Did you know that organic carrots with the greens still attached are sweeter than the big chunky ones in the grocery store without tops or the little shaved ones known as baby carrots? They’re also more fun to draw. Except for the feathery greens which confused me when I tried to draw them.
Carrots in cellophane, ink & watercolor
And they’re even more challenging to draw when wrapped in a cellophane bag (above).
Carrot greens and label
And they felt even harder because I was feeling tired, spaced out, catching a cold, and needing to go to bed. So despite really wanting to figure out how to capture the feathery greens in ink and wash, I gave up, glued the label in the book instead, and went to bed.
I’ve been sketching the several days, but have been too tired and/or too busy with or from my day job to post so now I have a bunch of catching up to do, starting with carrots.
Just a few recent sketches on our subway system, BART, that I ride twice a week, in a 13 minute ride to the office. (I work from home 2 days a week and in the office 2 days a week).
Late for Work Again
It seems so decadent to be sketching while really late for work. Fortunately I make my own schedule and can stay later to make up the time and get everything done. I usually work from 10-6 so at 10:40 on BART I was really late!
Late for Work Again!
What can I say? Being late seems to be a common theme. I like to take my time in the morning and not rush and given my slim grasp on time to begin with, it’s easy to get late. I’ve vowed to mend my ways and start getting up earlier which seems to be the only solution. But then I need to go to bed earlier too. That’s harder.
Here is the lion that guards the door at the hotel beside the chubby cherubs on Harrison Street. I love his big nose and stylized fist. I sketched this from the photo on my monitor from across the room, to simulate drawing from life as best I could. I did a complete pencil sketch with shading and then drew over that with my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and then decided to erase all the pencil shading and paint him with watercolor. Here’s a photo of the building.
Cherubs & Lions on Harrison
A couple weeks ago when I posted my sketches from the library and Peet’s Coffee I mentioned the old man in a weathered, WWII leather aviator cap and his 1940s era bicycle that Cathy sketched. I adored the way she captured this funny old character who was selling bike parts to a young man so I asked her to send me scans. She did, and now I get to post them below.
Cathy's sketch of the bike guyCathy's sketch of bike guy's ride
Jerusalem Lemonade and Lentil Soup, ink & watercolor
Last Tuesday night we met at Zaki’s Kabob House in Albany for some delicious Mediterranean food and sketching. It was a cold rainy night but the restaurant was busy. Sonia had called ahead to confirm it would be OK for us to spend the evening there sketching. We were further encouraged by the bumper sticker on the door that said “Make Art Not War.”
Condiments & Empty Bread Basket
If you wonder why this sketch has a note saying “Paste Menu Here,” it’s because when I said I’d ruined the composition (pre-watercolor) by adding that glass on the right, Cathy said, “Just paste a piece of the menu over that spot.” I solved the problem by just not painting the glass and leaving the note instead.
Sonia and I painted at the table but Cathy didn’t like the dim restaurant lighting for painting so made many more sketches instead. I was happy that my colors turned out well despite not quite being able to see them while working.
Diners at Zakis
Usually when we’re sketching in cafes we are unable to avoid eavesdropping on nearby conversations, always a source of amusement or amazement at what people say in public. But shortly after we sat down, Ellen, a member of our plein air painting group, arrived to join her realtor for dinner at the next table. After some introductions, and passing around of sketchbooks (including an invitation by the realtor to show them in their office “gallery” which we declined), we returned to sketching while they dined and chatted.
It was odd eavesdropping on someone we knew. Cathy appreciated it though, since they were talking about sofabed shopping, and Cathy is in the market for one too.
In 1998 when the movie The Big Lebowski first came out, my father, who considered himself an intellectual, raved about this movie. So I went to see it on his recommendation but couldn’t figure out what he saw in it.
Now the star, Jeff Bridges, is in a new movie and people are again talking with great reverence about his role as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski, which some critics rate in their top comedies of the past 25 years. My son even had this movie in his collection, so I borrowed it, thinking if its popularity spans that many generations, I should give it another chance.
