Jana Bouc, Artist

Love the One You’re With: You! (Happy Valentines Day)

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 13, 2010
19 Comments on Love the One You’re With: You! (Happy Valentines Day)

Valentine Window at Sala, Berkeley, ink & watercolor

I spotted this store window and loved the mannequin’s attitude amidst the cupids, hearts and flowers at “Sala,” a little shop in North Berkeley. I’d parked in front of the shop to go to my son’s Superbowl party. Then I left before halftime because I just couldn’t sit and watch more rude commercials about beer and junk food when I could be in the studio. Before I got in the car, I had to stop and sketch the window.

Love the One You’re With

As the old song goes, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Back in the hippie days the song encouraged us to hookup with whoever was handy. Of course we know how well that era turned out. But there is one person we’re always with who it’s good to love, and that’s ourselves.

I used to dread Valentines Day; afraid I’d be alone, or afraid the “one I was with” would somehow disappoint on that portentous day. Then one year I was alone and I had the best Valentine date ever.

I took myself out for a Valentine’s date. I went to a book store that had a pretty café inside and spent the evening gathering great art books from the shelves and devouring them over a latte and sweet treat at the café, picking one book to buy as a gift for me. I also came across a funny kids book, “Play with your Food,” which I read to a bored little boy who was waiting for his mom to finish shopping. We both had a good laugh and the mom was grateful for some time to herself.

Since then I’ve had many other fun dates with myself, when friends or lovers weren’t around. One New Year’s Eve when I’d made no plans because I was supposed to be taking my sons to Yosemite, but it hadn’t stopped raining for two weeks and we’d decided to stay home (which was a good thing because Yosemite flooded and people were stuck there for two weeks without fresh food or working bathrooms) I went to a café that stayed open late and sketched people coming and going all evening. One of those people was a tall, dark, handsome artist who was out doing the same thing. He asked to join me at my table and we had a fun evening of sketching together and then a few months of interesting dating

I imagine this all might sound weird to those who enjoy fancy dinners out and expensive gifts of shiny bling but I guess that’s the point of loving yourself. You get to pick! If you want bling, get yourself some bling. If you’d rather have books or draw in them, make it happen!

Tags Berkeley, Ink and watercolor wash, love, Sala Berkeley, shop window, Sketchbook Pages, Valentines Day

Flower Art Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings Watercolor

Innocent Vixens

First Camellia of Spring; watercolor, painted directly without drawing first — First Camellia of Spring, Watercolor

Yesterday’s rainy-day post was a bit dreary so I wanted to post something bright and cheery today. When the first camellia on the bush bloomed I painted her directly in watercolor, without drawing in pencil or pen first. This little vase looks as intended; it is nearly flat in really life, probably intentionally squished by the potter, with just a sort of slot in the top.

I think this sketch makes good use of the watercolor paper in “The Mutt” (the name I’ve stenciled on the outside of the sketchbook I bound with watercolor paper.) I named it that because it’s a little homely and imperfect but still perfectly lovable.

Innocent Vixens, the full page — The full page

Here is the page where the above sketch resides. I like to make good use of my sketchbook pages. Lately I’ve been grateful for messed up sketches because they become pages that I use for journaling right over the bad sketch. More about that in another post.

Innocent Vixens(?), BART riders, sepia pen — Innocent Vixens, BART riders, sepia pen

And if you were wondering about the post title “Innocent Vixens,” it was from something I heard on the radio. Someone said “innocent victims” and for some reason my mind wandered to “innocent vixens.” It seemed like a concept that might be fun to sketch someday and I wanted to remember it, so into the journal it went, above these innocent (though a bit dorky) BART subway rider guys.

