This very hip and cool Boston Terrier was watching me with one eye and watching his hip and cool owners with the other from the open window of their cool 1960’s era blue Cadillac. The two guys were wearing hip and cool hats while digging for cool stuff from a dumpster containing items from a remodeling job at the of the Longs Drugs at El Cerrito Plaza.
I’m always drawn to cool stuff in dumpsters or left out on the street, but have to work hard to control those pack rat tendencies since I’ve seen how that turns out (with a certain family member who shall remain anonymous). Unless a found item is something that I need and would buy if it was in the store, I leave it be. I remind myself that I’m NOT a sculptor who makes things from found objects and that I don’t need to bring home someone else’s garbage, regardless of how cool it might be.
To draw the dog I first sketched in pencil from a photo I took of the dog, and then inked with another pen I was testing: the Prismacolor Premier series Fine Line Marker. It came in a set of five pens with varying points from .005 to .08. They’re “permanent, acid-free, lightfast, water-resistant and archival.” I used the .01 and .05 and found them to be comfortable to hold and smooth to draw with.
Last week I took advantage of quick sketchers Martha and Cathy being away to spend an hour working on one image instead of constantly moving from one spot to the next. This was a really complex scene and the more I drew the more details appeared to draw.
By the time I finished, Sonia (who did several sketches of different views from the same spot) and I were so cold we decided to head home. I work right across the street from the lake and doing this drawing helped me to see what an amazing resource I have for sketching right outside my door.
Lunchtime Sketching Lake Merritt Birds
The next day at lunch, instead of eating in the kitchen with my colleagues, I took my sketchbook and went for a walk by the lake. My plan was to sketchercize: walk for 15 minutes, do a sketch, and walk 15 minutes back, getting in a 30 minute walk. But 5 minutes from the office I saw a row of Double-Crested Cormorants all lined up drying their wings in the sun as if they were on clotheslines.
(Cormorants are easily identified because they’re the only waterbirds that sit in the sun with their wings spread, hanging their feathers out to dry. They lack an oil gland for preening, so their feathers get waterlogged when they swim under water.)
After I sketched a cormorant and walked a few minutes more, a gaggle of goofy geese were all lined up at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for someone to decide what to do next, and they needed sketching.
Walking back to the office I came across a foot-high rock with a bronze plaque on it that said “Leon Olsen loved to walk here.” What a great way to honor someone. A memorial walk rock!
Port Costa's Bull Valley Restaurant, Oil on panel, 9x12
When we gathered for our critique on the patio outside the funky Warehouse Cafe, a biker bar at the end of Port Costa‘s main road, I thought I’d gotten my painting of the Bull Valley Restaurant off to a good start. It was a sunny Saturday and the quirky local residents of the little town had been very welcoming, chatting and joking with the plein air painters.
Just as the critique was getting started the old lady bartender turned up the rock and roll so loud that we couldn’t hear each others’ comments and suggestions. Someone went in and asked her to turn it down and she sneered, “This is a bar. We play rock and roll!” Although some of our group had bought lunch and beer (served in mason jars), I guess we weren’t exactly their preferred clientelle.
Their usual patrons continued to roar in on their Harleys and wanna be Harleys. Some were dressed in full leather or raunchy heavy metal t-shirts and black denim. At least half of them were over 50, the guys paunchy and bald and the women, with their dyed thinning black hair, looked “rode hard and put away wet” as I’ve heard it said.
Anyway, back to the painting. As you’ll see from my initial sketch below, my perspective was even further off than it ended up in the finished painting above.
Port Costa-WIP 1
I’m always amazed how often my eyes fool me. Sometimes I’m sure a line slants one way and then I hold up a pencil to check and the line slants in the completely opposite direction.
This is the point when I stopped painting on site, planning to finish at home from photos.
Port Costa WIP 2
Once home I realized that I had a serious perspective problem with the way the roof line and the line where the building meets the ground were parallel to each other instead of coming towards each other to finally meet at a vanishing point. I worked on the painting for a couple of days and thought I’d fixed it (blind to what was in front of my face from seeing it for too long).
When I shared what I thought was the final painting with some artist friends, they generously pointed out a few things that needed adjusting, including continuing perspective problems. Below M. added lines in Photoshop to demonstrate for me how I’d gone wrong with the perspective. It’s so great to have that kind of support!
