Jana Bouc, Artist

The Horn Players

Ink & Watercolor in Moleskine sketchbook
Composed from memory, a quick scribble on a sticky note and a small photo (see below)
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When I was taking a lunchtime walk on Wednesday, I saw this guy playing his sax on the corner. A mom and little boy stopped in front of him and the mom pulled a little toy plastic horn out of her bag. She handed it to her son and encouraged him to play too. The boy was fascinated by the sax player, who sadly showed no interest in the boy and just kept on playing. I didn’t have time to take a photo or sketch so tried to take a mental snapshot. As soon as I got back to the office I grabbed the first pen and paper I could find and tried to draw what I’d seen on this purple sticky note.

The next day I was out walking again and the horn player was back on the corner so I took this quick photo from across the street.

Tonight I finally had a chance to draw the scene in my sketchbook, using my mental snapshot of the scene, my sticky note scribble and the photo (which was really helpful since I didn’t really know what saxophones looked like enough to try to draw it).

Does it bother you that the sax player is more realistic and the mom and boy are more cartoonish since they’re drawn from memory?

Tags Pen and Ink, People

Animals Drawing Dreams People Sketchbook Pages

From my AM/PM Sketchbook

Art show update: Thanks everyone for all your good wishes. The opening was so much fun! All my best friends, family and local art buddies came, including a (formerly virtual) friend from the Everyday Matters art blogging group. Some people brought friends and neighbors, and there were a few unknown faces too. From all reports everyone had a good time, and there were quite a few “small world” connections between people who I had no idea knew each other. The show will come down March 31.

Every day I write and draw something in my AM/PM sketchbook, usually from memory — in the morning an image from my dreams and in the evening something I’ve seen during the day. This is an assortment from the past week in my Handbook Journal Co. notebook drawn with an Expresso pen which I don’t like much but for some reason am using for all these drawings.

PM (Tonight): Walking around the lake by work today at lunch the geese were acting crazy, honking at each other and wiggling their heads and flapping their wings while the pigeons and seagulls looked on. I saw some seagulls with festive polka-dotted tails.

PM: Kitties are already asleep and I should be too.

AM: View out the window (at a distance)

AM: A silly work dream and another dream about Donald Trump (watched the very bad Apprentice LA that night).

Tags Animals, Cats, Pen and Ink, People

People Puerto Vallarta Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Puerto Vallarta Corn Snacks

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date March 6, 2007
7 Comments on Puerto Vallarta Corn Snacks

Ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
To enlarge click image, select All Sizes

I wish I could have actually done this sketch in person along the Malecon waterfront in Puerto Vallarta but there was no time alloted for outdoor sketching in my workshop. I noticed several different people selling both corn on the cob and corn kernels in plastic cups that they barbecue on site (the corn not the cups).

I wanted to do a small watercolor in my sketchbook since my painting time lately has been spent working with oil paints and acrylics. When I went to look through my Puerto Vallarta photos for something to paint I discovered most of them were missing. I’d done some nifty photo organizing the other day, sorting everything, trying to back up onto DVDs (but it kept eating the DVDs so I gave up and copied files from my PC to my laptop). Somehow I’d deleted half of the folders I’d sorted, thinking I was deleting extra copies from my laptop. Without going into lots more detail about how this stupidity occured, I’ll just say that I went through all the steps of the grieving process: anger, denial, bargaining etc., through to acceptance and then oh so gratefully, found a folder on my laptop that had the files!!

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Puerto Vallarta

Art theory Cartoon art Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages

Cezanne in Provence

Ink in Handbook Journal notebook
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Today I was tired after all the prep and then the party at last night’s opening for my show (which was great fun by all accounts). This morning I tried drawing little sketches of everyone who attended the opening in my AM/PM journal. It was hard to remember the details of people’s faces, though surprisingly easier for the people I’d just met than the ones I’ve known most of my life.

It occurred to me that if I tried to superimpose in my imagination a caricaturish outline on the faces and features of people I see, it might make it easier to draw them and might also be a good way to start to see and understand the essential components of each face that make it different from every other face.

So tonight while I was watching a documentary I’d TiVo’d a couple weeks ago — “Cezanne in Provence” — I saw the guy on the top left, Curator Philip Conisbee, and discovered I was doing exactly that — I could see the imaginary lines superimposed on his image that I wanted to draw. So I paused the program, grabbed my journal, and drew him. Then I did the same for other people I saw in the documentary, Cezanne, Monet, Cezanne’s grandson Philippe and art historian Nina Kallmyer (sorry for beard Nina, I went a bit too far with the shading).

I also jotted down some of the quotes by and about Cezanne: “He is a true artist but has far too many doubts about himself.” “He liked to be free and alone when he was painting.” “He was a hermit.” Cezanne said, “The pleasure must be found in the painting” when dismissing with disdain the importance of showing and success. “Vollard displayed 150 of Cezanne’s paintings (that he’d bought from the art supply store where artists traded their paintings for art supplies) and Cezanne didn’t come to the show. He stayed home painting.”

While I fantasized about painting today, I never did get in the studio other than to tidy up a bit. I think Cezanne might have been right. Preparing for a show sure diverts time and energy from painting!

Tags Pen and Ink, People

Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Watercolor

Yay! Show is Up!

I had the most amazing experience tonight. Two very special people helped me hang the paintings for my show (well actually they climbed on ladders and hung the paintings while I nursed a beer to calm my nerves and said things like “Yep, you got it. Perfect!” or “Let’s move that one over there and this one over here” and they didn’t even get annoyed!) I’d been so worried about trying to hang the artwork in this rather challenging space and they made it look as classy and grand as a show you’d see in any gallery. I am so grateful and proud to have such caring and careful people in my life!