Tags BART, Drawing, Flower Art, flowers, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings, Watercolor, watercolor painting, Word Play

Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Movies People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Rainy Day Plaza and People

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 9, 2010
4 Comments on Rainy Day Plaza and People

Despite the rain I had a great walk to the Farmers Market at El Cerrito Plaza last Saturday. When the rain stopped I sketched and painted at an outdoor table at Peet’s Coffee across the street. Then I continued my walk to do half a dozen errands. One was to pick up the second disk of “Five Days” from the video store.

I’d rented the first disk from Netflix and couldn’t wait for it to go back and part two to arrive. I had to find out what happened. Five days is an incredibly suspenseful, well-written and perfectly acted British TV mini-series about a woman and her kids who go missing. I’d had this movie sitting around for two weeks when I finally sat down to watch it and then couldn’t turn it off. If you like suspenseful police procedurals with great character development, this one is great!

Rainy day, patient, meticulously groomed woman, riding BART.

Didn’t catch a likeness in this quickie sketch, but did catch a bit of her spirit.

Tags Drawing, El Cerrito, El Cerrito Plaza, Five Days, Ink and watercolor wash, Movie review, People, rainy day, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings

Animals Drawing Gouache Painting Sketchbook Pages

Crow Planet

Ever since I saw a crow repeatedly drop a walnut onto the street from its perch on a wire above, fly down to check it, pick it up and drop it again, I wanted to learn more about them. So I’m reading Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness, a sort of “how to” for amateur naturalists who want to explore nature where it lies (or flies) without having to journey out to Nature with a capital “N.” I learned that crows drop nuts on the road, hoping a car will drive over it and crack it open.

The crow in the sketch above had been hanging out with some crows and a few squirrels on a neighbor’s front porch. This odd group was bickering over who got the peanuts and who got the walnuts that my nutty (pun intended) neighbor lady puts out daily (hourly?). When I showed up he took this more watchful stance.

I used to dislike crows because they seemed to overwhelm the landscape when they showed up and their noisy caws drowned out the softer, sweeter sounds of smaller birds. But I’ve learned to appreciate these fascinating birds.

Crows mate for life, have strong communities who help care for the young and sick members, and are quite smart. They play games with each other, can recognize individual human faces, can reason and use tools as this video demonstrates:

Crows are helpful too, since as omnivores, along with plants, they eat insects considered as pests by gardeners, and enjoy fresh roadkill, thus tidying up the neighborhood. They are well-suited to our increasingly urban, concrete jungle, which is why their population has increased. It is estimated that in the U. S. there are as many crows as households—about one crow per family.

If you want more information about crows, there is a good Crow FAQ here by a Cornell University professor who also seems to find them endearing, despite their usually undeserved bad reputations.

Tags Animals, Birds, crow planet, crows, Gouache, Pen and Ink, Sketchbook Pages

Art supplies Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages

Signs of Spring

Signs of spring were sprouting everywhere on my walk and I couldn’t resist stopping to sketch and paint. But I stopped so many times that before I’d gone half a mile I was so hungry I had to return home for lunch before heading out again.

The sketch above graces the first page of my new sketchbook, bound with Arches 90lb cold press watercolor paper. It’s quite different from the Fabriano Venezia sketchbooks I’ve been using the past year.

Princess flower bush blossoms, ink & watercolor

I’m really enjoying the way the book opens flat, it’s size (7.5″ tall x 5.5″ wide) and weight, how comfortable it is to hold and to hold open for working across the spread, the texture of the paper for painting and the way the pages don’t ripple, pill, or show through to the other side. The paper takes a lot of abuse and layering, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because it holds up, but bad because it allows endless diddling around which isn’t really the point of sketching (but is a bad habit of mine).

And what’s a nice walk on a spring-like day without a stop at Peets for a Cappuccino at a sidewalk table and a bit of sketching/painting. I’m still finding my way with this paper, trying to get a sense of how much paint to use, and which pens work best with it.

One thing I’ve determined for sure is that I prefer painting on site when I go out sketching, as I did with these, and not just drawing on site and adding paint later as I did last week with my sketching group. I just spent the evening painting the drawings from last week’s outing and it just didn’t have the zing that painting from life on site does.

