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Drawing Faces Ink and watercolor wash People Places Sketchbook Pages Sketchcrawl Urban Sketchers

International Sketchcrawl 35: San Francisco, Part I

Waiting with flowers at MacArthur BART Station
Waiting with flowers at MacArthur BART Station (sketched standing on the platform and color added at home)

Sketchcrawl 35 was fantastic! The weather in San Francisco was unusually beautiful, warm and sunny and there was so much to see and do. I’m posting the sketches in three parts since what we saw in each part of the day was so different.  Part I covers the trip into the city through lunch.

Reading an Actual BOOK on BART
Reading an Actual BOOK on BART (paint added at home)

So rare to see someone reading a real book and not just fidgeting with their digital whatevers.

He reminded me of Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks
He reminded me of Jay from the movie Clerks

The guy in the sketch above reminded me so much of the slacker Jay from the movie Clerks I had to post this photo of him and Silent Bob below.

Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks
Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks

Thank goodness for the Internet or I would have been saying, “Doesn’t he look just like that guy in that movie….” and had no photo to show you.

Cathy and another sketcher at Caffe Trieste in North Beach
Cathy and another sketcher at Caffe Trieste in North Beach (sketched and painted on site)

Cathy was sitting at my sidewalk table sketching someone behind me so I sketched her while the group gathered at Caffe Trieste, the starting point for the sketchcrawl. There was scaffolding over the entryway, which provided an interesting drawing challenge.

Molinari's Deli where we bought lunch
Molinari’s Deli where we bought lunch (sketched in the store, painted at home)

Cathy and I bought lunch for later and then stood in opposite corners of the store to sketch the counter guys at Molinari’s Deli in North Beach. (Click the link to Molinari’s to see the picture prominently displayed in their store of their salame with the Pope). They turned up their radio for the end of the Barcelona vs. Madrid soccer finals. It was fun hearing the super-excited announcer yelling the play-by-play in Spanish as a player ran down the field, made a goal and won the game.

Part II will be my drawings from Dr. Sketchy’s Tease-O-Rama and Part III is more in North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf.

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Landscape Painting Photos Plein Air Sacramento

Edgar Payne’s Paintings and His Plein Air Ford

Edgar Payne's Ford, ink & watercolor, 4x6"
Edgar Payne's Ford, ink & watercolor, 4x6"

On our sketching trip to Sacramento we visited theEdgar Payne painting exhibit at the Crocker Museum. Above is my sketch of the beautiful old Ford he used to get to plein air painting sites. According to the brief video they showed he also frequently traveled by mule. I only had a few minutes to sketch the car so I painted it when I got home.

You can see the photo of the car and some of my favorite paintings from the show below. His compositions (he wrote the book  Composition of Outdoor Painting) and his use of warm and cool colors to create a sense of light and depth are fantastic to see in person.

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Art supplies Interiors Photos Studio

My New Remodeled Art Studio Tour (at last!)

Looking out to the deck
View from inside looking out to the deck

Hi! Come on in and let me show you around my new studio. The concept for the studio began in 2000 when I bought my cottage, a 1940s duplex. I planned to use the front unit as my home and the rear unit as my studio while still working at my “day job.” When the time came that I could leave to paint full time, I planned to rent out the back apartment for extra income and convert the 400 square foot garage to my studio.

The rear unit studio was wonderful and I spent many happy hours painting and teaching there. But the new studio is even better! Even though it’s near my house, it’s completely separate so the distractions of laundry, dishes and computer; the nagging of cats for dinner; email and phone calls disappear and painting time flows uninterrupted.

Before the tour, here are “before” pictures of its former life as a grease-monkey garage where my son worked on cars.

The 1970 Firebird Cody was restoring in my garage
The garage before it was transformed and the 1970 Firebird Cody was (still is) restoring

The bare garage walls had 40 years of grease and grime and Bondo dust and the concrete floor was badly stained and cracked. The only electricity came in from an extension cord.

Huge Chevy engine and garage full of tools (and grease)
Huge engine under construction
Backyard before door and deck
Backyard before door and deck

The only entrance was the heavy and awkward sliding barn doors on the driveway side of the garage. Now I’ve transformed the old garage from a place for pursuing a passion for pistons to a passion for paint.

Deck and door to studio
Deck and door to studio

I added the doors and deck (though the contractor’s mistakes led to it not being a two-steps up raised deck as planned–but it is level unlike how it seems in the photo). The high-maintenance funky grass is gone, replaced by gold fines which makes it feel like a beach. Now it’s a great place to set up a still life and paint outdoors and I love eating lunch and reading out here too.

Here is a 6 minute video tour, and below that, pictures with more detail.

