Tag: ink sketch

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Berkeley Drawing Gardening Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

Sketching Berkeley’s Northbrae Neighborhood

Monterey Market Watermelons, ink & watercolor, 6x9"
Monterey Market Watermelons, ink & watercolor, 6x9"

Cathy and I met at Monterey Market on Hopkins Street in Berkeley’s Northbrae neighborhood for our Monday night sketchcrawl. The scent of ripe fruit was heavenly in their screened fruit patio, but the store was closing so we were soon out on the street.

Cathy sketching
Cathy sketching

I stood behind Cathy while she leaned on a bike rack to sketch the signs on the corner. Then we walked up Hopkins to the Country Cheese and Coffee Market.

Country Cheese, Sepia Micron Pigma, 9x8"
Country Cheese, Sepia Micron Pigma, 9x8"

The scents were quite different here: damp cardboard and wafts of the day’s refuse from all the now-closed food sellers on this block including Magnanis Poultry and Monterey Fish Market.  My butt fell asleep from leaning against a large metal box on the sidewalk while I was sketching. I could have sat on the chair but decided to sketch it instead. It felt good to start moving again. We walked around the block looking for inspiration at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery but since they were closed there wasn’t enough to see through the fence.

We headed up Rose Street and through the King Middle School play yard where people were throwing frisbees for their dogs in the sunshine at 8:00 at night. It was really starting to feel like summer.

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame, helped start an “edible garden” on the school property and that’s where we did our final sketches, surrounded by beds of vegetables, flowers and fruit.

Edible Garden "campfire", ink & watercolor, 9x12"
Edible Garden "campfire", ink & watercolor, 9x12"

We felt like we were at camp, sitting on hale bales arranged in a large circle under an arbor made of rough hewn posts and branches woven together. At the center of the circle, a huge “campfire” of flaming pink and red poppies blazed. I imagined how rewarding it must be for a class of young gardeners to gather there for lessons with their teacher, the beautiful results of their work growing all around them. What a wonderful learning environment!

Categories
Drawing People Sketchbook Pages

Sketching the NBA Basketball Finals

NBA players and yelling manager, ink
NBA players and yelling manager, ink

Except for doing these sketches while watching the NBA Basketball Finals last week, it was a pretty rough week, with no energy for art or blogging. I kept putting the TiVo on pause to sketch, enjoying drawing with a Pilot fountain pen and then adding a bit of water to make the line bleed and turn into an ink wash.

NBA Finals: Aiming for a free throw, ink
NBA Finals: Aiming for a free throw, ink

Then I started trying to capture a little more action, drawing in pencil.

NBA Finals pencil sketch
NBA Finals pencil sketch

I enjoy watching basketball playoffs and seeing these 7 foot tall, extremely buff, and mostly really cute guys with charming smiles, maneuver their massive bodies like ballerinas, leaping through the air, dodging and dancing around each other, or just storming down the court like a locomotive, charging the hoop, hanging from it when they dunk the ball in, or tossing the ball from across the court and watching it swish right in (or not).

I took so long with pausing the game to sketch that I had to fast forward to the last five minutes to see who won so that I could go to bed before midnight.

Categories
Art supplies Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Dignity, in New Fabriano Sketchbook

Dignity, ink, 9x10" in Fabriano sketchbook
Dignity, ink, 9x10" in Fabriano sketchbook

When I saw this woman reading on BART I had to draw her. She seemed to express the essence of dignity to me. She was carefully dressed and groomed, all in white,  grey and black, with her hair covered in a white crocheted net and that wrapped with a perfectly ironed bandana, tied in a tiny bow in front.

This was my first drawing in my new Fabriano Venezia sketchbook that Roz had tested and praised and that I bought in a couple of sizes from Wet Paint. This is in the 9×6″ size. I left the first page blank to serve as a title page/table of contents later and did this drawing on the next page. I was totally in love with the sketchbook, writing a little rave review on the page of this first sketch about how wonderfully smooth and thick the paper was, and how nicely it worked with the Micron Pigma .01.

I was a little concerned about how much larger and heavier to carry around it is than the Moleskine watercolor notebooks I’ve been using, but thought it would be worth it. BUT when I tried to scan my drawing and the book didn’t quite fit on the scanner, cropping off part of the image, and the middle seam caused half the image to blur and have a dark shadow, no matter what I tried.

Then tonight I tried adding a watered down ink wash to her jacket, which had been black. The paper acted very strangely, not at all like I’d expected. I knew it wasn’t watercolor paper, and thus wasn’t sized, but now I’m now worried how these books will react with watercolor. I guess I’ll find out soon.

Here’s the same image with the ink wash that went all splotchy.

Less Dignity with ink wash
Less Dignity with ink wash

She was so carefully groomed, with everything perfectly ironed and smooth and now she looks much less dignified with her splotchy jacket.  I don’t think the ink wash added anything positive to the drawing, do you? And I don’t think adding more ink to try to make it smoother or darker would be a good thing either.

