills the fly, leaving a nasty splotch on the window and the quite large and chunky, dead fly, stuck to the back of her menu.

My mom and I turn to each other and start laughing, realizing what she’s done and what a mistake it was. My sister and her son are totally grossed out, she being a vegan animal rights activist who would never kill a fly–she’d probably make a little nest in a box for it, and keep it with all the other rescued creatures in her apartment.

Just then the nice limited-English proficiency waiter arrives to take our order and reaches for Mom’s menu which she’s propped up against the window, fly side in, trying to hide the mess. I felt bad for the waiter and spoke up–“She killed a fly with the menu…see…it’s right there.” So, embrazened, she says, “Yes, and there’s a mess on the window that needs to get cleaned” and pointed to the splot on the window. He says “No problemo, I’ll clean it.” But I think he meant the menu. After he took our orders and the menus, that was the last we saw of him.

Our food was delivered by a grumpy waitress, only made more grumpy, I’m sure, by mother’s requests for extra slices of bread (to turn one sandwich into two), 3 takeout boxes, 2 bags and her paltry 10% tip.

We actually had a fun day together, walking on the beach, driving around looking at historic mansions in Santa Monica near Malibu, and doing a bit of organizing in her garage and closet. It was great seeing her feeling so much better and being realtively active again at 83.

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Sketchbook Pages

Lemon cucumber again

Lemon Cucumber Again

Ink and watercolor in large watercolor Moleskine
(Click image, select All Sizes to enlarge)

One thing you can say about me is that I’m persistent. If I don’t get it the first time I keep doing it until I feel like I’ve got it or I’m sick of it, whichever comes first. This applies to most aspects of my life, not just art. I painted this little lemon cucumber (it’s a kind of cuke, not a lemon) last week when I was too tired to think straight and didn’t like how it turned out. So here it is again.

I’m still not satisfied with the cuke and especially not with the plate. Maybe it will appear here again next week (though by then I’ll need to buy a new specimen). I think I need to do a large version with juicy washes. I wasn’t feeling well today–did a little gardening and got a massive dose of an allergen of some sort which made me feel headachey, sneezy, itchy and twitchy-eyed.

Tomorrow I’m flying to L.A. for the day to visit my old mom. I’d like to think I’ll do some drawing while I’m there, but since my visits are short, my mom wants my full attention. I’d love to be able to draw the people in my life but I find it hard to be present for them while I’m drawing. Since I’m a bit of a hermit and don’t see friends and family often, I try to focus my attention on them during our time together rather than drawing. So if I have nothing to post tomorrow or I’m too tired when I get home after a very long day, you’ll know why.

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Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Figure drawing in the dark

Figure2

figure3 Figure1

Wash pencil, ink, watercolor in Aquabee 9×12 sketchbook (Click images to enlarge, select “all sizes”)

After a break of over 20 years, I returned to the figure drawing group that has been going on for much, much longer than that at U. C. Berkeley. The group is still open to the public, there is no teacher or instruction, and the fee has only gone up from $3.00 a session to $4.00. It is now on Friday nights (6:30-9:30) and Saturday mornings (10-1) in Krober Hall.

Barbara and I went tonight and had a good time drawing the handsome and muscular African-American model with long braids/dreads. Aside from the usual difficulties of doing figure drawing, the large room was poorly lit. There were a few clip-on floodlights reflecting off the walls for artists to see their work and a photo lamp bounced into a black umbrella lighting the model. It provided nice shadows and highlights on the model but it was very hard to see details like what was foot and what was fabric. I was far from the wall lights so had trouble seeing what I was drawing (excuses, excuses, I know).

I’m really happy to get back to figure drawing and to spending time with my good friend Barbara, after many years of work and family responsibilities intervening. Through all those years we kept saying that one day we’d get back to the days of meeting for tea during the day and doing art together again. And at last we’re doing it! We had tea and pancakes after walking to La Note (a “French” cafe with snobby, French-accented waitstaff but delicious food) for her birthday breakfast and then tonight went out to draw. Life has made a nice circle!

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Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Drawings

Subway-Drawings-Sept-06

Pen & Ink in small Moleskine notebook (click image & select “All Sizes” to enlarge)

Here’s a little collection of fellow riders on our subway known as BART this week. The bicyclist with his clip-on rearview mirror (bottom right) was sitting just a few feet from me and never noticed me drawing him. Ditto with the woman at the top left who replaced him when he got off–she stared straight ahead and didn’t notice me either, even though I was facing her two seats away.

