Tag: People

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Dreams Outdoors/Landscape People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Watery dream

Watery dream

Ink & watercolor in HandBook Co square sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

For years I used to get up every morning and sketch my dreams before I did anything else. I have volumes of dream journals full of weird, amusing or x-rated drawings, depending on what the night had in store for me. I often painted the images too. I’m not sure when or why I stopped but I recently discovered an artist who works primarily from her dreams in monotype, Denise Kester, and got inspired to explore my dreams again.

My dreams are often humorous (to me anyway, but then I’m easily amused) or insightful — sometimes I wake up having invented something important and funny, as I illustrated here (one of my very favorite posts) or just quirky, like this one.

In the quickly sketched image above from last night, I dreamt that Sharon and I were canooeing down a pretty river when I realized that we had sunk up to our necks and that I was still wearing my fanny pack containing all my electronic gadgets (cell phone, digital camera, PDA) and they were all ruined. There was more about trying to put on ill-fitting overalls after nude sunbathing but I always hate it in novels when writers go on and on about a character’s dreams so I won’t bore you further with this one.

One last thing, this image of a river with tall banks is the same one I tried to make when I was 10 and convinced my father to let me paint with his oil paints. Unfortunately he gave me a piece of waxy palette paper to paint on and I remember it being so terribly frustrating to not be able to capture the image or anything at all, really, on that horrid paper. It kept me from trying to paint again for another 20 years.

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People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Judith (and Fiona) in the Night Studio

Judith in the Night Studio

Ink drawing with watercolor Raffine 6×9 sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

Tonight my painting group came by for our usual Tuesday (or sometimes Wednesday) painting session. Judith offered to pose for me while she was working on a painting and she was a perfect model. She actually was an artist’s model back in her art school days. Fiona decided to pose too — she’s on the window seat behind Judith.

This was the last page in this notebook and even though I’ve complained about the Raffine sketchbook from time to time, I’ve come to like it in a funny way. Because I didn’t love it I could be really free about sketching in it, not caring if I “wasted” pages. That way of thinking has rubbed off on all my sketchbooks (I have half a dozen going at once so I can pick just the one I’m in the mood for or that’s the right size) so I’m treating them all as working tools rather than precious items of value on their own.

I’m amazed and happy that my energy has returned and I haven’t had any caffeine since last Thursday. I guess I’ve completed my caffeine detox and I’m back to myself again…or maybe it’s the wonderful rainy weather I love so much, or the finally waning full moon. Whatever it is, I’ll take it! After a good night’s sleep last night, a productive day at work doing things that were not easy, and our painting session tonight, I’m still feeling cheery and not tired. Yay!

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Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages

Roofers & Baghdad Journal

Roofers

Pigma Brush Pen in 9×12 Aquabee Sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

Sorry for the slim pickins’ today. Yesterday evening I was starting to come down with a migraine which hit in full force early this morning, wiping out all chances of spending time in the studio today. I did this sketch of my next door neighbor’s roofers yesterday morning before work, looking out my kitchen window. They never stopped moving and were wearing very baggy clothes. I tried to pretend I was doing one-minute gesture sketches in a figure-drawing group but it was more like five-second gesture drawings with the figures hidden behind sweatshirts and droopy pants. That’s not a missile the guy’s holding at the bottom right of the drawing, pointing to the guy loosing his pants, it’s a long piece of aluminum.

Since I don’t have anymore of my own art to share tonight (and am amazed I’m even up standing at the computer after a day flat on my back with my eyes covered), I thought I’d mention a truly amazing book I just got at the library. It’s the artwork of Steve Mumford and is called Baghdad Journal: An Artist in Occupied Iraq. You can also see some of his online journal and images here. Anyone who’s enjoyed the work of any of the Everyday Matters journal artists including many of the people listed in my links must see Mr. Mumford’s work. As the liner notes say, “His everyday scenes of Iraq in bold, breathtaking watercolors and drawings…paint a human side of the war…from all sides of the conflict.”

