Tag: Drawing

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Drawing Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Industrial Antique Sketching at Automatic Response Systems

1950 Royal Typewriter, Pitt Brush Pen, 5x6"
1950 Royal Typewriter just like my grandpa's, Quick sketch, Pitt Brush Pen, 5x6"

Automatic Response Systems offers drive-in shredding service for your boxes of old bank statements and tax returns, secrets on your hard drives, naughty videos, or anything in between. Their Willy-Wonka like equipment rolls your papers up a ramp, grinds them in a massive shredder and flies them away through huge see-through tubes.

They recycle everything they shred, from the paper to the paper clips. Their old, brick, northwest-Berkeley industrial-zone warehouse is also home to an amazing collection of antique office and industrial equipment. The owners graciously allowed us to come sketch there on a stormy Tuesday night.

Steam-Powered Victorian Drill Press, 16"x5, ink & watercolor
Steam-Powered Victorian Drill Press circa 1900, 16"x5, sepia ink, gray brush pen & watercolor

This enormous drill press is about 8 feet tall and much more substantial than my sketch makes it look.  I started drawing it from the top which was further away from me (so appeared smaller) than the base, but not as much as I drew it (oops). It was incredibly complicated and a fun challenge to draw. Be sure to see my friends’ much better drawings of this amazing equipment posted here and here on our Urban Sketchers blog.

1840s French Depose (pot metal) Sculpture, ink 8x5"
1840s French Deposé (pot metal) Sculpture, sepia ink, grey brush pen, black brush pen, 8x5"

When we first arrived I warmed up by sketching this life-size bust of a beautiful woman who, unlike in my sketch, did not look at all worried about how I was drawing her.

We hope to go sketching there again as there was so much more to draw. And if you need anything shredded in the S. F. Bay area, this is the place to go (or call—they pick up too)!

Categories
Drawing Food sketch Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Chicken Pot Pie Celebration

Chicken Pot Pie Celebration, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Chicken Pot Pie Celebration, ink & watercolor, 5x8"

When we met for sketch night at Fat Apples Restaurant I decided to celebrate my move into the new studio with a sinfully decadent chicken pot pie. It came with a great salad and two unnecessary rolls since there was already too much to eat. By the time I finished sketching it, the pot pie cooled off just the right amount to eat. Yum!

Umbrellas Inside Fat Apples, ink & watercolor 5x8"
Umbrellas Inside Fat Apples, ink & watercolor 5x8"

Fat Apples has these two large café umbrellas in the middle of the restaurant at a counter where your can eat instead of at a table. It was interesting drawing them from below and to the side and trying to understand what was going on in there. Everyone finished sketching and was waiting for me so I didn’t get to complete the sketch. That’s a waitress with pigtails behind the counter. She actually had a pony tail but turned her head so I drew it in two places.

(Question: Why is a pony tail single but pig tails come in pairs? Pigs only have one tail, right?)

I’m still working on getting a post written and photos taken about the studio. I tried making a 360 degree video in the studio, explaining what I was showing, but when I watched it I discovered I lost track of where I started and actually did 360 degrees plus another 90. It was fun so I’ll try again.

Categories
Drawing Faces People

Missing Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey, Sketched from TV
Downton Abbey, Sketched from TV

I loved Downton Abbey and I’m missing it now that it’s over but at least I have these sketches I made while watching the shown on TV.

Only Mr. Bates is semi-recognizable on the right
Only Mr. Bates is semi-recognizable on the right

Poor Mr. Bates. I hope he’s doing ok in prison. Do you think he really murdered his terrible wife?

Lord Grantham, bottom right
Lord Grantham, bottom right

I was so fond of Lord Grantham. In looking him up on the Masterpiece Theater website, I noticed they have a character likability scale and chart of all the characters and the actors who played them, and full episodes available to watch online.

More Downton Doodles
More Downton Doodles
Anna Smith, Head Housemaid (R) and another maid
Anna Smith, Head Housemaid (R) and another maid

Poor Anna Smith. But wasn’t Mr. Bates rather too old for her anyway? I liked him in a sweet British series, Lark Rise to Candleford, where he played a similarly earnest and good man and every show has a happy ending.

Another good British series I enjoyed was Bramwell, starring Jemma Redgrave as Dr. Eleanor Bramwell, a headstrong woman doctor during the late Victorian era who fights for the right to practice medicine and opens a free clinic for the poor.

