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Art supplies Bookbinding Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Pinole Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Pinole and Pen, Paper, Ink Tests

Pretty Pinole from Peets, Ink and Watercolor
Pretty Pinole from Peets, Ink and Watercolor

Warm sun, green hills, blossoming trees and a great Peet’s cappuccino to sip at an outdoor table while sketching was made even better by a pen that actually worked in my sketchbook. After struggling to find a pen that would not skip, scratch, smear, show through or bleed on the Arches 90 lb cold press paper I’d bound in my journal, I discovered that my Lamy Safari fountain pen was just right.

Pens

All of the pens I normally use were giving me problems. The Sakura Pigma Micron skipped, scratched over the textured paper when drawing, and was even worse for writing in the journal, whether I used my favorite .01 or a fatter-tipped .05.

Pitt Artist Pen and Sharpie tests
Pitt Artist Pen and Sharpie tests

I tried using an Ultra-Fine Point Sharpie since it would at least produce a strong line (above). But I found that the ink flowed too quickly, bleeding and spreading if held in one spot and worse, showed through to the other side.  I also tried the Pitt Artist Brush Pen on this page, which worked OK but was a thicker line than I like for general sketching. The black ink in the finer-point Pitts seemed paler than the Microns, but it might also be that they resist the sizing on the paper more.

Testing Prismacolor .05 Pen
Testing Prismacolor .05 Pen

Prismacolor Illustration pens are similar to the Sakura Pigma Micron and Pitt Artist Pens and are very nice and comfortable to hold. But they too performed poorly on the Arches CP. In the sketch above I was trying to do a contour drawing of what I saw on the BART train but my lines were barely visible until I redrew them with a Sharpie.

Testing Noodlers & Carbon Platinum Ink
Testing Noodlers & Carbon Platinum Ink

Then I tested my Lamy Safari F-point fountain pen and was delighted to see that it was a pleasure to write and draw with on the Arches CP paper.

Ink

I’d last filled the Safari with Noodlers Black Bulletproof ink, which is supposed to be waterproof but actually bleeds a fair amount when a wash is applied after it’s dry. I used a dip pen to test Platinum Carbon Ink and it held up better, barely bleeding at all.

So I squirted out the remaining Noodlers in my Lamy and refilled it with the Carbon Platinum ink. I’ve been a happy sketcher ever since. The ink is a rich black, doesn’t bleed, is great to write with on this bumpy paper, and is comfy to hold. Yay!

Paper

Now that I’m halfway through my journal it’s time to prepare for binding the next one. I’ve been testing papers and I think I’ve found the one. When I finish my tests I’ll post them. I have a feeling I might have found the perfect paper for ink and watercolor journaling.

Categories
Berkeley Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Pyramid Alehouse Sketches

Blackened Salmon at Pyrramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor
Blackened Salmon at Pyramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor

Pyramid Alehouse in Berkeley is a lively, fun place for good food, good beer and sketching too. My blackened salmon was delicious and a real challenge to wait to draw and paint before eating. After dinner we planned to sketch the brewery area visible from our table. But mid-meal they turned the lights off in the brewery so we went upstairs to check out the view.

Pyrmaid exterior & "Brainstorm" Players, ink washes and watercolor
Combined 2 partial sketches (one exterior, one interior) with a pasted in bit of event calendar

Upstairs there was a crowd of people playing Pyramid’s version of trivial pursuit “Brainstormers Pub Quiz,” with an announcer reading off the challenges that teams try to solve. The teams with the most points win more beer.

I assume there is an honor system that prevents people from getting the answers on their smartphones. I couldn’t play trivial pursuit unless answers like, “You know, it was that guy who was in that movie with that blonde…” would win a prize.

Kitchen from above & Beers on Tap
Kitchen from above & Beers on tap, pasted in stuff

While we were upstairs I (tried to) sketch the chef in his galley kitchen. The perspective was challenging. Then we went downstairs to the bar area. I loved the whimsical handles on the taps, each reflecting some feature of the specific beer. They had 17 beers on tap that night.

I just noticed my color-scheme on these pages: they’re all predominantly beer colored.

Categories
Animals Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Sketchbook Pages

Sketching Parakeets at Petco

Parakeets at Petco, ink & watercolor
Parakeets at Petco, ink & watercolor

After we finished sketching the laundromat, we moved on to Petco. I can’t wait for longer days so we can do our Tuesday night sketchcrawls outdoors again. But it was fun drawing the parakeets. They were holding pretty still, puffing up and preparing for beds. I worried about them, hoping they have happy lives.

