The cue for day 2 is “Knife” and this is the most recent of a long line of Swiss Army Knives I’ve owned over the years. I carry one with me in my purse or backpack. They come in handy for cutting fruit, opening a can, removing a splinter (there is a tweezers) or screwing in a loose screw.
I’ve had several taken away from me at airports; I forget to take it out of my bag before traveling and the x-ray machine doesn’t lie. Oops.
Yay! It’s May 1 and that means it’s time for Every Day in May. Each year the Every Day Matters (Facebook) (Flickr) groups posts a list of cues and members commit to doing one drawing a day, all month long. The cue for day one is “Window.” My calico cat Fiona snoozing in her fuzzy bed, on a blanket, in a box from Costco, beneath the window in my home office, on a sunny (too hot) day was fun to draw.
Do you think there are enough prepositions in that last sentence? One of the few things I remember from all the stuff we had to memorize in school was a list of prepositions in alphabetical order. I can still cite them…. “about, above, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, beneath, beside, between…..” But why on earth did we need to memorize that list!!!!???
I used a Pentel Tradio Pulaman Fountain Pen for drawing at Picante Mexican restaurant. I love this pen with its smooth chisel tip. Since it isn’t waterproof I could add washes of water to make the gray areas. But Picante is such a colorful place I had to add a little color too. I ordered delicious fish tacos but was too hungry to draw them.
When we planned the Urban Sketching evening for Cato’s, a great old pub, little did we know that a large group of Kaiser doctors were also planning a happy hour event that night too. The place was totally packed but a large group of urban sketchers made it work anyway. We gathered around several tables and sketched eaters, drinkers and sketchers (and in my case, dinner).
My hamburger was delicious but I ate it too quickly, anxious to get sketching and a bit overwhelmed by the noise and crowds. That was my first night out sketching since adopting my pup, who was waiting patiently and not all that happily in her bed in my car in the parking lot of the PetFood Express store across the street from the pub.
Carole Baker is an amazing painter in remote northern Alaska who I’ve known through our blogs and correspondence for years. When she was in Berkeley for a visit we met in North Berkeley to sketch. Above is a photo of my wonky sketch (held by Carole so that I could photograph it) of Earthly Goods, the store on one corner of Vine and Shattuck.
We sat on the same bench but looked in opposite directions. Here is Carole and her sketch of the produce market on the opposite corner of Shattuck and Vine.
I was so inspired by Carole and her art on the beautiful greeting cards she gave me as a gift. You can see Carole’s art on her blog Carole Baker’s Art Journal.
This little fig tree has survived so much: being transplanted, then a killer frost, and then transplanting again after sewer line work. As soon as leaves sprouted this year so did two figs. Sadly the crows or squirrels (or the toddler next door?) took them before I could even post this.
I sat in the driveway and quickly sketched some roses but had to stop when the shadow of the house took away the light.
And then there’s my not so spring-y self, frowning into the mirror, with hat-head and something wrong with the mouth. And yes, it’s intentionally buried at the bottom of this post. It feels good to be drawing again, after what seems like months away from it. It’s also a little frustrating feeling rusty at it. But the only fix for that is more drawing!
I put my sketching stool in my front garden to paint the one iris that decided to bloom this year. The past two years none of them bloomed and I think it’s because you’re maybe supposed to dig up the bulbs and separate them and plant them further apart when they get too crowded? Gardeners, your advice welcomed!
I missed sketching the first blooming of my roses, when each rose is so perfect and beautiful it’s just heart breaking. I was “too busy,” putting it off one day too many and then the big rains came and the fresh perfect roses were no more.
I really enjoyed drawing and painting while practicing close observation of the different shapes and structures of this amazing plant.
I am so glad to move on from this series finally! Lately I’ve been sketching lovely spring scenery, trees and flowers but before I post them, here are the last and the grossest of the dog treats. These two items were neither a treat to draw nor did my dog’s digestion appreciate them (to put it mildly!)
The Puffed Pig Snout is exactly that, a kind of weird half-face; really quite disturbing. Millie was quite happy to munch it right up, though she will also happily eat cat poo and grass, so that’s not saying much.
I labeled the Tooble incorrectly in the sketch as I’d lost the label and remembered wrong. It’s not a sheep esophagus, it’s a smoked beef trachea, cleverly renamed a “Tooble” for marketing purposes. I’m glad that they are finding ways of using all of the animal, but still…
I’ve completed my investigation of the weird new world of dog treats and we settled on Millie’s two favorite chew treats: Pizzle sticks and raw organic marrow bones.
Phew! Done! Now on to something completely different!
Second to last of the gross dog chew sketches: pig ears and pig hooves. While these are pretty nasty, they aren’t the worst. That comes next. Pig ears are pretty popular but they are definitely dog junk food, more like big, thick, greasy potato chips than rawhide. Millie ate half an ear in just a few minutes and it didn’t do her digestion any favors. I will not be buying them again.
The hooves are not really digestible, they’re more for just the fun of gnawing on something and shredding bits off. They’re pretty hard so last a very long time. If they start to splinter or break they have to be thrown away, but they’re very cheap so I don’t mind.
I am happy to say that the excellent new book Urban Sketching: The Complete Guide to Techniques
Then I got an email from an art director from the San Francisco office of the national advertising agency, Ogilvy. They were moving and she was designing a “Field Guide” to the new SF neighborhood for their employees. When searching for sketches of the area she found mine, and as she looked through my blog she found sketches to illustrate most of the pages in the guide.
(This would be a good time to point out to fellow art bloggers how important it is to tag or attach categories to your images and your posts. WordPress makes it easy; the feature is a little hidden in Blogger but it really helps to find posts or images with specific content.)
In the end, they licensed 18 of my sketches for use in the printed field guide. Above are a few of the pages, brilliantly composed by the art director.
I am honored to be working on a commissioned large watercolor painting for a couple who live in Europe now, but were married in a lovely building in a Bay Area park. The wife wants to give her husband the painting for their anniversary. I visited the venue and took photos and we agreed on a composition. The painting is underway and so far is going well, but because it is large and has many details, it is keeping me very busy (and happy) in the studio.
(I’m leaving out any identifying details about the locations to make sure there’s no way her husband will find out. I know that seems unlikely, but when working on a previous commissioned painting of a house for a surprise anniversary present for the husband, their daughter found the work-in-progress painting I’d posted of her parents’ house when she Googled “Oakland Federal Building,” landed on my sketch of the building, scrolled down and the next post was her home. She was so surprised to see it she called her parents!)
Jana Bouc, Artist 