The lady with the amazing hat at the bottom left was further away and sleeping, although she did wake up and see me staring right at her once. The guy at the top right never woke up. I was sitting in the seat across the aisle and turned to face him, which would have been rude if he were awake but he was clearly out for the long haul.

My BART ride twice a day is exactly 13 minutes so I don’t have a lot of time to capture people. It’s also bumpy, jiggly and jerky which can make it tricky when drawing things like noses.

Feline Resolution: After too many sleep-poor nights, I resolve that I am not going to not sleep with my cats anymore. Night after night they keep me awake. They lay down with me when I go to bed and as soon as I fall asleep they want to play, dropping toys on my head for me to throw (I have the only two cats in the world who play fetch, bringing me plastic squiggle toys (Fiona) or felt mousies (Busby), which I’m to throw and which they promptly fetch and return for another throw). They attack me and each other. Eventually I half sleep through their romping and chasing each other back and forth through the house. I guess they eventually go to sleep, but at 6:00 a.m. they’re attacking me again, ready for more play. Starting tonight, it’s exile for these two naughty kitties. I’m tired of being tired!

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Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Lemon Cucumber

lemon-cuke

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook

I knew what I wanted to do with this, but I was too tired to make it happen. Maybe I just should have just skipped painting tonight, and gone to bed early since last night I just couldn’t sleep–for absolutely no reason.

It was the plate that gave me the all the trouble. It started out as white with pretty purple shadows and yellow reflections (or at least that’s what I intended). Then my cat decided to sit between the lamp and the plate, which changed the shadows. Then…well, I was just too sleepy and I totally messed up the white plate so I made it blue. When I scanned the image I cropped off most of the plate which helped a lot. The scary original is going to sit in my sketchbook though, as a reminder to sleep instead of paint when that is the wise thing to do.

And that’s where I’m heading now!

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Drawing People Sketchbook Pages

Just me

Just-me

Graphite (6B) in Aquabee 9×12 Sketchbook

Tonight was painting group and we couldn’t decide whether to pose for each other or just work on individual projects. I was tired and felt like sitting in one spot so I decided to try using a soft pencil and just draw myself. Like most self-portraits I’ve drawn, it’s not quite me, but almost.

Just for fun, after I thought I was all done, I decided to try adding watercolor. I printed the scanned drawing onto the same Aquabee sketchbook paper and then applied watercolor. The inkjet ink and paper seemed to resist the watercolor. It’s a little weird, but it was a fun experiment.
Just Me, color
Watercolor over printed, scanned pencil drawing.

I was inspired to try the soft pencil sketching by France Belleville’s pencil drawings of Gunter Grass and her stepfather on her blog, Wagonized and Laura’s sketch of her father on Laurelines when I visited their blogs today. Laura has such a free, loose, but right-on stroke and France makes every little squiggley line shape and form the person’s features and personality.

I love knowing how much more there is to learn, since learning is my favorite thing in the whole world (when it’s something I want to learn–there are many lessons I would happily forego)! And it’s great knowing how much I’ve already learned, and how every bit of practice has helped my drawing and painting improve.

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Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sketchy day

buddha2_001
Sketched with Wacom table in Painter (digitally)

Tonight I practiced digitally sketching using Painter. I was so tired this afternoon, I didn’t think I’d be able to muster up anything to post, but my little Buddha statue inspired me. Before dinner I tried experimenting with my new Kremer Pigments watercolor set, but after not enough sleep last night I was too tired to try anything requiring brains. So I just messed around with sunsets over the bay, doing about 5 of them in my Raffine sketchbook (which I still don’t like, so didn’t mind “wasting” pages). The Kremer pigments are definitely more opaque than I’m used to, and in this set there’s nothing I could use to make a nice pinky purple. Instead of using my regular palette too, I just goofed around with the Kremers. They’re such gorgeous paints, but I can see how they need to be selected judiciously, depending on what I’m painting. I think they’d be great for landscape painting.

I’m posting this since it’s what’s in the sketchbook for today, but I think it’s icky. Both images can be clicked for larger versions.
Icky-sunset

Watercolor in Raffine 5.5×8.5 sketchbook

I worked from home this morning but my internet connection had slowed way down, requiring much crawling around under my desk connecting and disconnecting things to test it. Comcast is going to send someone out on Friday, though now it seems back to normal. When my day job work was done, it was so sunny and warm outside I couldn’t resist the call of the backyard chaise lounge. I took a lovely nap out there, dreaming I was painting somewhere really warm (previews of my February painting trip to Puerto Vallarta, perhaps?).

