Category: Urban Sketchers

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Landscape Sketchcrawl Urban Sketchers

This Weekend! West Coast Urban Sketchers’ Sketchcrawl in the SF Bay Area

Lake Merritt View, Copic Sepia Multiliner
Lake Merritt View, Copic Sepia Multiliner

If you’re in the Bay Area the weekend of July 12-14, you’re invited to join in the sketching fun. We’ll be meeting Friday evening in Berkeley, all day Saturday in San Francisco and half a day on Sunday at Lake Merritt in Oakland.

You can find all the details, including schedules and downloadable maps on the 1st West Coast Urban Sketchers’ Sketchcrawl website or Facebook page.

Several art supply companies are supporting the event by donating sketching supplies and the local press have interviewed Urban Sketchers and are helping to promote the event with articles and arts and events columns.

We’re expecting over 100 people each day for this exciting event taking place at the same time as the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Barcelona, Spain and the Worldwide Sketchcrawl.

If you’re around this weekend, I hope you can join us. If you’re not, be sure to check out the Worldwide Sketchcrawl site to see if there is a sketchcrawl in your area on Saturday July 13.

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Berkeley Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Swingin’ at Caffe Trieste, Berkeley

Tuesday Night at Cafe Trieste, ink & watercolor, 8x10"
Tuesday Night at Cafe Trieste, ink & watercolor, 8×10″

We’ve been going to Caffe Trieste in Berkeley for our Tuesday night sketching once or twice a year and each time we’ve been lucky to be there when the Randy Craig Trio is playing. I love their assortment of classic jazz and swing with piano, standup base, guitar and two women singers.

They seem to have a regular following because each time we go I see many of the same people in the audience.

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Building Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Women’s Work: Rosie the Riveter and Super Wonky Singer Sewing Machine

Craneway Pavillion and Rosie the Riveter Museum, ink & watercolor, 8x10"
Rosie the Riveter Museum (left) and Craneway Pavillion (right), ink & watercolor & National Park rubber stamp, 8×10″

When my plein air group met at the Rosie the Riveter Museum alongside Craneway Pavilion (a former auto factory where “Rosie’s” riveted during WWII) on the San Francisco Bay in Richmond, everyone else painted the bay view on the other side of these buildings.

But as soon as I drove into the parking lot, this industrial backside grabbed me. From the row of street lights to the giant smokestack and thousands of windows, I was sold. I set up, sketched and painted in the parking lot. Then I toured the museum. My mother, RivaLee was a “Rosie” and worked in an airplane factory in L.A. where she was known as “Riv the Riveter.”

Singer Sewing Machine circa early 1900s, ink & watercolor
Singer Sewing Machine circa early 1900s, ink & watercolor & gold pen

I don’t know what happened to my sense of perspective when I sketched this early 1900s Singer sewing machine in a warehouse full of antique industrial equipment. It was very heavy, almost impossible for me to move, so I guarantee it wasn’t lifting off the table or sliding downhill like it looks in my sketch.

As I drew I was struck by the beautiful decoration and the rounded shapes that seemed to echo the curves of the women who used them. What a lovely tool it is compared to the sterile, boxy, plastic computerized sewing machines of today.

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Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Electric Owls and Giant Rats: Pest Control at Pastime

Pest Control at Pastime Hardware, ink & watercolor, 5x8". Sketch of artificial owls and other pest control devices
Pest Control at Pastime Hardware, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

When we made our annual sketching pilgrimage to Pastime Hardware on a cold winter evening I picked the Pest Control department. I was attracted by the big, ugly, inflated hanging rat and the artificial owls who seemed to be discussing who was going to nab the rat.

The names of the products seemed inflated too: Pest Chaser Pro and Sonic Pest Chaser (both made me imagine cartoon critters that jump out of the box and chase critters away). And then there’s the Tom Cat Mole Trap (contains cat? that chases moles?) and Cat Stop (do you need Cat Stop after you’ve released the Tom Cat Mole Trap?)

I know someone who is courting real owls by putting up owl houses in her yard. That solution might be worse than the problem. My son has a family of screech owls living in a tree across the street from him and they keep him awake, screeching all night long.

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Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Waiting and Watching (and Sketching)

Waiting and Watching at Peets, ink, 5x8"
Waiting and Watching at Peets, ink, 5×8″

I love the way the big guy seems to be looking at the pretty girl’s butt in her shiny black tights. In reality they got in line at different times, but my drawing took on a life of its own.

One of the things I love about living in the Bay area is the wide variety of people you see, dressed however they please, with either no concern about fashion or a style all their own. I fit right in!

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Building Ink and watercolor wash Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

S.F. Cable Car Museum Sketches

Sketch of Ticket Machine and Street Lamp, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Ticket Machine and Street Lamp, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

We rode BART and a cable car to the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco to sketch. I  had to first draw some of the antique street “furniture” on display—an old Cable Car Ticket Machine and a street lamp with cable car line sign on it (California St. Line). The tickets were only 25 cents then. Now they are $6.00 a ride!