Diagram showing how the perspective should have been
In the end I decided I’d taken this painting as far as it needed to go and moved on to the next project. But I promised myself that next time I’d pay more attention to perspective.
Higgins Calligraphy Ink wash added to Palace Hotel sketch
Yesterday I tested some sepia drawing pens and bottled sepia inks to see which I preferred and did the same with an assortment of graphite pencils. To start the process I added some sepia ink washes to last week’s sketch from the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and like it much better now.
The pens I tested were all permanent, waterproof and lightfast:
Copic Multiliner SP.03 which I used in the sketch above
Micron Pigma .01 (my former favorite pen)
Pitt Artist Penswith various sized nibs including a brush pen.
My favorite was the Copic Multiliner SP .03 because of the way the ink and point just glide across the paper, the wide comfortable pen barrel, and the rich sepia color. Because it’s aluminum, refillable and has a replaceable tip, the Copic Muliliner is the most expensive of the three (around $7.00) and I can only get it via mail order which is annoying.
My second favorite was the Pitt Artist Pen with the “S” (superfine) tip. The Pitts are much more readily available in my local art stores and much less expensive (around $2.00). They have a somewhat wide comfortable barrel and a smooth feel when sketching.
The Sakura Micron Pigma .01, my former favorite, now seems a bit sharp and scratchy, but does offer more control because of the finer line. The barrel is narrower which makes it less comfortable to hold for long periods. It’s reasonably priced (around $2.25) and a good pen.
Traditional sepia ink is made from cuttlefish bladders(!) and mixed with a waterproof shellac base for a transparent waterproof satin finish.
The inks I tested were:
Higgins Sepia Calligraphy Ink (label says “non-waterproof” but provides no information regarding permanence). A beautiful warm color that flows beautifully straight or when mixed with water in washes. It is my favorite of the three, but I’m concerned about it’s archival qualities. I’ve sent the company a request for more information and will update this post when I receive it. Since it was recommended to me by an artist I trust who uses it in her fine art, ink and wash work I will continue to use it for now. It comes in a sad, unattractive, square plastic bottle with little self-esteem, and is without an eye-dropper lid.
[update 8/29/2009: Higgins Inks have been purchased by ChartPak and I was able to speak to the delightful woman in charge of their laboratory where the inks are formulated and tested. I was told that this line of inks is considered “student grade” and that testing is still underway (since it’s a new product to their company). However she was able to tell me that the colorants for this ink are dyes rather than pigments so while the ink bonds “permanently” with the paper, the colors are probably not lightfast and would be subject to fading or changing color. ]
FW Acrylic Artists Ink (label says “water resistant, permanent, highly lightfast”). Ugly chalky dark brown that didn’t work well as a wash, got blotchy and almost seemed sedimentary. It’s made using the same pigments that are in paints, so it’s basically very thin acrylic paint designed to be used in pens. This was the only one of the three with an eye dropper built into the lid and comes in a glass bottle.
Winsor & Newton Calligraphy Ink (label says “non waterproof, lightfast”). It was OK. It’s more traditionally sepia colored than the Higgins ink. I think I could make it work, but preferred the Higgins. It comes in a glass bottle without an eye-dropper lid.
Here is the test page on which I drew with the Copic Multiliner and then added washes of pure ink and ink mixed with water from each of the three bottled inks.
Copic Multiliner and Inks (click to enlarge)
On the following page I drew with the Pitt Artist Pens, including the Brush Tip, S, F, and M tips and to match the color, used the Winsor & Newton Calligraphy Ink for the washes. I liked the Pitt S (for Super-Fine I think) and thought all of them were pretty nice. At the bottom of the same page I used the Micron Pigma sepia .01 and the Higgins ink since they seemed a good pairing.
Ink-test: Pitt Pens, Micron Pigma (click to enlarge)
I decided to finally simplify my huge collection of pencils, graphite sticks, mechancal pencils and lead holders and pick one all purpose graphite pencil and one all purpose mechanical pencil. Although I have a full range of drawing pencils from super hard to super soft, I never work in that kind of detail with pencils and they’re just cluttering up my workspace. In the end I settled on these two for my in-studio and in-sketchbag all purpose pencils:
Generals Draughting Pencil went from light to dark easily without getting smeary and erased cleanly with a plastic eraser. I’ll use this one for sketching and planning in the studio, and for doing value studies in the field. (Close second: Sanford Draughting Pencil but it was a little softer/darker, making it more difficult to get a very light shade and it was smearier to erase.)