In the video and photos below, you can see that I love good art tools. I have collected this studio equipment and supplies over many years of painting. Much of it I bought secondhand or long ago. 

Continue reading “My New Remodeled Art Studio Tour (at last!)”
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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Sacramento Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Train Trip to the California State Railroad Museum

1908 Train #112 Redwood Empire Route, ink & watercolor, 5x10"
1908 Train #112 Redwood Empire Route, ink & watercolor, 5x10"

Our sketch group took a train trip to Sacramento and visited the California State Railroad Museum. The enormous building ( 225,000 square feet) contains many full-sized trains. This one called out to me so after looking around a bit, I sat against a pillar on the hard floor and started drawing.

I used pencil first to get the basic shapes down since it was so complicated. Then I switched to ink and the time flew by. A friendly docent started talking to me and I realized I only had a few minutes left before we had to leave for our train ride home, so I quickly added watercolor, which I touched up a bit when I got home.

Micaela and Susan sketching on the train
Micaela and Susan sketching on the train ride

The museum has a Pullman-style sleeping car, a dining car, and a Railway Post Office, all of which you can walk through, along with many life-size displays demonstrating railroad life in the early years of California. I especially liked the little telegraph office with the lady at her desk with a little dish holding egg shells and a salt shaker from her breakfast. She must have had to work long hours in her lonely outpost. Click here to take a 360 Virtual Tour of the museum (or go in person—it’s fantastic!)

Davis Train Station as it rolled by
Davis Train Station as it rolled by

We walked from the train museum to the train station for our ride back home. When we  stopped at the Davis station I tried to draw it. But it must have been a “whistle stop.” I barely had time to sketch the tree and a bit of the lamp-post when we were rolling again.

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Berkeley Ink and watercolor wash Interiors People Sketchbook Pages Sketchcrawl

The Drunken Boat, Burlesque Convention, International Sketchcrawl Reminder

Cathy Sketching at Le Bateau Ivre, Sepia pen and watercolor, 8x5
Cathy Sketching at Bateau Ivre, Sepia pen and watercolor, 8x5"

We had a wonderful Tuesday evening sketching and dining at Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat) in Berkeley. The ambiance and food are fantastic. We sat in the dining room with lovely brick walls and a fireplace. When we sketched there last year we sat in the café area which is equally charming.

International Sketchcrawl 35 is Saturday, April 21!

Here is a link to the Sketchcrawl website where you can find out if there is a group sketching near you (or start a location yourself).

San Francisco looks to be a particularly juicy sketchcrawl, starting in North Beach and ending at a free Burlesque Queens sketching marathon at a hotel at Fisherman’s Wharf, hosted by Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. The  burlesque performers are in town for the Tease-O-Rama, a “showcase and convention dedicated to the thriving neo-burlesque revival.”

Unfinished sketch of stuff on table with bits of business card
Unfinished sketch of random stuff on table with bits of business card
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Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

(Mostly) Subway Sketches

Subway is TOO LOUD
Subway is TOO LOUD

I’ve gotten so used to sketching people in public that sometimes I forget to be subtle. Then I get glares or confused looks from people who can’t figure out why I keep looking at them. One day a guy down the train was holding up a camera and continuously filming everyone which I found annoying. Filming seems more intrusive since my drawings rarely capture a close-enough likeness for anyone to worry about.

Here are some random people sketches, mostly from my 13 minute subway ride to work. They are displayed first in a slide show (with arrows to click through) and at the bottom in “gallery” format. In gallery format you can click to enlarge a picture.

Please take the poll in between the two so I can learn which type of display for multiple pictures you prefer. THANKS!

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Animals Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

Hoppy Easter Bunnies (and a Guinea Pig)

Baby Bunnies Chillin' & Chowin' Down, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Baby Bunnies Chillin' & Chowin' Down, ink & watercolor, 5x8"

My local bunny rescue/pet supply store Rabbit Ears, has a bunch of bunnies available for adoption including this litter of 6 week old babies and their mom. While I sketched them, they took turns sleeping piled together, eating from their big bowl of bunny chow, grooming themselves and each other, and dropping little bunny pellets.

More bunnies (left side of spread), ink & watercolor, 5x8"
More bunnies (left side of spread), ink & watercolor, 5x8"

I left the babies and wandered around the store, drawing rabbits in different enclosures. It’s hard to figure out bunny parts with all that fur hiding everything.

Lucy the Guinea Pig
Lucy the Guinea Pig (Detail)

I think my favorite sketch is Lucy the Guinea Pig. I was surprised to see she had no visible pupils in her little red eyes.

