Tag: Drawing

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Building Ink and watercolor wash Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

S.F. Cable Car Museum Sketches

Sketch of Ticket Machine and Street Lamp, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Ticket Machine and Street Lamp, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

We rode BART and a cable car to the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco to sketch. I  had to first draw some of the antique street “furniture” on display—an old Cable Car Ticket Machine and a street lamp with cable car line sign on it (California St. Line). The tickets were only 25 cents then. Now they are $6.00 a ride!

Cables that still power the cable cars, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Cables that still power the cable cars, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

I was surprised to discover that the museum was built around and above the massive cable system that still runs the cable cars. The guy in the sketch above stands on a platform about 20 feet up to supervise (?) the cables that run through multiple sets of huge gears in the basement level of the building and then go out under the streets to pull the cable cars up the steep hills.

Cable Car Museum, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Cable Car Museum, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

It was extremely LOUD in the museum since it’s on a second floor mezzanine completely open to the cable machinery (see picture) so it felt great to get outside again and sketch the brick museum building from across the street. It was a grey, drizzly winter day but never outright rained so we had a great walk back to BART up and down the hills.

For more sketches of cable cars and the museum, click here to see Cathy’s.

Categories
Bay Area Parks Berkeley Building Digital art Drawing Landscape Places

Jingle Bells and Other Good Tidings

Jingle Bells, digital sketch done on iPad in ArtStudio app
Jingle Bells, digital sketch done on iPad in ArtStudio app

Happy Holidays to everyone! I made the digital sketch above in a new-to-me iPad app called ArtStudio. I’ve tried all the others and like this one the best. It has all the features of the other programs and more but just works more intuitively for me.

I did the nighttime digital sketch below in SketchbookPro, my previous favorite program. Several of us tried sketching in the dark on iPads on this sketch outing since it lights from within so you can see what you’re drawing.

Tilden Carousel and Christmas Lights, sketched on iPad in Sketchbook Pro
Tilden Carousel and Christmas Lights, sketched on iPad in Sketchbook Pro

The carousel in Tilden Park is beautiful and they have a special Tilden Christmas Fantasy holiday lights and decorations event every year. But every time I try to sketch there I get overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds and have trouble sketching anything I like. My sketch buddies posted some great results: Cathy’s colorful merry-go-round here, Ceiny’s coverage of it all here, Cristina’s bold drawings here, and Micaela’s lifelike digital sketches here.

Photo of Tilden Christmas Fantasy
My photo of Tilden Christmas Fantasy

Not only is the giant tree and field in front of the carousel covered in lights and decorations, but the interior is filled with a hundred or so trees, animals and other items, all decorated with different themes (e.g. there was a Hello Kitty tree and a 49’ers  tree). Plus all the historic carved animals on the Merry-go-Round and the kids riding them whirling around. And Santa and the Elves taking wishes. Plus the merry-go-round music and Christmas soundtrack music being played over loudspeakers, and the smell of popcorn and cocoa from the refreshment stand.

It’s no wonder I get overwhelmed and have trouble settling down when I draw in there! Outdoors I sat on my stool by the restrooms way across the parking lot. It was quiet there.

Best wishes for love, joy and peace (and hopefully a little art)!

Categories
Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Oakland Chinatown Sketch and Group Photo (Plus One)

Oakland Chinatown, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Oakland Chinatown, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

Early on the morning after Thanksgiving our Urban Sketchers group went to Oakland’s Chinatown for some sketching. It was business as usual in the busy produce markets, herb shops, meat and seafood stalls, and Chinese restaurants, with no sign of Black Friday.

I found a spot to sit in front of a bank and had fun drawing all the details in the architecture. I started in pencil because the scene seemed so complicated. It’s easier to get it “right” with an eraser but it takes so much longer to draw it twice, in pencil and then in ink. I had to add the watercolor at home from a photo because by the time I chose my spot and did the drawing, it was time to meetup with the group.

While I drew, local people stopped to watch and give me encouragement, whether in excellent or broken English. My favorite was the plump, elderly lady who said something in Chinese, grinned, and gave me a big thumbs up. The amazing thing about sketching in public is that no matter how good or bad you’re doing, people always say nice, encouraging things.