Papermate Ph.D.0.5m HB#2 Mechanical Pencil. The Papermate Ph.D. has a super comfy barrel that has a rubbery, wide triangular shape “endorsed by physical therapists.” This one is especially good for drawing light outlines before inking or painting in watercolor, although care must be taken to avoid embossing soft paper with the fine point. (Close second: Papermate Titanium .05 Mechanical Pencil. It wasn’t as comfortable and it was harder to get a nice dark.) I like using mechanical pencils because it’s handy having the lead and eraser in one unit.
El Cerrito Natural Grocery, cobalt Copic multiliner and colored pencils
I had to make my morning coffee with the last drops of non-fat milk (yuck, 1% is OK but non-fat in coffee just doesn’t cut it) and there were no peaches or milk for my Cheerios. A trip to the market couldn’t be put off. But I had a full day of experiments in the studio planned and I needed some exercise. Easy solution:
take the long way around, up and down big hills, to my favorite grocery store, El Cerrito Natural Grocery (cardio)
sketch the market using the cobalt Copic Multiliner I wanted to experiment with (I think I prefer the sepia)
shop
carry groceries home in a loaded backpack plus another full bag (weight lifting)
add colored pencil to the sketches to try out the new Polychromos colored pencils (LOVE THEM!)
Quick subway sketches with the cobalt Copic Multiliner and colored pencils
I’m trying to simplify my choices with my art supplies, wanting to narrow down the pens, ink, pencils and colored pencils to keep handy and those I’ll give away. I did tests today on drawing pencils, sepia liquid inks and sepia pens and will post them and my preferences tomorrow.
I’m also working on painting a grid of 16 different acrylic painting techniques to improve my understanding of acrylic techniques and possibilities. It became clear this was needed when I started a series of paintings in acrylic and realized I didn’t have the “chops” to accomplish what I wanted. I was trying to use oil painting techniques and was getting nowhere fast (and ruining brushes with all the scrubbing I was doing with them which seemed the only way to get the smooth transitions I wanted).
Each medium has its own capabilities and pitfalls. Why not make good use of the characteristics of the media instead of trying to force it to be something it’s not? Despite people claiming acrylic can be used like oils and like watercolor, I’m going to try to learn to use it like acrylics instead and have fun with all the crazy stuff it can do. This series of large paintings wants to be in acrylic and so it shall, and soon I hope.
Rush Ranch Horses, Sepia Copic Multiliner and watercolor wash
Mariah, a wonderful young artist, accompanied me to my plein air group’s paint-out today at Rush Ranch in Suisin City. She was immediately inspired by a spot, sat down and started sketching. I faced the opposite direction and sketched these horses in the corral.
Before we’d left my house, I showed her a book on drawing animals that demonstrated how to first find and assemble the basic shapes contained in the animal (rectangles, circles, triangles) and then refine them. I decided to practice what I preached and did that with the horses. I’d never noticed what big knees horses have before. I sketched with my sepia Copic Multiliner .03 and then added watercolor washes.
Rush Ranch Vista, ink & watercolor wash
The views from Rush Ranch were tremendous. I could have sketched for hours more but we’d arrived late and after our second sketches it was time for the group critique and lunch.
We were late because I got lost yet again (missed the turnoff and drove forever before turning around — and this was with GPS!) My mind had wandered to thinking about the people fishing (and the fish) in the slough off the little bridge we’d just passed so I missed the entrance sign and decided that the GPS telling me I’d arrived was wrong. This was especially stupid since the printed directions from my group said to go over that bridge and then turn right in 3/4 mile.
Instead I drove and drove, went over another bridge and THEN started looking for the turnoff. I went miles past that bridge, eventually arriving at the gate to a “youth correctional facility” (jail for teens) and admitted I’d blown it again. When we finally found our way back and I saw the huge “Rush Ranch” sign, I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.
Well actually I could believe it. I think I could get lost just walking from one room to another these days!