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Animals People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Scared by a Bear at U.C. Berkeley

UC Berkeley Bear

Micron pigma ink, Kremer Pigments Watercolors in Raffine 6×9 sketchbook
(To enlarge click image, select “All Sizes”)

Barbara and I were taking a walk across the University of California’s Berkeley campus a couple of weeks ago in a drizzling rain. As we turned a corner we heard barking and then saw this little dog barking at a stone bear (the U.C. mascot). His owners were laughing as the well-dressed pup gradually inched his way closer, barking all the way. I barely had time to get my camera out of its case and snap a picture before they moved on.

Tonight I started to draw the scene from my photo in my watercolor Moleskine with an .01 Micron Pigma but it just wasn’t happening — just couldn’t get in the flow. So I abandoned the drawing and switched to the Raffine sketchbook and an .03 Micron Pigma. Somehow the fatter line worked better and let me be more playful with my lines as I drew. Meanwhile, my painting group and I were listening to some good music, chatting, and drinking Bengal Spice herb tea.

Last night I had a brief and ugly night’s sleep that was cut even shorter by my cats at 6:00 a.m. Busby came crashing into my room, his head stuck in the handle of a brown paper grocery bag. He managed to break free of it with that grand entrance, but that was the end of my fitful sleep. So I’m off now to try for better luck tonight!

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People Sketchbook Pages

Figure Drawing Group Tonight

Figure drawing group 1

Pencil in 14×17″ sketchbook

Figure Drawing Group 3

Sketched with watercolor then ink and watercolor washes added. In 9×12 Aquabee sketchbook

Figure drawing group 2

Ink (Pentel brush pen) with water added to make washes in 14×17″ sketchbook

Friday nights there’s a figure drawing group open to the public that meets on the U.C. Berkeley campus. It’s a great deal– $4.00 for 3 hours and excellent models. Our plans to go were on and off and then suddenly on again so we arrived a little late. This model really knew how to pose in interesting ways and was quite beautiful (my pictures don’t do her justice). I experimented with sketching in pencil, in ink, and watercolor with ink added afterwards. It was all fun and challenging. I saw a man there who was a regular in this same group when I used to go 20 years ago. His charcoal sketches are still phenomenal.

The whole time we were drawing we could hear people chanting, yelling and clapping nearby. I found out afterwards there was a huge pep rally going on because tomorrow is the “Big Game” between Cal (public university) and their arch rivals, Stanford (private, pricey university). When we left we saw the band playing and marching from campus up Bancroft and into a building across the street.

Categories
People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Small sleepy sketches

Cafe

BART passenger

Just a couple of quick sketches today. I drew the top sketch at Peets Coffee tonight, a few minutes before they were closing. There were still three people sitting at tables and each had one foot up on extra chairs. If Peets wasn’t about to close and I wasn’t so sleepy, it would have been fun to keep drawing. It’s not much of a sketch but at least I got my pound of decaf Holiday Blend for tomorrow morning.

The bottom picture is just a guy I drew on my very late (7 PM) BART ride home from work. Coming home so late, I was really glad I’d spent yesterday evening making a huge pot of vege soup and roasting a chicken instead of in the studio. It was so nice to come home and know the soup and chicken just needed a quick trip through the microwave and dinner would be ready. Making pictures is great, but you can’t eat them, so every now and then other things just have to come first. Like maybe tomorrow I’ll get to the dust bunnies and fur balls floating around the house! (or not?)

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Cartoon art Drawing People

No paper: what’s an artist to do?

In Line at Trader Joes
Ink on Biscotti package 4.5″ x 5
(Click image to enlarge, select “All Sizes”)

So there I was standing in a checkout line at Trader Joes that wasn’t moving, with the store crammed full of pre-Thanksgiving shoppers who like me, put off doing their week’s grocery shopping until Sunday evening. I was already feeling kind of down and grumpy because of the end of the weekend and lack of progress/success in the studio today.

