Tag: People

Sketching on a Stormy Night at Au Coquelet

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date March 9, 2010
14 Comments on Sketching on a Stormy Night at Au Coquelet

It was a dark and stormy night when Cathy and I met at Au Coquelet Cafe to sketch while listening to people debate the existence of reality and/or study English in Chinese.

I started by sketching the guy in the middle with black hair and just kept on going, seeing more and more stuff to draw. At one point he walked by our table, saw what we were doing, pulled out his cellphone and took photos of our sketches of him. That was a first! But it seemed a fair trade.

A group of four (perhaps retired professors from the university) seemed to have gathered for the sole purpose of defining reality, or proving it’s existence, or both, punctuated regularly by “huh?” “what did you say?” as one of the gents was hard of hearing (but not hard of “talking” as he blathered on and on). On our other side were Chinese college students studying English, but mostly in Chinese, with the occasional English phrase thrown in such as “I am a pretty girl” and “I am eating an apple” (which she wasn’t).

Au Coquelet is a perfect place to sketch. It’s large, open very late, has a couple of rooms, and counter service only so you don’t have to worry about waiters. There’s lots of wood, bricks, brick-a-brack and plants, design left over from the hippie days.

I have fond memories of sketching there on another stormy night, New Year’s Eve 1997, when I was supposed to be in Yosemite National Park but had canceled the trip due to rain. And it was good I didn’t go: the next day Yosemite had the worst flooding in 100 years, with roads and bridges so damaged that people were stranded there for weeks without sanitary facilities or food.

So with no plans for the evening, I headed up to the café to draw people who did have plans, partygoers coming in before and after their parties. After a while, a tall, handsome artist sketching at another table came over and joined me. We sketched together and talked, and ended up dating for a few months until I decided that the tales he told were too good to be true.

Tags Au Coquelet, Berkeley, caf, Cafe Sketch, Drawing, Ink and watercolor wash, interior, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, Yosemite.

Art supplies Bookbinding Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Pinole Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Pinole and Pen, Paper, Ink Tests

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date March 1, 2010
22 Comments on Pinole and Pen, Paper, Ink Tests

Pretty Pinole from Peets, Ink and Watercolor

Warm sun, green hills, blossoming trees and a great Peet’s cappuccino to sip at an outdoor table while sketching was made even better by a pen that actually worked in my sketchbook. After struggling to find a pen that would not skip, scratch, smear, show through or bleed on the Arches 90 lb cold press paper I’d bound in my journal, I discovered that my Lamy Safari fountain pen was just right.

Pens

All of the pens I normally use were giving me problems. The Sakura Pigma Micron skipped, scratched over the textured paper when drawing, and was even worse for writing in the journal, whether I used my favorite .01 or a fatter-tipped .05.

I tried using an Ultra-Fine Point Sharpie since it would at least produce a strong line (above). But I found that the ink flowed too quickly, bleeding and spreading if held in one spot and worse, showed through to the other side. I also tried the Pitt Artist Brush Pen on this page, which worked OK but was a thicker line than I like for general sketching. The black ink in the finer-point Pitts seemed paler than the Microns, but it might also be that they resist the sizing on the paper more.

Prismacolor Illustration pens are similar to the Sakura Pigma Micron and Pitt Artist Pens and are very nice and comfortable to hold. But they too performed poorly on the Arches CP. In the sketch above I was trying to do a contour drawing of what I saw on the BART train but my lines were barely visible until I redrew them with a Sharpie.

Then I tested my Lamy Safari F-point fountain pen and was delighted to see that it was a pleasure to write and draw with on the Arches CP paper.

Ink

I’d last filled the Safari with Noodlers Black Bulletproof ink, which is supposed to be waterproof but actually bleeds a fair amount when a wash is applied after it’s dry. I used a dip pen to test Platinum Carbon Ink and it held up better, barely bleeding at all.

So I squirted out the remaining Noodlers in my Lamy and refilled it with the Carbon Platinum ink. I’ve been a happy sketcher ever since. The ink is a rich black, doesn’t bleed, is great to write with on this bumpy paper, and is comfy to hold. Yay!

Paper

Now that I’m halfway through my journal it’s time to prepare for binding the next one. I’ve been testing papers and I think I’ve found the one. When I finish my tests I’ll post them. I have a feeling I might have found the perfect paper for ink and watercolor journaling.

