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Animals Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages

Illustration Friday: Trouble

Trouble

Digital art done in Painter
Click image to enlarge and select “All Sizes”

I immediately thought of my cat Fiona when I saw this week’s Illustration Friday cue: “Trouble.” She’s always getting into trouble: chewing on electric cords, wrestling with my socks until they’re in shreds, jumping on my head when I’m sleeping in the middle of the night, or walking across a painting and tracking wet paint everywhere…I could go on and on. So I decided to get even and give her a little trouble, even if it’s just in a picture. (But don’t worry, I have no cat door, no raccoons, and love little Fiona dearly, even though she is a naughty girl.)

I also thought of raccoons because I know how much trouble they can cause. My friend Susie had a family of them living in her attic, which was a terrible nightmare since they were were not at all house-trained and had no manners when it came to eating walls and other important stuff. If you’ve seen the cult documentary, Grey Gardens you know what raccoons can do to a house. I knew someone who had a pet raccoon when I was in college. It was really sweet, with the softest little leathery hands, but frequently tore the place apart, opening all the kitchen cabinets and feasting on their contents.

A technical note: Yippee! I’ve solved the Painter conversion problem. I bought a new monitor to hook up to my laptop and ran it through it’s color calibration program before painting. When I transferred the file to my desktop PC with Photoshop, the colors transferred correctly. I could see that the laptop monitor’s colors were lighter and duller, thus requiring me to use stronger brighter colors that, when transferred, were way too strong. The new LCD monitor can also be flipped to vertical (portrait) mode which is too cool! What a difference having a 20″ monitor instead of a tiny laptop monitor to draw with.

Categories
Animals Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Blind Contour Friday: Spooky (Cat)

SPOOKY (Cat)

Blind Contour Friday has issued the cue for October: “Spooky.” I thought my spooky cats would be suitable subjects, though they barely sat still long enough to draw them. In case you think I’ve forgotten how to draw, a “Blind Contour Drawing” means that you draw without looking at your paper and you do not lift your pen from the paper. You follow the contour of the subject with your eyes and your pen at the same time, and if you have to backtrack or cross over to get back to the beginning you do it, all without lifting the pen. Then when you’re done drawing, you can look at your paper while you splash a little paint on it, just for more fun.

SPOOKY (Cat 2)

The cat in the top drawing is Busby and the bottom is Fiona, also known as “that spooky little kittie,” since she’s quite odd.

They’re both drawn with ink in a Raffine sketchbook and then painted with Kremer Pigments watercolors.

Categories
Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Cloudy Skies – First Rain

Clouds1

Watercolor in Raffine sketchbook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)

It rained last night and this morning for the first time since winter. Our staff meeting ended at 4:00 and I was back to my neighborhood by 5:00 which was a treat, since I usually don’t get home from work until 7:00 and it’s almost dark by then. The bright sky was full of dramatic clouds, so instead of heading directly home I drove to the top of Albany Hill on Solano Ave. I painted these two quickies there, standing in the street behind my parked Toyota RAV4, using the painting gear I keep in the car.

Clouds2

Watercolor in Raffine sketchbook
(Click image, select “All Sizes” to enlarge)

I noticed there was a full moon when the sun went down. Maybe that’s what all the craziness was about downtown yesterday when I said I wish there was an iPod for the eyes so you could see beautiful things instead of ugly urban grit. Tami cleverly quipped that an “eye-pod” would be great. And then today I read this in David Pogue’s New York Times technology column:

“Apple’s rep gave a little talk that focused on iPod accessories. One of them looked like a pair of skinny wraparound sunglasses that displays your video iPod’s TV shows and movies on a virtual big screen that floats in the center of your vision. What’s cool is that you can still see–by looking around the TV set on either side. Hard to explain, but really neat.”

Categories
Drawing Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Red Pepper

Red Pepper

Watercolor in Raffine sketchbook (to enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

I hadn’t planned to paint this evening, being tired and over-stimulated from day one of our two day annual staff meeting/retreat combined with a little too much urban grit. But I realized that painting was exactly what I needed to calm and center myself.

We used to hold our staff retreats at a lovely Sonoma wine country retreat center where we stayed overnight and relaxed while doing the learning, reflecting on the past year, and planning for the next year. But it became increasingly more difficult for people to leave growing families and other parts of their lives for work retreats so we started having them in Preservation Park, a charmingly restored group of Victorian buildings in downtown Oakland.

Walking back to our office at lunch time, about a mile away from the meeting, the things I saw made me wish that there was such a thing as iPods for the eyes; sort of like rose-colored glasses, I suppose. Just like listening to an iPod can tune out the sounds of traffic and annoying people talking on cell phones, putting on these glasses would allow you to see lovely gardens, the ocean, sunsets…like music for the eyes. Much better than what I saw today: various mentally ill or drug-crazed people ranting; a man peeing on the sidewalk as we passed by, requiring us to step out of the path of the urine heading towards us; an old woman lying on the sidewalk screaming in pain surrounded by paramedics; the many empty, shuttered storefronts. Even in our nice meeting room we couldn’t get away from the grit–a homeless guy in a bright blue wig wandered into our meeting room but fortunately turned around and left.

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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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
Drawing Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday: Quiet

Quiet
Drawn and painted using Painter & Wacom tablet (click image and select “all sizes” to enlarge)

I had a few ideas for this week’s Illustration Friday challenge and this one seemed the more upbeat–the other two involved coffins and dead people (they are very quiet, though maybe not too attractive).

I love libraries and anything having to do with books. My “day job” is for a literacy organization and all of my co-workers are also book lovers. I have fond memories of family trips to the library when I was a kid, and also with my sons when I became a parent (and now with my little next-door-neighbor kids).

I really like drawing with the Wacom tablet and Painter when I’m trying to make a picture up from my imagination rather than drawing from life or a reference photo. I can keep sketching and just let images appear–not being exactly sure where I’m going. It’s fun to see who and what appears on the screen. Because I can keep erasing and trying new things on new layers and move things around, I can keep sketching a scene without throwing away tons of paper or sitting in a pile of eraser stubble. It seems a little like sculpting–carving an image out of a bunch of scribbles.

Technical stuff that probably nobody is interested in:
I’m still having trouble with converting Painter files to Photoshop — even if I convert to TIFF as the Painter tech support guy told me to do (because Painter converts it’s files to CMYK instead of RGB when it creates a Photoshop-compatible file), golden yellows look lemon colored. But I have determined that it’s not a problem between to my two computer screens. I opened the Painter file side by side with the Photoshop file on my desktop PC and could see that it was Painter/Photoshop problem not Desktop monitor/Laptop screen. The good news is I’ve learned how to use yet another function in Photoshop: Using Image/Adjustments/Hue-Saturation and tweaking the hue of the yellow channel solves the problem, without having to buy a new screen or anything else. This is also helpful when correcting scan color problems.

Categories
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!

Categories
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!