Bunnies & Guinea Pig, right side of spread
Bunnies & Guinea Pig, right side of spread

The lop-eared rabbit’s name is Snickers. As soon as I started to sketch him he and his cage-partner Oreo got so busy grooming each other I couldn’t see his face to finish the drawing.

Full spread in sketchbook
Full spread in sketchbook

Happy Easter, Passover and Spring!

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Drawing Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Industrial Antique Sketching at Automatic Response Systems

1950 Royal Typewriter, Pitt Brush Pen, 5x6"
1950 Royal Typewriter just like my grandpa's, Quick sketch, Pitt Brush Pen, 5x6"

Automatic Response Systems offers drive-in shredding service for your boxes of old bank statements and tax returns, secrets on your hard drives, naughty videos, or anything in between. Their Willy-Wonka like equipment rolls your papers up a ramp, grinds them in a massive shredder and flies them away through huge see-through tubes.

They recycle everything they shred, from the paper to the paper clips. Their old, brick, northwest-Berkeley industrial-zone warehouse is also home to an amazing collection of antique office and industrial equipment. The owners graciously allowed us to come sketch there on a stormy Tuesday night.

Steam-Powered Victorian Drill Press, 16"x5, ink & watercolor
Steam-Powered Victorian Drill Press circa 1900, 16"x5, sepia ink, gray brush pen & watercolor

This enormous drill press is about 8 feet tall and much more substantial than my sketch makes it look.  I started drawing it from the top which was further away from me (so appeared smaller) than the base, but not as much as I drew it (oops). It was incredibly complicated and a fun challenge to draw. Be sure to see my friends’ much better drawings of this amazing equipment posted here and here on our Urban Sketchers blog.

1840s French Depose (pot metal) Sculpture, ink 8x5"
1840s French Deposé (pot metal) Sculpture, sepia ink, grey brush pen, black brush pen, 8x5"

When we first arrived I warmed up by sketching this life-size bust of a beautiful woman who, unlike in my sketch, did not look at all worried about how I was drawing her.

We hope to go sketching there again as there was so much more to draw. And if you need anything shredded in the S. F. Bay area, this is the place to go (or call—they pick up too)!

Categories
Drawing Food sketch Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Chicken Pot Pie Celebration

Chicken Pot Pie Celebration, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Chicken Pot Pie Celebration, ink & watercolor, 5x8"

When we met for sketch night at Fat Apples Restaurant I decided to celebrate my move into the new studio with a sinfully decadent chicken pot pie. It came with a great salad and two unnecessary rolls since there was already too much to eat. By the time I finished sketching it, the pot pie cooled off just the right amount to eat. Yum!

Umbrellas Inside Fat Apples, ink & watercolor 5x8"
Umbrellas Inside Fat Apples, ink & watercolor 5x8"

Fat Apples has these two large café umbrellas in the middle of the restaurant at a counter where your can eat instead of at a table. It was interesting drawing them from below and to the side and trying to understand what was going on in there. Everyone finished sketching and was waiting for me so I didn’t get to complete the sketch. That’s a waitress with pigtails behind the counter. She actually had a pony tail but turned her head so I drew it in two places.

(Question: Why is a pony tail single but pig tails come in pairs? Pigs only have one tail, right?)

I’m still working on getting a post written and photos taken about the studio. I tried making a 360 degree video in the studio, explaining what I was showing, but when I watched it I discovered I lost track of where I started and actually did 360 degrees plus another 90. It was fun so I’ll try again.

Categories
Drawing Faces People

Missing Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey, Sketched from TV
Downton Abbey, Sketched from TV

I loved Downton Abbey and I’m missing it now that it’s over but at least I have these sketches I made while watching the shown on TV.

Only Mr. Bates is semi-recognizable on the right
Only Mr. Bates is semi-recognizable on the right

Poor Mr. Bates. I hope he’s doing ok in prison. Do you think he really murdered his terrible wife?

Lord Grantham, bottom right
Lord Grantham, bottom right

I was so fond of Lord Grantham. In looking him up on the Masterpiece Theater website, I noticed they have a character likability scale and chart of all the characters and the actors who played them, and full episodes available to watch online.

More Downton Doodles
More Downton Doodles
Anna Smith, Head Housemaid (R) and another maid
Anna Smith, Head Housemaid (R) and another maid

Poor Anna Smith. But wasn’t Mr. Bates rather too old for her anyway? I liked him in a sweet British series, Lark Rise to Candleford, where he played a similarly earnest and good man and every show has a happy ending.

Another good British series I enjoyed was Bramwell, starring Jemma Redgrave as Dr. Eleanor Bramwell, a headstrong woman doctor during the late Victorian era who fights for the right to practice medicine and opens a free clinic for the poor.