Cables that still power the cable cars, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Cables that still power the cable cars, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

I was surprised to discover that the museum was built around and above the massive cable system that still runs the cable cars. The guy in the sketch above stands on a platform about 20 feet up to supervise (?) the cables that run through multiple sets of huge gears in the basement level of the building and then go out under the streets to pull the cable cars up the steep hills.

Cable Car Museum, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Cable Car Museum, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

It was extremely LOUD in the museum since it’s on a second floor mezzanine completely open to the cable machinery (see picture) so it felt great to get outside again and sketch the brick museum building from across the street. It was a grey, drizzly winter day but never outright rained so we had a great walk back to BART up and down the hills.

For more sketches of cable cars and the museum, click here to see Cathy’s.

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Animals Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketching in the Lamp Shop

Lamp sketch: Fertility and Glass, ink & watercolor 5x8"
Fertility and Glass, ink & watercolor 5×8″

Last night our sketch group visited Sue Johnson Lamps in Berkeley, a shop that has specialized in custom, artisan-made lamps and shades since the 1970’s. Sue generously held the store open late for us and even offered us tea and persimmon pudding. We all fell in love with their amazing variety of hand-crafted works of art that also happen to light up.

A good example of the variety: on the left above, a “ceremonial fertility carving” of a mother with big hair and a (very stiff) baby on her lap and an exquisite hand-blown glass base that lights up from inside with a shade embellished in lovely Japanese print fabric.

sketch of elephant and parrot lamps in ink & watercolor
Parrot and Elephant Lamps, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

And then there was a whole menagerie of animal lamps: birds, elephants, dogs, monkeys, frogs and more. Sketching the elephant made me realize how much I didn’t know about what elephants look like. I hope we’ll be invited back again because there is so much more there to draw.

Be sure to see my sketch buddies’ very different drawings on our Urban Sketchers blog: see Cathy’s, Ceinwen‘s, Sonia’s, Cristina‘s, (and I’ll add links to Susan’s and Micaela’s when they get them posted).

Sketchbook spread with lamps, 5x16"
Sketchbook 2-page spread with lamps, 5×16″
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Albany Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketchcrawl 38 and Urban Sketchers Show

Masonic & Solano, Albany, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Masonic & Solano, Albany, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

We had a fantastic time hosting sketchers from around the Bay Area at our sketching event last Saturday. There were at least 30 sketchers and a total of around 100 people who joined us at the reception for the show afterwards. It was great seeing so many local scenes captured in many different styles. You can see photos of the exhibit, the reception and tables of sketchbooks on the library’s blog here.

In the sketch above I enjoyed seeing and drawing all the details that normally go unnoticed. Then I  disregarded my plan to put the paint down and leave it alone. Instead I repainted the right side of the building several times and even removed the paint with a wet paper towel (in the restroom of the Sophia Cafe above, left) and then painted it again, finally getting the “right” color but ultimately ruining the paper surface.

Bart Tracks on Masonic, ink, 5x8"
Bart Tracks on Masonic, ink, 5×8″

I got in one last quick sketch of Masonic Ave. with the BART tracks and train before I had to zip down to the Albany library/community center at the end of the block for the reception. We made lots of new sketching friends and some will be joining us for our Tuesday night sketch outings we will be hosting the first Tuesday evening of each month.

If you’re interested in sketching with us, please visit our Urban Sketchers blog’s Event page or join our Urban Sketcher’s Facebook Events page.

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketchcrawl 38: Sketch With Us or See Our Show

Toilet seat display, ink & watercolor
Toilet seat display, ink & watercolor

The East Bay Express published a fun article about my Urban Sketchers group and the sketch event and show/reception we’re hosting today. In the article they mentioned my sketching toilet seats in the hardware store so I thought I’d bring that sketch back from the past.

Here’s a link to the newspaper article: “Sketching the Extra-Ordinary” (PDF).

And here’s a link to the Events Page on our Urban Sketchers blog with information about the show and sketching event. We’re sketching from 12-3 on Solano Avenue in Berkeley/Albany starting at the corner of Masonic. The reception is at the Albany Library on Marin from 3-4. The exhibit of our sketches and sketching gear and journals is up all month at the library.

We just sketched at the hardware store again this week but I haven’t had a chance to prepare that sketch for posting yet. Coming soon. Meanwhile gotta get ready to go. I’m so glad the weather warmed up a bit!

Categories
Berkeley Ink and watercolor wash Interiors People Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Brennan’s Bar Backsides and Balding

Brennan's Bar Backsides, ink & watercolor, 6x8"
Brennan’s Bar Backsides, ink & watercolor, 6×8″

The nice thing about sketching in bars, especially one that is also a cafeteria a frequented by an older crowd on a quiet Tuesday night, is that people tend to sit still long enough to draw them.

Balding at Brennan's Bar: trying and trying to capture him. Ink, 6x8
Balding at Brennan’s Bar: trying and trying to capture him. Ink, 6×8

I kept trying to capture this guy who sat a few tables away eating his dinner and reading but never really got him. My sketch buddy Micaela perfectly captured him, which you can see on our Urban Sketchers blog here.

I’m still playing catch up: these are from November. But now that things have settled down in my world, I intend to be caught up by the end of the month, including my 2012 year-end review and a whole week of sunflower paintings.