You can make many more sketches and have more control of the paint when you save the painting for later, but then you either have to work from memory (of which I have too little) or photos (which never capture what you really see in person) or by using a pencil to softly write “Y” in areas that are yellow, “B” for blue, etc.) While I loved those “paint by number” kits when I was a kid, I’m not crazy about painting by letter now.

Tags Art supplies, Cafe Sketch, coffee, El Cerrito, Flower Art, flowers, Ink and watercolor wash, Peets Coffee, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages

Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Portrait Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Last Pages of the Old Sketchbook

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 5, 2010
14 Comments on Last Pages of the Old Sketchbook

Last page self portrait. Ink & watercolor, drawn from life

In Louise Stanley‘s “Rules for Keeping a Sketchbook,” her rule number two is “Start on the third page to get your courage up.” Number three is “Go back to the first page and do a self-portrait when you’ve got the nerve.” At her exhibit it was great seeing some of her (often comical) self-portraits from journals spanning decades.

For my own journals, I preferred the idea of making the last page a self-portrait instead. That way it still creates a record of the YOU that put all that stuff in the journal, but it’s not there staring back at you every time you open the book. So this is my self-portrait on the last page of the Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.

And this is the second to last page. Just a couple of subway riders with a bit of watercolor added later. I’m about a quarter of the way into the new journal I bound myself and am really loving it. My next posts will be from that journal.

And now it’s Friday night and what has felt like a very long, exhausting work week is finally over and I get to transition back to my art life. But that will be tomorrow. Tonight I’m just interested in a good night’s sleep.

Tags BART sketch, Ink and watercolor wash, Louise Stanley, Pen and Ink, People, self-portrait, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings

Drawing Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Fixed It!

I was actually on time for once, but couldn’t remember how to get where I was going so I plugged my GPS into one of the outlets in my car. When I pulled it back out to move it to another outlet, the charger thingee seemed to explode, flying to pieces.

Using my key chain flashlight I found something that looked like a fuse, and a spidery silvery thing that seemed to fit atop the cylinder but everything else was missing. I searched the floor and the seats but it was dark, getting late and I had to go.

I quickly checked the GPS to see the route from Highway 80 to 580 to 24 to the Claremont Exit. Then I turned it off, saving the last bit of battery for it to guide me on the final confusing steps around the one-way streets that would take me to my destination, where I arrived, late as usual.

Buying a new charger unit would be expensive because it has a built-in traffic receiver. So the next day I searched my car again and found two missing pieces in one of the many storage compartments, and another two pieces hiding on the floor (easier to see in the daylight).

Amazingly, for spatially-challenged me, I figured out how to put it all back together. And even more amazing: it still works!

So of course I had to celebrate in my sketchbook.

Tags Drawing, GPS, Ink, ink sketch, Pen and Ink, Sketchbook Pages

Food sketch Gouache Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at the Louise Stanley Journals Exhibit

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 1, 2010
9 Comments on Sketching at the Louise Stanley Journals Exhibit

We began last Tuesday night’s sketchcrawl at Louise Stanley‘s journal exhibit at the California College of Art in Oakland. Lulu’s paintings and sketches are amazing. She combines classical subjects and a great sense of humor with images of modern women on a grand scale in her paintings and in brilliant ink and goauche in her handbound journals. If nothing else, visit her website to read her bio for a peek into her studio and funny writing, and be sure to check out “Lulu’s Rules for Sketchbooks.”

Her journals are full of travel sketches, copies of museum paintings, and lists of things like pen preference rankings, and titles for paintings. I loved the list “Paintings that Matter” that included titles like ‘When Hell Freezes Over,’ ‘Routine Inspection,’ ‘Unintended Consequences,’ ‘Road to Ruin’ and ‘Dressing the Turkey.” The show at CCA will be up through March 5 and on February. She will also give a talk at the Berkeley Art Center on Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.