Categories
Art theory Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

At the Christopher Schinck Demo

Art Demo, ink & watercolor
Art Demo, ink & watercolor

Last week the El Cerrito Art Association hosted an excellent watercolor painting demonstration by Christopher Schinck. Mr. Schink has a unique way of painting with watercolor and a wonderful sense of humor. He both entertained and amazed the group with his bold use of color, thick paint applied opaquely using large china bristle brushes and extraordinary knowledge of art history, composition and painting technique. I alternately watched the demo and sketched the audience (above), enjoying both equally.

I jotted down a few of his comments:

“Don’t paint objects. Paint relationships” [of design elements, like light & dark].

“It’s better to quit early than to quit late.” (In other words, stop painting before you’ve overworked it!)

“Sarget said watercolor was ‘making the best of an emergency.'”

“When you first start painting you tend to strive for accuracy and people like it. The more you paint and explore as an artist, the less your family likes it. Push yourself so it’s still identifiable, but have fun!” (Encouraging us to abstract and simplify.)

Then a few nights later my watercolor group got together for dinner and sketching. Dinner was fabulous! Not so my sketches, but here they are anyway.

Ink wash sketch; no likeness
Ink wash sketch; no likeness
Maple sugar candy dessert, ink & wash
Maple sugar candy dessert, ink & wash

What’s funny about this sketch is that I’d drawn the box and then gotten really into the details of each little packet of candy. When I finished the first row I realized there were only three across and I still had room for one more. So I just made the box smaller and left the odd lines from the original ghost box. I added color at home to the top and bottom sketches.

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Albany Animals Drawing Photos Places Sketchbook Pages

Albany Bulb: Art and Ratty Squirrels

Ratty Squirrels at the Albany Bulb
Ratty Squirrels at the Albany Bulb

Officially they’re known as Ground Squirrels but they look more like rats wearing moth-eaten squirrel costumes. After trying to sketch them during a hike around Albany Bulb, a spit of land projecting into the SF Bay in Albany, I can say they have cute little ears and seem to be curious and playful. Their biggest selling point is that they make good snacks for the owls and other birds of prey that hunt in the area.

I’ve written about Albany Bulb before, so won’t go into details about this wonderful place where people make art from found objects washed up from the Bay or from the land’s original use as a dump. New art is created and people add to or decorate pieces already there.

One of the regular artists who create there is writer, artist, civil rights lawyer, Osha Neumann (below, building a new sculpture).

Osha Neumann at Albany Bulb, at work on new sculpture
Osha Neumann at Albany Bulb, at work on new sculpture

I asked him if he documents his work and he said no, but that other people sometimes take photos. I told him I thought that his work was true art, because it was made just for the pleasure of the creating, with no concern about marketing, sales, fame or glory. He just gets out there and creates. I asked what the man he was constructing was meant to be doing and he asked what I thought. It wasn’t until I saw my photo that I realized he was holding a fishing pole (duh!).

My favorite new piece was the artist below, although Osha said that someone else added the palette and pampas grass “paintbrush,” they weren’t part of his original sculpture.

Artist at the Albany Bulb
Artist at the Albany Bulb

When I saw the dog below I asked Osha where the arches with the dog atop them were that I remembered from a previous trip. He said that structure blew down over the winter and was gone.

Dog sculpture at Albany Bulb
Dog sculpture at Albany Bulb

My hiking companion, 10 year old Mariah had a great time playing in the fort someone built, complete with a spiral staircase.  Next time we go there we’re going to bring supplies to make our own art.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Gardening Gouache Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plants Sketchbook Pages

Botanical Sketches: Proteus

Proteus in Bloom, ink & gouache, Moleskine 5x7 sketchbook
Proteus in Bloom, ink & gouache, Moleskine 5x7 sketchbook

When I was walking to BART last week I ran into Fletch who had just finished shooting photos of an amazing Proteus  a few blocks from my house. I must have walked by this stunning plant a hundred times and never noticed it until he pointed it out to me. I couldn’t stop to sketch that morning but finally got back there this afternoon.

I got as close as I could without trespassing and sketched with my Micron Pigma .01 pen, trying to capture the many different forms the blossoms take along the way to fully blooming. Then I used my mini gouache palette and a tiny brush to paint the details.  Gouache seemed like a perfect medium for doing this kind of detailed botanical sketching.

I also took a bunch of photos of these amazing and diverse flowers. Here are a couple of them:

Photo of Proteus blossom
Photo of Proteus blossom
Proteus in bloom, photo
Proteus in bloom, photo

Note to self: Find proteus at a nursery and plant them! But first I want to do some larger botanical illustrations from my photos (or from life if I can convince the woman who owns the plant to allow me to take some cuttings). Fletch told me she reluctantly allowed him to take one.