Chinatown-plus-1-outtake
Chinatown-some of the Urban Sketchers plus-1 (that’s me, second to right)

Since many of us were there, we took photos for our group blog. I used the timer on my camera, setting it on the edge of a defunct fountain in the center of this plaza. I didn’t realize I was including the lady on the end. She must have been really tired as she nodded off and slept through our photo session. The photo we ultimately used on the USK blog masthead here was kindly taken by a guy who watched me repeatedly duck under the yellow warning tape around the fountain, set up the camera, and dash back to sit with my friends.

Categories
Albany Drawing Gardening Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Places Plants Urban Sketchers

Airstream Trailer Coffee Kiosk at Flowerland Nursery

Flowerland Cafe, ink & watercolor, 6x8
Flowerland Cafe, ink & watercolor, 6×8

Lately food trucks pop up all over the Bay Area; former roach coaches are the new gourmet dining spots. But this is the first vintage Airstream trailer food truck I’ve seen and it doesn’t travel. It’s set up on blocks inside Flowerland Nursery on Solano Avenue in Albany (California–next door to Berkeley) and run by Local 123 Cafe.

I can’t think of a better place to enjoy a good cup of coffee than in a lovely garden. The lovely folks at Flowerland Nursery put interesting chairs and tables throughout the nursery, turning the whole place into a sort of garden café. You can get your coffee and then sit among the palms, the native plants, fruit trees or climbing vines to enjoy it.

And when you finish your coffee, you can take home the chair you sat on or the plant you sat beside (for a price of course).

Categories
Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Happy 75 Cerrito Theater! (Sketching on a Cube of Stone)

Theater, ink & watercolor, 6x8"
Theater, ink & watercolor, 6×8″

Well that’s a confusing title! What I meant was that I sketched while sitting on one of the giant cubes of stone set into the sidewalk along San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito. I assume they are meant to be used as seats. According to this brochure, a primary goal of the recent street upgrade program that included the stone blocks was “to identify El Cerrito as a distinct place…” I guess the city fathers (and mothers?) felt that poor little El Cerrito just didn’t have enough “there” there.

The Cerrito Theatre is having its 75th birthday celebration this week.  It originally opened on Christmas Day in 1937 as an art deco “motion picture palace.” It closed in the 1960s and was used as a furniture warehouse until a community group worked to bring it back to life as a theater in 2006.

Categories
Berkeley Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

PiQ Cafe Sketches

PiQ Cafe Counter, ink & watercolor, 6x8"
PiQ Cafe Counter, ink & watercolor, 6×8″

PiQ Cafe (Pane Italiano Qualita) serves espresso and bakes pizza and Italian pastries near U. C. Berkeley. It’s a busy place in the evening with lots of sketching opportunities. I got a fabulous Decaf Americano coffee and drew the pastries instead of eating them.

Half Price Books from Inside PiQ Cafe, ink, 8x6"
Half Price Books from Inside PiQ Cafe, ink, 8×6″

My sketch buddies sat at the outdoor sidewalk tables and drew the bookstore across the street but it was too cold and dark out there for me (Cathy’s sketch and Cristina’s sketch). I drew the bookstore too, but from inside the café.

PiQ has a unique restroom arrangement: you carry a metal pitcher attached to a key card into their elevator, take it down to the basement and follow signs around a corridor to the bathroom and then repeat the trip.

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Shop windows Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Molly B’s and the Imperial Tea Court

Molly B's Window Display, Ink & Watercolor, 8x6"
Molly B’s Window Display, Ink & Watercolor, 8×6″

Molly B’s is a shop in North Berkeley’s Walnut Square with great window displays. They were closed but the window was lit up when I was there sketching. I think they sell ladies clothes and underwear. According to one Yelp reviewer, the store has “Beautiful fabrics, witty designs, and some amusingly bizarre skirts and trousers.”

ourt Still Life, Ink & watercolor
Imperial Tea Court, Ink & watercolor

After I finished my sketch at Molly B’s we met upstairs at the Imperial Tea Court for a little more sketching and sharing. These were a couple of large containers on the counter (and a guy sitting at a table).

And if I’m ever going to get caught up on my blog posting (I’m not even out of September yet!), I am going to have to learn to keep it short. So that’s it for this post.

Categories
Drawing Oil Painting Painting People People at Work photoshop Portrait Series

Brown Delivers…in the Dark (portrait in oil with steps in the process)

UPS Delivers at Night, Oil on Canvas, 20×16

(Update: This painting won second place for Portrait of the Year on Making a Mark in 2012.)