Palace Hotel Garden Court detail, Copic Multiliner
After an all day meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday I met art buddy Sonia for some sketching at the Palace Hotel’s Garden Court atrium. It’s a stunning and historical room but detail lover that I am, I chose one tiny spot across the room to draw and then spent an hour on it, while Sonia did 4 or 5 sketches.
Palace Hotel Garden Court
I started with the furthest chandelier and the clock on the wall and just kept discovering more and more fun things to draw. If we weren’t so hungry and tired we could have stayed there all night sketching.
Two Ladies Chatting Over Coffee
The first lady just slid right off my pen, perfectly drawn (as I saw her) but her friend kept moving and I couldn’t get close to a likeness.
Random BART Subway Sketches
More commuter sketches (and one eagle who adorns the top of the Oakland City Hall). My co-workers and I took advantage of a sunny and surprisingly quiet day at the office to walk to Oakland City Center for lunch (ergo the Bean and Cheese sticker) and I even had a moment to pull out my sketchbook.
That messy little boy top right was on a field trip but looked like he should have still been home in bed. And that’s where I should be too. It’s been a rocky week. Glad it’s over.
I combined walking, errands and sketching this morning, and really enjoyed all three, especially using my new sepia Copic Multiliner to draw these sketches. The pen is made of aluminum, is refillable with a replaceable tip. It’s very comfortable in the hand with a wider barrel than my usual Micron Pigmas, and the pen just glides across the page.
First stop was my little local library where I returned “Chasing Matisse”, a lackluster memoir about a guy who gets a book deal to go visit all of the places where Matisse lived. He fancies himself an artist as well as a journalist, but I didn’t think he was much of either. He basically read Hilary Spurling’s excellent two-part biography of Matisse and repeats stuff from her book in between his boring descriptions of his own experiences seeing what Matisse had seen and sometimes even trying to sketch or paint it.
El Cerrito Post Office
Next was another return of an Amazon purchase to the El Cerrito Post Office. I asked the clerk if she’d stamp my sketchbook with her round postmark stamp, just for fun but she said no and gave me some “airmail” stickers to use instead which I didn’t.
When I was a kid my grandfather had a bunch of rubber stamps and pads of old deposit slips from when he’d been a banker before the bank closed during the depression (but why did he still have them?). I used to love going to his house and playing with the rubber stamps.
I’d planned to add sepia ink washes to these sketches at home tonight because I’d ordered a bottle of that ink, but when I looked at the items that arrived in my order I discovered they’d made a mistake and sent me black ink instead. Rats. One more thing to return.
I’ve been away from my blog this past week, for a number of reasons, including setting up a new computer, an extended family member suddenly hospitalized in a coma with no brain activity, plus other more positive family events.
So in this brief intermission, here is a page from Costa Rica’s Zoom magazine I received recently. My sketches illustrate an article about Leaf Cutter Ants (amazing creatures that live in Costa Rica). When the editor was looking for illustrations she came across my sketches on my blog and asked for permission to use them in the article. It’s fun seeing them in print:
(Click image to enlarge)
I’m looking forward to some solid studio time for the next two days and getting back to regular posting. Meanwhile, life goes on…
I went out for a bit of “sketchercize” today, trying to get unsluggish. My plan was to walk 30 minutes, sketch wherever I landed at 30 minutes and then walk 30 minutes back. But 15 minutes out I came across this odd montage and had to stop right there. Up a few stairs just past some lovely native drought resistant plantings, and a miniature pagoda was a full sized authentic teepee in front of a wall of bamboo. Somewhere behind that was a house.
Why would someone have a teepee in their front yard? Is it for houseguests who have overstayed their welcome? A mother-in-law apartment? A garden shed? A kid’s playhouse? An art studio? A meditation room? A dog house? A place to just get away?
One nice thing about living in the San Francisco Bay Area, or at least in this part of it, is the feeling of “Anything goes,” and “Live and let live.” Slightly (?) odd artists like me fit right in. I definitely found my tribe when I moved to Berkeley, and while I live a few miles north of there now, apparently it’s close enough for teepees.
And now off to watch the season five finale of Project Runway on DVD. Since I’ve finished all 5 seasons of The Wire, and caught up on Project Runway, I’m excited to get back to more drawing and reading and much, much less time in front of the TV!
Jana Bouc, Artist 