Tags Art supplies, BART, Drawing, Ink, Ink and watercolor wash, Lamy Safari, Micron Pigma, Noodlers Ink, Peets Coffee, Pen and Ink, People, Pinole, Platinum Carbon Ink, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings

Berkeley Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Pyramid Alehouse Sketches

Blackened Salmon at Pyrramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor — Blackened Salmon at Pyramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor

Pyramid Alehouse in Berkeley is a lively, fun place for good food, good beer and sketching too. My blackened salmon was delicious and a real challenge to wait to draw and paint before eating. After dinner we planned to sketch the brewery area visible from our table. But mid-meal they turned the lights off in the brewery so we went upstairs to check out the view.

Pyrmaid exterior & "Brainstorm" Players, ink washes and watercolor — Combined 2 partial sketches (one exterior, one interior) with a pasted in bit of event calendar

Upstairs there was a crowd of people playing Pyramid’s version of trivial pursuit “Brainstormers Pub Quiz,” with an announcer reading off the challenges that teams try to solve. The teams with the most points win more beer.

I assume there is an honor system that prevents people from getting the answers on their smartphones. I couldn’t play trivial pursuit unless answers like, “You know, it was that guy who was in that movie with that blonde…” would win a prize.

Kitchen from above & Beers on Tap — Kitchen from above & Beers on tap, pasted in stuff

While we were upstairs I (tried to) sketch the chef in his galley kitchen. The perspective was challenging. Then we went downstairs to the bar area. I loved the whimsical handles on the taps, each reflecting some feature of the specific beer. They had 17 beers on tap that night.

I just noticed my color-scheme on these pages: they’re all predominantly beer colored.

Tags Berkeley, Drawing, Food sketch, Ink and watercolor wash, Pen and Ink, People, Pyramid Alehouse, Sketchbook Pages, sketching, trivial pursuit

Flower Art Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings Watercolor

Innocent Vixens

First Camellia of Spring; watercolor, painted directly without drawing first — First Camellia of Spring, Watercolor

Yesterday’s rainy-day post was a bit dreary so I wanted to post something bright and cheery today. When the first camellia on the bush bloomed I painted her directly in watercolor, without drawing in pencil or pen first. This little vase looks as intended; it is nearly flat in really life, probably intentionally squished by the potter, with just a sort of slot in the top.

I think this sketch makes good use of the watercolor paper in “The Mutt” (the name I’ve stenciled on the outside of the sketchbook I bound with watercolor paper.) I named it that because it’s a little homely and imperfect but still perfectly lovable.

Innocent Vixens, the full page — The full page

Here is the page where the above sketch resides. I like to make good use of my sketchbook pages. Lately I’ve been grateful for messed up sketches because they become pages that I use for journaling right over the bad sketch. More about that in another post.

Innocent Vixens(?), BART riders, sepia pen — Innocent Vixens, BART riders, sepia pen

And if you were wondering about the post title “Innocent Vixens,” it was from something I heard on the radio. Someone said “innocent victims” and for some reason my mind wandered to “innocent vixens.” It seemed like a concept that might be fun to sketch someday and I wanted to remember it, so into the journal it went, above these innocent (though a bit dorky) BART subway rider guys.

Tags BART, Drawing, Flower Art, flowers, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings, Watercolor, watercolor painting, Word Play

Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Movies People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Rainy Day Plaza and People

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 9, 2010
4 Comments on Rainy Day Plaza and People

Despite the rain I had a great walk to the Farmers Market at El Cerrito Plaza last Saturday. When the rain stopped I sketched and painted at an outdoor table at Peet’s Coffee across the street. Then I continued my walk to do half a dozen errands. One was to pick up the second disk of “Five Days” from the video store.

I’d rented the first disk from Netflix and couldn’t wait for it to go back and part two to arrive. I had to find out what happened. Five days is an incredibly suspenseful, well-written and perfectly acted British TV mini-series about a woman and her kids who go missing. I’d had this movie sitting around for two weeks when I finally sat down to watch it and then couldn’t turn it off. If you like suspenseful police procedurals with great character development, this one is great!

Rainy day, patient, meticulously groomed woman, riding BART.

Didn’t catch a likeness in this quickie sketch, but did catch a bit of her spirit.