Albino Guinea Pig, ink and watercolor
Albino Guinea Pig, ink and watercolor

This little guy was kind of cute in a spooky, red-eyed sort of way, but even on sale I wasn’t tempted. When my sons were young,  I bought an adorable pair of long-haired calico guinea pigs and we had such fun playing with them…for about two weeks. And then there was the years of caring for them….

Medium Male Rat, ink & watercolor
Medium Male Rat, ink & watercolor

He looked way too much like the kind of rodents you do NOT want to see in your house. I’ve seen pet rats that had some charm, but this guy just looked way too big and ratty. My sister had a rat that I babysat when she went on a trip. The rat was in a cage beside my son’s bed and it pulled the wool blanket that was my Grandma’s from the bed into the cage, bit by bit, and chewed off the corners for nesting material.

Then a couple of years ago, when Alison of art blog Scribbles Adagio was creating a multi-media work that included scraps of old blankets, I sent a 12″ square of the blanket to her in Australia. She sent me back one of the finished pieces that now hangs over my bed, a keepsake partly composed of my Grandmother’s blanket.

And I still use that old blanket to keep warm and cozy when I watch TV, even though it’s full of holes, missing corners and a 12″ square.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places Shop windows Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at the Plaza Coin Laundry

Plaza Coin Laundry, Ink & watercolor
Plaza Coin Laundry, Ink & watercolor

Tuesday night sketchcrawl was at  the El Cerrito “Plaza Coin Laundry” (where the machines do not accept coins, just cards and dollar bills!). The sketch above was my last for the evening, done in my car after my sketch buddies had departed. I had struggled mightily with perspective and repeated shapes while we were sketching so it felt good to sit quietly in my car and make one final drawing that worked.

Folding Forever, Ink and watercolor
Folding Forever, Ink and watercolor

She was there folding clothes the whole time we sketched while her adult son hung around chatting on his cellphone and not helping.

Making use of a bad sketch
Making use of a badly sketched page

Above is a page where I totally messed up the sketch so instead of just leaving the ugly drawing, I used the page to write notes to myself about how to improve my sketching. Then I painted over it for fun. It’s still messy, but not wasted.

Perspective and pattern
Perspective and pattern

This is what I’d been trying to draw in the previous “bad” sketch. I’d totally messed up the perspective the first time, not believing what I was seeing, but did better on the second try. I also had trouble understanding and drawing the odd shape of the dryer doors on the back wall. Cathy solved that problem by drawing the row of circles first so they were all the same and then adding the trim afterwards instead of starting with the oddly shaped trim like I did.

Categories
Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Junior High Pear-ings

Junior High Pearings, Oil on Gessoboard, 9x12"
Junior High Pearings, Oil on Gessoboard, 9x12"

I’m guilty of anthropomorphizing when I draw or paint. I always seem to see human shapes or body parts in inanimate objects. I see tongues, hips, elbows and other body parts in flowers, plants, fruit or even lampposts.

So when I set up this still life, the two paired pears with one alone behind them reminded me of junior high, when two girls would whisper to each other about another, who would be left out of the conversation. Sometimes I was one of the gossipy whisperers; just as often I was the one left out.

Girls having a sleep-over would phone a friend and try to get her to say mean things about someone who was there, secretly listening in. Then after she’d said, “Mary’s butt is too big,” Mary would speak up and say, “Hi, This is Mary. Thanks a lot!” The next week it might work the other way around.

I learned the hard way not to say things about people which I wouldn’t want them to hear. The lesson gets reinforced regularly by a weird sort of karma that happens to me. It almost never fails that if I do speak about another, they unexpectedly appear, often from behind me, just like in the painting.

About the painting

I painted this on a day when I just had a couple hours and wanted to paint with oils. I didn’t take time to plan the composition and did very little with the set up, originally using my black light box as the background. This is how it looked originally before I revised the background, made some adjustments between the two front pears, and glazed the painting with Indian Yellow.

Pears-Original painting
Pears-Original painting

I thought the original version seemed cold and uninviting. I like it better now, with the softer, warmer feel and the rounded shape of the “table top” instead of the harsh horizontal line.

Categories
Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Parsnip in Purple

Parsnip, ink & watercolor
Ink & watercolor, sketchbook page

I didn’t know what  parsnips tasted like until I was served them at Chez Panisse (though I have a feeling those exquisite thin strips of crispy, sweet, salty delight were the heavenly version of parsnip that would be hard to replicate by a mere mortal like me).

The dish was so good I wanted to try cooking parsnips myself but when I got to the store I had no idea what they looked like. I was searching for something like a turnip or rutabaga). The green grocer showed me the parsnips and told me they were in the carrot family. He also warned me that they stink badly when you first start cooking them but that the smell goes away after about 15 minutes.