Then my son drove up and woke me so I got him to help me earthquake strap my new 6′ high white bookshelf to the wall. It’s a great bookcase that someone had put out on the street with a “free” sign on it. I loaded it into my trusty Toyota RAV-4, cleaned it up a bit and now it’s all ready to be filled with all the journals, sketchbooks and artbooks that don’t fit in the studio bookshelf.

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Drawing Every Day Matters Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Solano Ave Storefronts (EDM #85)

Sweet Lotus Lifestyle Gifts

Please click image and select “All Sizes” to enlarge
Micron Pigma ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook

Today was the 11th International Sketchcrawl and I’d planned to attend. But this morning I decided I really wanted to take a bike ride instead. I believe there are no shoulds when it comes to my art life– I’m the only one I need to please. I feel so fortunate that so much of my time is my own and that, at least for today, the decisions I have to make are about such happy things. So I nixed the official sketchcrawl, packed my sketching kit in my bike bag and took off.

I rode over to Solano Avenue, planning to draw the storefront of Solano Cyclery after getting them to fix my kickstand. But their storefront was boring so I took a little stroll and saw this Chinese restaurant and it’s next-door neighbor, Sweet Lotus Lifestyle Gifts. (This week’s Everyday Matters Challenge is to draw a storefront.)

Sweet Lotus Lifestyle Gifts is crammed with Made in China chotzkes. I’m not sure what kind of Lifestyle they had in mind when they named the store but I don’t think it would be a good one if you owned all that cheap, shiny junk. The name always makes me think of Lifestyle brand condoms which makes me think the store should be selling vibrators and sex toys. I’ve never gone inside, so who knows, maybe they do, way in the back.

I sat on the ground in front of a wine shop to do the drawing. Then I noticed a conveniently placed wine barrel advertising the wine shop which was just the right height to stand beside and use as a table for my paints and notebook. While I was working several different people came over to see what I was doing and said nice things. I know many people feel uncomfortable having someone watch when they draw in public. For some reason I think it’s fun–people are always so nice and seem to be surprised and excited to see their own little world put down on paper.

When I finished after about an hour and a half, I realized I’d missed lunch. I picked up a California Roll from Kyoto To Go, the local sushi bento box store right across the street and sat in a little corner park and with my yummy lunch. Though I planned to make another stop to sketch on the way home, I decided to skip it. It was a fun bike ride home and then I had a little nap. A perfectly enjoyable day!

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Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Meeting People

Meeting-People

Ink in Moleskine

I spent the entire work day in a meeting today that was all about numbers, numbers and more numbers. I filled a dozen pages in my little Moleskine sketchbook with drawings of people looking bored. They fed us a nice lunch and it was good to meet some of my work colleagues from other offices. The meeting was supposed to end at 3:00 but somehow the guy leading the meeting missed that memo.

At 3:20 he handed out a 50 page Federal RFP (Request for proposal) and said it would be a fun little “activity” for us to read through it and decide whether there was anything in the RFP that would make us think we would or would not want to submit a proposal. This was just an exercise–it wasn’t a current RFP–just practice. This was after we’d studied 16 pages of budget reports looking for errors, with the error finders winning $5 worth of Carl’s Junior gift certificates (woo-hoo!). We could win more trips to Carl Juniors for playing this little game.

None of us in the meeting are really numbers people and we were tired and grouchy and wanted to leave. The other people at my table revolted. One woman whispered, “They don’t pay me enough to do this!” and the other replied, “This isn’t in my job description.” We all just sat there belligerently.

The meeting leader looked over at our table and asked why were weren’t reading and I blurted out “We don’t want to, it’s too much!” (So very professional of me.) That gave another table courage to tell him we were supposed to have ended the meeting 20 minutes ago. He said that explained why half the room had already left and he ended the meeting. Unfortunately my boss and I still had an after-meeting meeting with him and his boss.

Finally we got to leave and since I was in downtown San Francisco for the first time in ages, I decided to go to Nordstrom and buy a little new makeup. Mine was so old that it was probably carrying botulism (actually that might not be so bad–isn’t that what they make Botox from?). Hopefully I’ll be able to convince myself to take the time to actually put on the new makeup. I figure I owe it to the people who have to look at me!