Next we headed down College Avenue for more sketching.

Dinner at Cactus Taqueria, ink & watercolor

It was nearly 8:00 p.m. and I was hungry, having skipped dinner, so I voted to sketch indoors at Cactus Taqueria. After eating (and sketching) some black beans, grilled veges and a tiny salad I made at the salsa bar from their coleslaw salsa (?!), I was ready to tackle the cactus (well, on paper anyway) that sat on a shelf above my table.

Then it was back out to College Avenue where we were both inspired by the display at Annie’s Vintage Rack.

Cathy liked the old suitcases and I liked the old clothes. I probably should have skipped that unfortunately placed sign that seems to be projecting from the skirt. I think it was supposed to look like a megaphone and said “Back to School Sale” on it (though it was just as nearly unreadable as in the sketch).

Tags art exhibit, Food sketch, Gouache, journal, Louise Stanley, Oakland, Rockridge, Sketchbook Pages

Animals Berkeley Life in general Places

A Walk on the Wacky Wild (life) Side in Berkeley

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 31, 2010
21 Comments on A Walk on the Wacky Wild (life) Side in Berkeley

Berkeley, California is known as a nutty town, and this morning even the wildlife seemed wacky. I don’t usually post photos, but just couldn’t resist sharing these pictures from this morning’s after-breakfast walk in the hilly neighborhood above Berkeley’s “Gourmet Ghetto.” This deer couple above were camped out in a secluded front yard. One had a strange floppy tongue, retracted only when she chewed an itch.

: OCD Bird

This bird was stuck in a loop of peering into the mirror of a parked car, attacking his image, jumping atop the mirror, and then coming back to see if the bird was still there, and attacking it again. I tried to shoo him away, but he started the loop again when I walked away. Do birds get OCD?

These chickens had a huge yard to themselves but gathered together in one tiny corner, all trying to all perch on the same chunk of log. Makes you wonder about how important “free range” really is to chickens.

And then there are the people. These neighbors built a second story bridge between their two houses for their cats. (above and below)

And these humble homeowners hung this on their modest bungalow in a neighborhood where even a 3-room shack is worth half a million dollars.

And then there were the bird lovers…

…and goose lovers…

and Monkey madness and…

Monkey ornament — Surprised Monkey garage ornament

and just plain madness…

Australia: One hour tmie limit — Australia: One hour time limit

That’s a dismantled parking meter below the Australia sign. Their whole front yard was filled with similar flotsam and jetsam.

Of course I would have preferred to sketch these sights, but I was walking with a non-sketching friend whose patience was already tried by my taking photos, let alone stopping to sketch. And now I’m even further behind posting all the sketches and paintings I’ve been working on.

Tags Animals, Berkeley, Birds, Cats, deer, OCD, Photography, Photos

Animals Drawing Gouache Painting Photos Sketchbook Pages

I Otter Go to the Zoo

…but my son Robin did instead. And he took wonderful, soulful photos that he shared with me. So of course I had to sketch them, starting with this otter whose expression really struck me. It came out a little different in each sketch.

Worried Otter, drawn with icky Pigma Brush Pen

I finally threw away the Pigma Brush Pen I used for this sketch. The point seemed to fray on first use and only got worse. The Pitt Artist Brush Pens seem to hold up better.

Perplexed Otter, Sepia & Black Pitt Artist Pens

I think this one is my favorite either because of his expression (why am I assuming it’s a boy?) or because the drawing reminds me of a series of children’s books I used to read to my sons when they were little, about a little badger named Francis.

And here is Robin’s original photo:

I wonder what this cute little guy was thinking. Doesn’t this just call for a caption? What would it be?

Tags Animals, Drawing, Gouache, Ink, Otter, Pen and Ink, Photos, Sketch, Sketchbook Pages