My parsnips have been sketched, but they’re still waiting for me to figure out how to cook them, alongside a bunch of beets, the last veges left in the fridge. It’s time to get cooking and then get shopping!

Parsnip recipes welcomed!

And of course I had to look up the etymology of parsnip, rutabaga and turnips.

Parsnip
16c., parsnepe, corruption (by influence of M.E. nepe “turnip”) of M.E. passenep (late 14c.), from O.Fr. pasnaie, from L. pastinaca “parsnip, carrot,” from pastinum “two-pronged fork” (related to pastinare “to dig up the ground”) so called from the shape of the root. The parsnip was considered a kind of turnip.
Rutabaga
1799, from Swed. dial. (W. Götland) rotabagge, from rot “root” + bagge “bag.” Slang meaning “dollar” is from 1940s.
Turnip
1533, turnepe, probably from turn (from its shape, as though turned on a lathe) + M.E. nepe “turnip,” from O.E. næp, from L. napus “turnip.” The modern form of the word emerged late 18c.
Categories
Art theory Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places Sketchbook Pages

Berkeley Firehouse Part II: Cathy’s Sketches

Hazardous Materials Truck Exhaust Hose,
Hazardous Materials Truck Exhaust Hose

When we go on our Tuesday night sketchcrawls I learn so much from seeing how Cathy approaches sketching, with her years of experience and vision as a graphic designer. This sketch is a good example of the way she designs a page, including both the detail and the context, while connecting elements to the edges of the page.

Firefighters' Jacket Rack
Firefighters' Jacket Rack

Cathy’s sketches often display groups of objects in interesting patterns. She also edits the subject to make a better composition, in this case removing a few jackets to simplify. She first draws a group of objects as one shape as in contour drawing and then adds the interior lines. Again in this sketch above she shows the context as well as the detail, so that it’s not just a rack of jackets and helmets, but with the bit of fire truck you know they’re firemen’s jackets. Notice also her wonderful sketchy and free lines, which she achieves by holding the pen closer to the end than to the point.

Engine No. 2
Engine No. 2

I love the way she got so much detail in the fire truck above but loosely, and with good perspective. Most of her sketches also include informative notes about the subject, placed in a location that adds to the good design. When I asked Cathy how she starts a sketch she said she always tries to start with the thing that interests her most to make sure it fits on the page and that it gets on the page. (It’s so easy to start drawing and run out of page before you ever get to the thing that attracted you first).

Engine No. 2 Side View

More cool details: all the gizmos on the side of the truck.

Gizmo close up
Gizmos close up

When she was sketching this (above), one of the firemen told her that when they are learning their equipment they also sketch all the gear and label it to help them study.

Boots and pants
Boots and pants

Here’s her version of the ready-to-step-into boots and pants.

Cathy sketches with ink in a spiral-bound 4×6″ Strathmore 400 Drawing notebook, focusing on making as many quick sketches as she can. She makes tiny pencil notes over the sketch about color to use when she adds watercolor later in the studio.

All images copyright 2010 by Cathy McAuliffe, used with permission.

She sketches with ink in a 4×6″ Strathmore 400 Drawing Paper pad, focusing on making as many quick sketches as she can. She makes tiny pencil notes over the sketch about color to use when she adds watercolor later in the studio.
Categories
Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at Berkeley Firehouse, Part I

Fire Truck and Parking Receipt, ink & watercolor
Fire Truck and Parking Receipt, ink & watercolor

The Berkeley Fire Station #2 was the scene of our Tuesday night sketchcrawl two weeks ago. Cathy had requested permission for us to visit and sketch and they generously gave us access to the station, the vehicles and equipment. The firemen live at the firehouse during their long shifts and since it was a quiet night they came around to see what we were doing.  They all told us how much they love their jobs and were extremely helpful, earnestly answering all of our questions.

Fire, Flag, Boots Ready, ink & watercolor
Boots & Overalls Ready; Flag Flying

We loved seeing the boots and overalls, ready to jump into, by the doors of each truck (above). I know the requirements are very stringent for becoming a firefighter, but do they also have to qualify as centerfold models? These guys were simply gorgeous: tall, strong, handsome, and really nice too. (If only they would have posed for us!) Firefighters have one of the highest rates of job satisfaction of all careers.

Tiller Truck, ink & watercolor
Tiller Truck, ink & watercolor

This little Tiller Truck caboose steers the back of the fire truck while the steering wheel at the front steers the front wheels. We learned that a Fire Truck is “a big tool box” where they keep all their gear such as Jaws of Life and the Fire Engine carries the water and hoses.