I have a hard time asking for help, never wanting to bother others. So when my dear friend Richard, who is a brilliant photographer and absolutely the best computer and audio technical guru around, volunteered to help me when he heard about the show I was amazed and thrilled because I know what a perfect job he does with anything he touches, as does my wonderful son Cody, who was the second to volunteer (after I asked him, but still…) Cody is my best art critique and has a dead-on eye for detail and is meticulous when it comes to the things he’s passionate about (including restoring to perfection fabulous “muscle cars“ from the 70s). With a team like these two, I knew the show couldn’t fail. I’m so proud and pleased at how it looks and how much fun it was to hang with my team.

Here’s a few photos taken at the end of the evening (in dim light and not the steadiest of hand).

Above, Richard after we finished hanging and he treated us to a slice of pizza.

Non-blurry versions available on my website.

People Puerto Vallarta Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Elotes: Puerto Vallarta Street Vendors

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 28, 2007
11 Comments on Elotes: Puerto Vallarta Street Vendors

Ink & Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
(To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes)

On our trip into town this friendly gentleman (reproduced here twice from two different photos) was standing in the hot sun selling hot corn. He gave me a big smile and held up his sign…not exactly a candid, natural photo, but P.V. was rather like that. People were very friendly and kind, but very much oriented towards the tourist. I wish I would have planned for time to travel away from the well-beaten path after my workshop.

I changed the colors from the photo to use a warm, analagous palette (colors near each other on the color wheel). In the photo the umbrellas were multi-colored and the wall was a royal blue. But in a small sketch like this I thought it would be too busy with all those colors and wanted a hot feeling instead of a rainbow.

After I scanned the original version below, I decided it needed a dark doorway to break up the long wall and give some contrast and focus to the front-facing man. Which do you think works better?

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Tags Pen and Ink, People, Puerto Vallarta

Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Judy’s Tulip Tree

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
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After a day spent doing art business (finishing framing for the show I’m hanging Thursday evening, writing up the descriptions of the four flower paintings to be published in a book on flower painting, and sorting photos to make room on my hard drive) I needed to sit down for an hour and paint a pretty flower in watercolor to soothe my spirit.

I took the photo I painted from just a week ago when it was bright and sunny and my friend Judy’s Tulip Tree was in bloom. Today we’re back to winter with cold winds, sideways rain and gray skies.

Art theory Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Sketches & Picasso Exhibit

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 24, 2007
12 Comments on Sketches & Picasso Exhibit

BART Rider – Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook

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Peets Coffee water display – Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook

Woman in the SFMOMA Cafe (loved her thick grey hair in a huge clasp)
Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook

Just before the earthquake Friday: BART Rider with Orchid just before the trains stopped. Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook

Friday, Susie and I met at the SF Museum of Modern Art on the opening day of Picasso and American Art. It was very interesting seeing Picasso’s groundbreaking paintings and the way American artists picked up his ideas and explored them in their own paintings. I think my favorites were the Willem de Kooning paintings; the first was quite derivative but you could see the development over the half dozen or so paintings spanning a couple of decades how his work progressed and matured into his own strong and unique voice.

More than anything, what I got from this show was the importance of an artist’s unique voice. I’ve been pondering what makes something “art” vs. decorative, pretty, marketable pictures; or what makes an artist a “real” artist. This exhibit helped me to understand that it’s not just technique, talent, or skill (all important things) — it’s also the expression of the artist’s unique view and personality that is essential. An artist doesn’t have to invent a new “ism” or create a whole new way of working like the impressionists, cubists, expressionists, etc. But a recognizable, unique and authentic voice or perspective that is courageously or confidently expressed (even if it’s ugly) seems like it might be the key.

Do you agree? Do you have an opinion of what makes an artist a “real” artist or art “real” art or do you think the whole question is irrelevant?

ADDENDUM: I must point out that my questioning this is all this in terms of my own place in the world: I’ve been painting and drawing and identifying myself as an artist for 30 years but there’s always that question in the back of my mind….that voice that says, “If you were a real artist you would…[fill in the blank].” I don’t meant to imply judgment on anyone else’s choice of style or work. Please see my comment in response to Katharine‘s comment for more.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Animals Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Bird Sanctuary?

Ink & Watercolor in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook
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Today after lunch I walked halfway around the lake beside my office with my boss and a work buddy. We were surprised to see a grey cat sound asleep in what looked like a cozy nest in a small tree alongside the lake. Lake Merritt is rich with avian wildlife, and is a sanctuary for migrating birds and many who live there year-round, including coots, comorants, ducks, egrets, way too many Canadian geese (constant hopscotching over big goose turds required), grebes, gulls, herons and tons of pigeons. There are also many feral cats and this one fits right in.

I thought we were going to be walking to the library on the gritty streets of downtown Oakland so didn’t carry my camera and missed getting a photo of this scene or another that would have made a great painting: a beautiful Hmong mother, grandmother and baby all dressed in bright colors sitting on a green park bench. I tried to memorize the cat in the tree scene so I could draw it when I got home, but we were walking too fast to “snap” a mental picture of the Hmong family.

Another co-worker came to work sick today with a “searing” sore throat and now I’m starting to feel like I’m catching a cold. Phooey. Actually my coughing started last night, so I guess can’t blame her germs. Time for some sleep and Vitamin C.

Tags Animals, Cats, Pen and Ink

Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Salt Shaker

Ink & watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

This morning I found out that four of my flower paintings have been selected for a book on painting flowers that will be published later this year. The rest of the day was good too. It’s supposed to rain tonight. And that’s the news from Jana’s world today.