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Life in general Painting People Sketchbook Pages

Returning to Real Life

Oakland Airport View, ink & watercolor 5x7"
Oakland Airport View, ink & watercolor 5x8"

Whew! As soon as I returned from my workshop in Arizona last month, the work on my house and studio began. Then over the past couple weeks I’ve devoted all of my free time to getting the new studio set up and moving in there, while completely ignoring my blog. At last I’m nearly finished with the work (even got to paint in the new studio today) and can begin to catch up here.

I almost didn’t make it to the airport (sketched above) because my usually reliable sister not only forgot she was driving me to the airport, but spent the night at my niece’s and left her cellphone at home. Returning from a nice walk the next morning, and just in the nick of time, my brilliant niece Sophie said, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to drive Jana to the airport this morning?” Yikes!

Superbowl at the Scottsdale Holiday Inn, ink & watercolor, 5x16"
Superbowl at the Scottsdale Holiday Inn, ink & watercolor, 5x16"

When I arrived at my hotel, the Holiday Inn Express in Old Town Scottsdale, the Superbowl was on TV in the lounge. They served a big free breakfast there every morning and hosted happy hour from 5-7 every evening, with free beer, wine, chile, nachos, and just for the Superbowl, free Subway sandwiches.

I sipped my beer, ate some chile and had fun drawing the people who sat still. There was some kind of betting game going on that I found incomprehensible, but the woman in blue sitting on a bar stool at the tall table won $20 from the nice men sitting at tables near me.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Studio

Last Sketches From My Old Studio

Art supplies and tea on right, ink & watercolor, 4x6"
Art supplies and tea on right side of table & sketchbook, ink & watercolor, 4x6"

These are some of my special drawing table items: my cigar box supply holder, my watercolor brushes and pens, and a coaster under my cup sent to me by illustrator Mick Wiggins in response to a fan letter I sent him about the series of posters he designed for BART, our subway system.

Lamp and squash on right side of table & sketchbook, ink & watercolor, 4x6"
Lamp and squash on right side of table & sketchbook, ink & watercolor, 4x6"

And here’s the left side of the same drawing table with my funky little table lamp for lighting still lifes, the wall grid for hanging supplies with paper towel holder, and the base of two combo lamps at the back — and some squash for sketching that are still (a month later) awaiting cooking.

Table still life, full spread in sketchbook, 4x12"
Table still life, full spread in sketchbook, 4x12"

Here’s the full spread as it appears in the sketchbook. I drew the cup twice because I wanted to practice ellipses. I feel a little sad looking at the pictures because that much loved studio is no more. It’s under construction to become a studio apartment instead.

My new studio is wonderful and almost done. Just need to move in my flat files and painting/canvas storage rack, which hopefully will get done this weekend. Then just a little more work on house, apartment and studio and I’ll be able to get back to my happy rut of living to draw and paint instead of living in topsy-turvy world

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

Greetings from Topsy Turvy World

Earthquake water jugs, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Earthquake emergency water supply jugs that sit beside my bin of earthquake supplies along the fence outside my kitchen. Ink & watercolor, 5x7"

This sketch and the next few I post are from back in the good old days when I used to just sketch, paint, and work. Now I live in construction chaos and once that’s over in a week or two, I’ll still be in sort/discard/move stuff mode as I downsize my living space.

I’m preparing to rent out the half of my duplex that was my studio and move everything I haven’t discarded into either my smaller (but quite comfy) living space or new studio. Meanwhile I’m trying to maintain some semblance of order while everything from my kitchen is in my living room (new kitchen floors in progress) and the wall between the two units has been replaced which means I have to continually go outside, unlock the door, lock it again to get to something that is in the other unit.

Ceramic bowl that Barbara made that I use to hold my phone and it's charger.
Ceramic bowl that Barbara made that I use to hold my phone and it's charger.

I love working alongside my carpenter or just watching him work because he is so smart, competent, serene and cheerful and always has a solution and a tool for every problem. On the other hand, I’m no good at all at transitions. I like things to be done, but nothing is finished because he can only work for me a few hours each day, after his full-time job and before it gets dark. The biggest chunks are done but the finishing touches can take just as long.

It’s all for the good though since the rental income will help support my getting to paint full-time within a year or so. Meanwhile, sketching saves me when my topsy-turvy world makes my head spin. Just looking, seeing and drawing anything calms me down and restores my sanity.