I watched it. I still don’t get it. At the end, when “the stranger” (Sam Elliot) who begins the movie with his narration returns to the bowling alley for another sarsaparilla and concludes the narration, I decided to sketch him so at least I had something to show from spending two hours with these morons.
Is it a guy thing? Is this a movie that makes guys feel good because they’re not as bad of losers? Do people really think the Dude’s pothead approach to life known as “The Dude abides,” was worthy of worship (there is actually a church based on his character, called Dudeism)?
I loved the Coen Brothers’ movie Fargo (mostly because of Francis McDormand) but even she couldn’t save their most recent movie, Burn After Reading, which, after renting it accidentally, I thought had to be the most pointless movie I’ve ever seen.
If only the millions of dollars spent on making stupid movies (much of which goes to already obscenely wealthy movie stars) could be spent on feeding people, funding education, the arts, or making the world a better place.
I painted this from a Google Earth street view photo for the Virtual Paintout blog. For the month of January they are painting Corsica, France from images on Google Earth. I’d heard of Corsica but had no idea where it was so it was fun to learn a little about it. And I’d never really explored Google Earth before (except for looking at my house) and was amazed. You pick a spot and then click the arrow to move further down the road, not knowing what you will come to until you get there, just like real travel. You can also swivel the view to see what’s off to either side. A town named “Mute, Corsica” intrigued me so I started there for my virtual travel.
I spent way too long exploring Corsica and only had a couple hours left to paint last weekend once I’d picked an image. But the painting went really well and I probably should have just left it as it was. But I came back to it today to do some “finishing.” But I’d lost my focus so did some painting, wiped it off, painted, wiped off. Finally I gave myself a pep talk: Focus and Finish! I did.
Most of their decorative squash buddies had grown unsightly fuzz and gone off to the compost bin. But these three were still pretty and when I looked around for something to sketch last week, they cried out “Choose Me! Choose Me!” So I did.
I wanted to paint today. And I didn’t. I had a headache that wouldn’t go away and a bunch of boring, annoying chores to do. I had to return a jacket to Costco that was so wonderfully, fuzzy green but unfortunately, also oddly misshapen). The gas tank “empty” light in my car had been on for days (my least favorite chore, second only to dragging the trash cans out to the street, which I pay a neighbor boy to do).
I needed to go to Target for cat litter (and since Fiona only recently decided to start using the litter box again for ALL of her needs and not just some, I didn’t want to discourage her with a dirty box.) And I wanted to take a walk before the predicted week-long deluge of rain started.
So I sacrified a day in the studio that probably would have been a struggle anyway, feeling crummy as I did, and took off on a long walk to Radio Shack in Albany to buy new ear bud covers for my iPhone since one had disappeared.
Hints of tobacco and toilet?
On the way home, I stopped at Peet’s Coffee to sip and sketch. I saw this sign from across the room and thought “that can’t be right!” It was advertising their new coffee, Sumatra Blue Batak, claiming in fancy script that it was “Smooth and full-bodied” and had (what I thought I read) “…hints of tobacco and toilet…” . Huh!? I squinted and looked more closely and saw it said “hints of sweet tobacco and toffee” Even with the toffee though, I’m not sure I’d want to drink coffee that tasted like tobacco. Ick.
I completed all my errands, the headache is almost gone, and with Monday and Tuesday off, I still have two days to paint and enjoy being cozy in the studio while it rains.
Sorry to bore you with my stupid day and list of chores. Maybe I should have just posted the picture and then shut up?
These angels guard the entry of an old residential hotel at 2332 Harrison Street in Oakland between my office and Whole Foods, along with a pair of vicious, brass lions (coming soon). As I passed by on the way to lunch, the light and shadows on the angels intrigued me.
Angel on Harrison, graphite
Although I always prefer to draw from life I didn’t have time on this work day so I took a photo. When I looked at the image on my monitor I found the shape and detail so confusing that I decided to sketch in pencil first instead of my usual ink. It felt like sculpting since as I sketched and shaded shapes of dark and light and saw form began to appear.