Tags Drawing, El Cerrito, El Cerrito Plaza, Five Days, Ink and watercolor wash, Movie review, People, rainy day, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings

Art supplies Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages

Signs of Spring

Signs of spring were sprouting everywhere on my walk and I couldn’t resist stopping to sketch and paint. But I stopped so many times that before I’d gone half a mile I was so hungry I had to return home for lunch before heading out again.

The sketch above graces the first page of my new sketchbook, bound with Arches 90lb cold press watercolor paper. It’s quite different from the Fabriano Venezia sketchbooks I’ve been using the past year.

Princess flower bush blossoms, ink & watercolor

I’m really enjoying the way the book opens flat, it’s size (7.5″ tall x 5.5″ wide) and weight, how comfortable it is to hold and to hold open for working across the spread, the texture of the paper for painting and the way the pages don’t ripple, pill, or show through to the other side. The paper takes a lot of abuse and layering, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because it holds up, but bad because it allows endless diddling around which isn’t really the point of sketching (but is a bad habit of mine).

And what’s a nice walk on a spring-like day without a stop at Peets for a Cappuccino at a sidewalk table and a bit of sketching/painting. I’m still finding my way with this paper, trying to get a sense of how much paint to use, and which pens work best with it.

One thing I’ve determined for sure is that I prefer painting on site when I go out sketching, as I did with these, and not just drawing on site and adding paint later as I did last week with my sketching group. I just spent the evening painting the drawings from last week’s outing and it just didn’t have the zing that painting from life on site does.

You can make many more sketches and have more control of the paint when you save the painting for later, but then you either have to work from memory (of which I have too little) or photos (which never capture what you really see in person) or by using a pencil to softly write “Y” in areas that are yellow, “B” for blue, etc.) While I loved those “paint by number” kits when I was a kid, I’m not crazy about painting by letter now.

Tags Art supplies, Cafe Sketch, coffee, El Cerrito, Flower Art, flowers, Ink and watercolor wash, Peets Coffee, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages

Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Portrait Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Last Pages of the Old Sketchbook

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date February 5, 2010
14 Comments on Last Pages of the Old Sketchbook

Last page self portrait. Ink & watercolor, drawn from life

In Louise Stanley‘s “Rules for Keeping a Sketchbook,” her rule number two is “Start on the third page to get your courage up.” Number three is “Go back to the first page and do a self-portrait when you’ve got the nerve.” At her exhibit it was great seeing some of her (often comical) self-portraits from journals spanning decades.

For my own journals, I preferred the idea of making the last page a self-portrait instead. That way it still creates a record of the YOU that put all that stuff in the journal, but it’s not there staring back at you every time you open the book. So this is my self-portrait on the last page of the Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.

And this is the second to last page. Just a couple of subway riders with a bit of watercolor added later. I’m about a quarter of the way into the new journal I bound myself and am really loving it. My next posts will be from that journal.

And now it’s Friday night and what has felt like a very long, exhausting work week is finally over and I get to transition back to my art life. But that will be tomorrow. Tonight I’m just interested in a good night’s sleep.

Tags BART sketch, Ink and watercolor wash, Louise Stanley, Pen and Ink, People, self-portrait, Sketchbook Pages, subway drawing, Subway drawings

Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Sketches on BART

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).

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!

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.

Tags BART, Drawing, ink sketch, Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings, Subway sketch

Animals Ink and watercolor wash People Photos Places Sketchbook Pages

Lion Door Guard and Cathy’s Bike Guy

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 23, 2010
5 Comments on Lion Door Guard and Cathy’s Bike Guy

The Lion Doorguard & Cathy's Bike Guy — The Lion Door Guard

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.

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.

Tags Animals, Bicycle, Bike, Drawing, Ink and watercolor wash, Lion, Micron Pigma, Oakland, Oakland, Peets Coffee, Pen and Ink, People, Photos, Sketchbook Pages

Albany Food sketch Glass Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Sketching Dinner at Zaki’s Kabob House

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 21, 2010
10 Comments on Sketching Dinner at Zaki’s Kabob House

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.”

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.

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.

Tags Albany, cafe sketching, Drawing, eavesdropping, Food sketch, Glass, Ink and watercolor wash, Micron Pigma, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, Zaki's Kabob House