And here’s a bit of etymological (word origin) trivia about theProteus:

The Proteus got its name because of its amazing diversity of form: It was named after the Greek sea god, Proteus, who was able to change his appearance at will.  From this comes the adjective “protean,” which means “versatile”, “mutable”, “capable of assuming many forms.” “Protean” has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability.

Categories
Drawing Faces Life in general People Photos Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Drawings & Feeling Like a Zombie

Silly Pose on Bart, Graphite 8x6
Silly Pose on BART, Drawn later at home, Graphite 8x6

Riding our subway known as BART the other day, I sat down beside a young man who was talking to his  friend in the next seat. I asked if they wanted to sit together and they made a joke about not liking each other (actually it was a racist joke that shocked me  at first when I thought they were serious—they were of different races ). So I sat down and took out my sketchbook like I usually do. The guy beside me insisted I draw his friend and his friend immediately struck a crazy pose for me to draw.

I said I only had 5 minutes before I was getting off but they egged me on. I drew as fast as I could (in ink—what was I thinking!) and was making a pretty bad job of  it—talk about pressure! Then I had to get off and we all had a good laugh about the bad sketch (see below). I asked if I could take his picture and he agreed, continuing the pose as I quickly snapped a photo with my iPhone and then jumped off the train as the doors were closing. Here’s the photo that I put on my computer monitor across the room to draw the sketch above in my sketchbook last night:

Quick Photo of Silly Pose
Quick Photo of Silly Pose

And here’s the original sketch done on BART, along with a few others from this week:

Now, about feeling like a Zombie… I’ve been doing prep this week for a colonoscopy this afternoon. I’ve had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, except sugary clear liquids and the gallon of “Go-Litely” (hah! what false advertising!) and very  little sleep due to drinking the first half gallon last night and then “Go-ing” all nite, thus the only “Litely” was my sleeping! And for the three days prior, I was told to eat none of my usually healthy diet: no vegetables, no fruits, no whole grains. Just white bread and meat, basically. The procedure isn’t until 2:00 so until then, I’ll be under a pile of blankets in bed trying to get warm and watching a movie on my laptop.

Zombie signing out…

Categories
Drawing People

Sketches at a Meeting

Meeting People 1
Meeting People 1

It was an important meeting. The participants were brilliant experts in their fields.  Yet I still couldn’t resist sketching my way through the meeting.

Meeting people 2
Meeting people 2

I only had my work notebook and a fat roller ball blue ink pen in the conference room with me. During a break I grabbed a black one but it was still weird to draw with compared to my usual extra fine point pen.

I actually captured a likeness on a couple of these little gesture sketches.

Categories
Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Life Without Coffee

Life Without Coffee, ink & watercolor in sketchbook
Life Without Coffee, ink & watercolor in sketchbook

This is what I look like far too often these days as I’ve gradually been reducing my caffeine intake. I’m down to one cup of 25% caf & 75% decaf in the morning and then nothing but decaf after that.

My painting ritual had been to make a cup of coffee before heading into the studio and bringing an entire vacuum pot of the stuff when I went out plein air painting. The extra energy from caffeine not only kept me painting when I should have been sleeping, but it also fueled my late night blog visiting and email answering.

It was fun having that artificial boost, but burning the candle at both ends was doing bad things to my health. While I miss the energy, I am sleeping at night now and waking up feeling alive and ready to go instead of feeling like my head is full of mashed potatoes.

It reminds me of something Maya Angelou said her grandmother told her:

“You don’t always get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get.”

Yes I was squeezing extra hours out of the day but I was paying for them with being constantly sleep-deprived.

I asked a friend who doesn’t use caffeine what you’re supposed to do when you’re tired if you can’t drink coffee, thinking she’d have some other trick for keeping going. She looked at me perplexed at what seemed like a silly question.

“You rest!” she said. What a novel concept!

Categories
Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

“The Onion” Writers as Seen on TV

Joe Randazzo, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Joe Randazzo, Editor In Chief, The Onion. Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"

I’ve been sick with a doozy of a cold/flu all week and spent much of the time randomly channel surfing. When I saw the head writers from the satiric “Onion News Network” being interviewed by Charlie Rose I was struck by how each of them had such distinct and interesting characteristics that would be fun to draw.

Will Graham, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Will Graham, Writer, The Onion. Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"

I set my TiVo to record so that I could draw them when I felt better. Finally tonight I felt well enough to sketch for a few minutes and replayed the show, setting it to pause when I found a pose I liked.

Carol Kolb, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Carol Kolb, Writer, The Onion. Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"

Although initially I thought they all had such long faces, I have a feeling that the show might be recorded in a different format than my standard TV displays. They couldn’t all have such tall heads, could they?

Charlie Rose, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Charlie Rose, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6

I’ve posted these in the order that I drew them. I was feeling pretty rusty with the first drawing at the top, after not holding a pen or brush all week. But I challenged myself to just start drawing with ink and let the sketches go where they would.

After a horrible week feeling really awful, it was such a pleasure to have a lull in the coughing and sneezing and enough mental bandwith to actually focus and draw.