Fire Helmet, ink & watercolor
Lieutenant's Helmet, ink & watercolor

I held off posting these sketches because I’d been really frustrated with the messy, helter-skelter way I laid them out in my sketchbook and the ones not posted that were just ugly (but which I made good use of, writing my notes to self for improvement on top of them). When I looked at Cathy’s sketches I really liked the way she approached the subjects and designed her pages. That set me off on a learning process that I will write about next time when I post her sketches from the evening.

Categories
Berkeley Outdoors/Landscape Places Sketchbook Pages Virtual Paint-Out Watercolor

Tie-Dye on Telegraph: Virtual Paintout Berkeley

Telegraph Avenue Tie-Dye, ink & watercolor
Telegraph Avenue Tie-Dye, ink & watercolor, 4.5x6"

This month the San Francisco Bay Area is the locale for the Virtual Paintout (we paint from a Google Maps street view image). At first I was disappointed; I live in the Bay Area so I wouldn’t get to explore new territory like last month when we painted Corsica.

It seemed a little silly to paint from a map picture instead of from life but having just spent the afternoon on Telegraph Avenue, it seemed a natural subject. This tie-dye T-shirt stand is practically a permanent fixture on the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft.

Although it’s right across the street from the University of California Berkeley campus, I don’t think I’ve seen a student wearing tie-dye since around 1975. Even old hippies don’t wear tie-dye anymore. So who buys these things?

I felt like painting in oils, but watercolor seemed a better medium for this subject. So I printed out the image (which I cropped from the original Google snapshot) and then sketched and painted the scene in my sketchbook. Here’s the original map and image on Google.

Categories
Berkeley Flower Art Food sketch Interiors Life in general Places Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Lunch at Chez Panisse & 911 on Telegraph Ave., Berkeley

Chez Panisse Still Life, watercolor
Chez Panisse Still Life, watercolor

I had a wonderful afternoon with Casey (of art blog “rue Manuel bis”), her charming husband and delightful daughter on Friday when they were in San Francisco for a brief visit. Casey’s husband was interested in visiting Berkeley so we started our tour of Berkeley at Chez Panisse where we were lucky enough to get lunch reservations.

Although we brought our sketchbooks to share with each other, we didn’t sketch, focusing instead on delicious food and great conversation. I took a photo of this scene in the restaurant as we were leaving. Here is the way it appears in my sketchbook, drawn from the photo on my computer screen:

Chez Panisse still life as it appears in sketchbook
sketchbook pages

The design at top left is from the lunch menu which I photocopied smaller and glued in the sketchbook. I discovered that my souvenir Chez Panisse postcard is the perfect size to trace around to create a nice margin in this book. To keep it handy I stuck it in the glassine envelope I’d glued in the back of the sketchbook. Things were looking so messy in this sketchbook as I tried to find my way with the new paper and size of sketchbook. Now I’ve found the solution to the messy pages: draw the margins first and stay within them instead of painting to the edge of the page.

911 on Telegraph Ave.

Despite my warning that Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue is pretty funky, everyone wanted to see the University of California, Berkeley campus and visit the used record and book stores on Telegraph. We walked on campus and then down to the shops where I bought an old Busby Berkeley CD (in honor of my cat of the same name).

On Telegraph I noticed two women who looked like prostitutes wearing outlandish makeup and mini-skirts. We also passed a soapbox preacher ranting (positively) about sex, a lone hare Krishna, sad clumps of young junkies with their pit bulls, the requisite tables of political bumper stickers, a super-stinky homeless guy, a bathing products store, a “head shop” selling hookahs, and someone handing out flyers for a tanning booth.

Heading back to my car we heard shouting. Those same whorish women we’d seen were running from Telegraph towards us on Durant, pursued by several coeds and everyone was screaming. The ho’s were screaming “Don’t touch me! Get away from me!” The coeds were screaming “Give me back my purse! Give me back my sweater!”

We stood there as if watching TV, trying to make sense of it all. The two ho’s jumped into a shiny black car parked right in front of us and slammed the door. The girls continued screaming while a slight young man stood at the driver’s window, saying, “Just give her the purse back.” Finally someone yelled, “Call the police!”

That snapped us out of our confusion and while I dialed 911, Casey had the presence of mind to note the license number of the car and was repeating it over and over. I told the 911 operator what was going on and handed the phone to Casey who gave the license number.

The ho’s threw the empty purse out the car window, revved their engine, and although the girls tried to block them from driving off, managed to speed away. I sure hope they got caught via the license number but I’m guessing the car was just as stolen as the purse, and probably ditched quickly. It was weird and scary, but fortunately nobody was hurt.

It was a more comprehensive tour of Berkeley than I’d intended. We went from the pinnacle of fine dining, to the campus at the center of the city, to the ugly underside of my dear Berzerkeley.