Categories
Art theory Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Squid, Vanilla Ale, Noise and Wonky Sketching at Elevation 66

Grilled squid with avocado, rice fritters, grapefruit gel and spicy avocado
Grilled squid with avocado, rice fritters, grapefruit gel and spicy avocado

I enthusiastically joined my Tuesday night sketch buddies for dinner, beer and sketching at  Elevation 66, the new El Cerrito brew pub. I loved my dinner,  displayed above, (a “small plate” combo so weird I couldn’t resist: grilled squid slices on spicy avocado sauce beside little blobs of grapefruit foam/gel (“to cleanse the palate”) and spicy deep-fried rice fritters. Odd but yummy!

Esther Vanilla Stout Ale, Delicious! ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Esther Vanilla Stout, Delicious! ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Even under the influence of a small glass of Esther Vanilla Stout, a delicious milkshake of a beer, it got so noisy by 8:00 on a Tuesday night that I couldn’t think straight and was ready to leave. I was having a hard time with drawing ellipses and symmetrical shapes (my next drawing subject to practice).

Cathy & Micaela at the bar
Cathy & Micaela sketching at the bar, ink & watercolor 5x7"

And there were lots and lots of symmetrical shapes to practice on! My drawing just kept getting wonkier as the noise got louder.

Beer in the vat, wine on the shelf with hoses
Beer in the vat, wine on the shelf with hoses

I was overly self-critical while I was sketching, wanting to get things right. Then I got my copy of The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World and discovered something wonderful: Of the two sketches of mine that Gabi chose for the book, one is very wonky and the other nicely organized. That helped me to see that there is room for both in my art life. Wonky is good! Getting it “right” is good too! Yay!

Please click on their names to see Cathy, Micaela and Beth’s excellent pub sketches from the evening on our Urban Sketchers blog.

Categories
Drawing People Sketchbook Pages

Golden Globes 2012 Fun Sketching

Golden Globes: Gervais, Depp, Banderas, Plummer, ink & watercolor 8x6"
Golden Globes: Gervais, Depp, Banderas, Plummer, ink & watercolor 8x6"

It was fun watching the Golden Globes and sketching the people. It took much longer because I kept pausing the TiVo when I saw someone I wanted to sketch.

Four (failed) attempts at Laura Dern
Four (failed) attempts at Laura Dern

I was surprised to actually catch likenesses of some (but definitely not all) of the people. Laura Dern and Rob Lowe alluded me.

Julianne Moore, 2 failed Rob Lowes, Producer of Downton Abbey
Julianne Moore, 2 bad Rob Lowes, Downton Abbey Producer

I wasn’t sure if it was just my TV or the angle of the cameras that filmed the show, but it seemed like all the movie stars had extra long heads. I doubt it was the camera that made all the female stars look soooo skinny. How sad it must be to have your art form require that you don’t get to eat.

Audience, director glasses, Madonna
Audience, director glasses, Madonna

It seemed like all the male directors and producers were wearing glasses with heavy, square, black frames, the kind that used to be considered nerd glasses and usually sported tape holding them together.

Categories
Art supplies Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Plants

Standing Tall in a Moleskine

Succulents Along the Walk, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Succulents Along the Walk, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

To shake things up a bit I thought I’d try a watercolor Moleskine watercolor sketchbook this time instead of binding a new journal. These sketches are the first in the Moleskine from a walk in my neighborhood on a sunny winter day.

A few spreads into the Moleskine, I’m liking the paper but hating the stupid, floppy, too-wide landscape format. Why, oh why does Moleskine refuse to bind a watercolor book on the long size in portrait format! Brenda Swenson had a clever solution: she bought a very large watercolor Moleskine and sawed off half to make one the right size! Here’s someone else who had hers sliced at the local photocopy shop.

Succulents 2, ink & wat5ercolor, 7x5"
Succulents 2, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The spike on this plant was about 15 feet tall but I didn’t think through how to make it look that way, and since it was in ink, it is what it is. The stalk should have gotten skinnier as it got further away instead of looking like a fat asparagus.

Categories
Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

The Firemen Were Busy So We Went to the Brewery

Soup at Triple Rock Brewery, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Soup at Triple Rock Brewery, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

We met for Tuesday night sketching at the main Berkeley Firehouse where we had permission to sketch firetrucks and emergency paraphernalia (and maybe even a hunky fireman or too) but they had to shut down the station and send all their trucks and guys off to fight fires.

So we went around the corner to Triple Rock Brewery. I got a bowl of delicious soup and sketched it on the black plaid tablecloth (waterproof tablecloth of course—and a good thing as we saw a couple of pitchers spilled while we there).

Inside Triple Rock, ink, 7x5"
Inside Triple Rock, ink, 7x5"

We had fun sketching and listening in on bar conversations. I was surprised how full the pub was on a Tuesday night, lots of energy and noise and people laughing.