My initial drawing needed a lot of correcting because I’d given the angel adult proportions instead of a child’s so it looked like a pot-bellied, naked man instead of a cherub. For some reason we think chubby cherubs are cute holding up pots with their heads on buildings, but fat, naked, old men, not so much.
Then I started over on the facing page in my sketchbook, drawing in ink and adding watercolor. I think I got his proportions better in the second one. The graphite angel still looks too old, like a teen angel maybe?
Questioning Cherubs
I wasn’t raised with religion so I am completely ignorant about angels and their tribe. Are there girl cherubs too or are they all boys? Why? Why are cherubs usually depicted as chubby? What happens to cherubs when they grow up? Do they become angels? Or do they not age?
I googled “Chubby Cherub” looking for the answers and found information about “Chubby Cherub, the worst video game of 1987” and this Wikipedia entry that says according to some linguistic and bible scholars, this is what cherubs are really meant to look like:
A "Real" Cherub?
and that they were often displayed sitting calmly guarding entrances as in this image:
Guarding angels?
If you like reading about the source of words, language, and myths, and how they evolve over time, check out the Wikipedia page about cherubs. I found it fascinating.
After a lifetime of not even knowing rubber mallets existed outside of cartoons, twice in the past year while working on projects I read directions to “tap with a rubber mallet.” I thought to myself, “Who has a rubber mallet? Not me.” And then used a regular hammer which didn’t work out too well to put it mildly.
So when I was shopping for bookbinding supplies at my local Dick Blick art store and I saw a rubber mallet sitting on a nearby shelf for only $5.95 I couldn’t resist. It was just so funny looking. I have no idea why they were selling it at Blick’s and what artists would be using it for, or how it could sell for less than a toilet plunger at the hardware store.
So I found a good use for it in the studio—as a still life subject—and it fits right in, don’t you think? Tangerines, rubber mallets, why not? Maybe my next still life will be of smashed fruit and a juicy mallet. But that will have to wait for a sunny day. No way I’m smashing fruit in the studio. It’s messy enough as it is.
Meanwhile I thought I’d check out what rubber mallets are really for and I found this on About.com‘s Home Renovation tools page:
“Admittedly, the rubber mallet is not the first thing on your tool list. But once you have a rubber mallet, you begin to discover many uses. Here are some common uses:
For ceramic tile, it helps gently tap tile into place.
Laminate flooring: great for this brittle material.
Tap carpeting onto tacking strips.
A “sounding device” if you need to hear what is behind a wall or in a pipe.
PVC pipe work.
Two tight-fitting sections of drywall.”
I can’t help picturing cartoon versions of each of these uses, especially with me behind the mallet accidentally tapping something into smithereens. And how funny is it that my blog’s spell checker thinks “smithereens” is spelled correctly but that the word “blog’s” is not.
My across-the-street neighbor Matthew is a building contractor who specializes in house shingling jobs (he shingled my house and did a beautiful job with many artistic flourishes). But right now he is working on his roof. I’m amazed at his strength and stamina. He was up there all day today, ripping off the old roof and putting up a new layer of wood, then tar paper. I could hear him up there hammering after it was dark.
He is so strong that a few months ago when I stupidly sped backwards out of my driveway right into his massive pickup truck that was parked where it usually isn’t, he fixed the big dent in the back of my car for me by pulling it out with his hands. (I hit his bumper which didn’t even get scratched.)
My sketch doesn’t do him justice–he was just cleaning up on Saturday evening when I sketched him. Today he worked from about 8:00 a.m. until after 8:00 p.m. , with nothing securing him to the roof or protecting him from the sun, wind, cold.
I find it astonishing to see how hard some people work and it makes me grateful for my comfortable desk job (although it’s not without discomfort either, as all that sitting is quite hard on the back). I’m sure Matthew would have trouble sympathizing though.
Jana Bouc, Artist 