One night last winter two UPS guys arrived in the dark to deliver a dozen boxes of the flooring materials for my studio. I had started a series of paintings of people at work (still in progress) and asked if I could take their photo to use for a painting. They agreed and were great models!

A couple of months ago he called, asking about the painting, inspiring me to finally finish it. There were some magic moments along the way (see process photos below), such as the one where I did a quick first pass on his hand and then stepped back and said “Wow! That works and I’m not touching it again.”

Since I took the photos at night without flash outside lit only by the fluorescent lights from inside the studio, the photo was dark and the colors were, well, mostly brown. But the UPS slogan is right, BROWN really does deliver! Who knew there were so many shades of brown? I must have mixed a hundred different browns.

Below are photos showing the process of drawing and painting this portrait.

Continue reading “Brown Delivers…in the Dark (portrait in oil with steps in the process)”
Categories
Drawing Faces People Sketchbook Pages

The Voice: Top Ten Finalists Sketched

The Voice: Sylvia, Terry & Melanie, drawn in ink from TV on pause, 5x8"
The Voice: Sylvia Yacoub, Terry McDermott & Melanie Martinez, drawn from TV, in Moleskine watercolor notebook, 5×8″

Faced with a Tuesday night at home instead of out with the Urban Sketchers (nobody could go) I turned on the TV. Boring. But wait, those performers on The Voice (a singing competition show) are all so interesting looking. Why not sketch them?

The Voice: Cody, Bryan & Amanda
The Voice: Cody Balew, Bryan Keith & Amanda Brown

Each of the performers has been crafted into a carefully defined “package,” with extensive costuming to further exaggerate their type. If you click the images to make them bigger you can read my snarky comments. Some of the finalists are incredibly talented with beautiful voices (e.g. Amanda Brown is fantastic).

The Voice: Nicholas, Trevin & Cassadee
The Voice: Nicholas David, Trevin Hunte & Cassadee Pope

It amazed me how different each of their features were, especially noses. As I was drawing, using a Lamy Safari fountain pen with the nib upside down to get a finer ink line, I was getting nervous because they were turning out well and I wanted to do all 10 in a row with no do-overs.

The Voice: Casadee (again) and Dez
The Voice: Casadee (again) and Dez

I finally did mess up the last one, Dez (above, his mouth got too inky and it’s not a good likeness). I could have redone him but he doesn’t interest me much (I think he’s supposed to be the “teen idol”) and I was tired. He was on his own page but I let him hang out with his neighbor across the spread here so I don’t end the post with the one funky drawing.

It took about 2 1/2 hours for the project: to find a spot in the program to pause and then to draw each of them. It was really fun! It’s amazing how much more you see when you’re really looking, even when drawing from TV.

Categories
Animals Bay Area Parks Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Happy Turkey (Vulture) Day; One More Thing to Be Thankful For

Turkey Vulture drawn from taxidermy specimen, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Turkey Vulture drawn in ink from taxidermy specimen, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

So here it was the day before Thanksgiving and I wanted to draw a turkey. I called around trying to find a live one to sketch but failed. Then I tried to find a taxidermy turkey. No luck. The ranger at the Tilden Nature Center said they did have a collection of taxidermy birds including owl, songbirds, turkey vulture…but no turkey.

Wait! Turkey Vulture! It’s a bird, it’s named Turkey so why not? I called back to confirm they had it in stock (they rent it out: $10 for two weeks) and then drove up to Tilden Park.

Turkey Vulture: It's Value, ink & watercolor 5x16"
Turkey Vulture: It’s Value, drawn from specimen with notes from display case, ink & watercolor 5×16″

Here are a few interesting things about Turkey Vultures:

  • Turkey vultures (nicknamed “buzzard”) have a 5-6 foot wing span; “there is no more graceful bird in flight” but they have weak legs so walk awkwardly
  • In order to fly they need a run into the wind to lift off and can fly 60 miles per hour
  • Vultures are the “garbage collector of the bird world” and eat everything from dead mouse to moose.
  • If they are in danger and can’t run, they vomit their foul-smelling meal at their enemy.
  • Be thankful for them: “Without vultures, much of the world would be cluttered with the bodies of dead decaying animals.”

I’m Thankful For…

Along with turkey vultures, here are some things I’m grateful for:

  • YOU, my dear blog visitor and reader,
  • my much-loved friends and family, and
  • the freedom, security, comfort, and good health that allow me to live this wonderful creative life.

I know none of the above is guaranteed or permanent so I try to be grateful every day, not just Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for?