After a few minutes I was also bored and started trying to think of what I could do to pass the long wait. Naturally I thought of sketching but I’d left my sketchbook in the car. I searched my pockets and bag for paper to no avail. I looked around at the display in front of me, and considered ripping off a piece of the cardboard and drawing on it but figured that might be frowned upon.

I looked in my cart and found the perfect canvas — the back of my bag of Trader Joes Biscotti (to be exact, “Trader Giotto’s Chocolate Almond Biscotti”). So I grabbed my pen and drew the people in line in front of me and the checker and bagger. By the time I got up to the checkout stand, I was in a much better mood and would have been happy to stand in line even longer, drawing more people.

The checker apologized for the long lines and I told him I’d amused myself by drawing on the package he’d just scanned. He looked at it again and said he thought it came that way. Then he started chatting with me about his lack of skill at drawing and how his father won’t shop there because of the long lines, while the people behind me stood there waiting. To hurry things along I asked for my $20 cash back and he apologized again, saying he forgot about it because he got so interested in my drawing.

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Drawing People Sketchbook Pages

What I should have done first

Value study of M.

Pentel GFKP Pocket Brush Pen and Pentel #101 Brush Pen in Raffine 6×9″ Sketchbook
(To enlarge click image, select “All Sizes”)

More about the drawing in a minute, but first…

Tonight my painting group met to celebrate Susie’s birthday at Saul’s Jewish Deli in Berkeley. It was pretty funny that all five of us ordered exactly the same thing and thoroughly enjoyed it: grilled trout, veges and a big crispy potato latke with applesauce. Then we talked about getting older, aging parents, Susie’s adventures last week going to see the aging Rolling Stones, the pros and cons of dementia, and of course, art.

There’s a wonderful used bookstore, Black Oak Books, next door to the restaurant so after chocolate birthday cake, complete with candle, singing waiters and applauding restaurant patrons, we went to the bookstore where I was excited to find a book on Janet Fish. Her watercolors and oils of glass and other transparent objects have always been a huge inspiration to me. I bought that one and put an amazing book on Viennese Watercolors of the 19th century on hold until I can bring in a couple boxes of books I’m ready to part with in trade.

Now back to the drawing/painting:

Before I started the oil painting yesterday I should have taken some time to do thumbnail sketches to develop the composition, done a value study, and some drawings to become more familiar with the structure and characteristics of the face and torso. In watercolor it’s pretty important to do this first. But I was so antsy to get my brush in the slippery oil paint that I just went for it. Now while I’m waiting for the paint to dry I’ll work backwards, doing the preliminary sketches.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing this drawing with the very sensual and expressive Pentel Pocket Brush Pen (waterproof ink) and the Pentel Brush Pen (not waterproof). I added a little water with a regular brush to get a light ink wash for the gray areas from the non-waterproof ink that I’d applied.

Meanwhile I’m reading lots of library books on oil painting to refresh my feeble memory in oil painting technique. What’s interesting is that there seems to be about 26 watercolor how-to books published for every 1 oil painting book and most of the oil painting books were published a long time ago. There isn’t even an “oil painting” category in the library’s card catalogue (but there is for watercolor and acrylic painting). Is it because oils simply don’t require so many technical skills? Or are watercolor painters a better market, more likely to buy books?

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Oil Painting People

First pass at oil painting

First pass at oil

First layer of oil sketch with 2 colors (burnt sienna & ultramarine blue), 12 x 16 inches

I’m feeling a little sheepish about posting this wonky off kilter portrait but it’s today’s sketch….so here it is. I had the canvas on an easel at too much of an angle I think — her face seems distorted in the photo and it wasn’t when I was painting it.

Having not used oils for 20 years, I didn’t quite know how to start so I grabbed a photo of someone dear to me, squeezed out some burnt sienna and ultramarine blue on my palette and started drawing with a brush and thinned paint. I was trying to avoid turpentine, using Galkyd and Gamsol (alkyd medium and odorless mineral spirits — OMS — by Gamblin which is supposed to be less toxic than others). First I tried paint diluted with 50/50 Galkyd and Gamsol but it still seemed too rich for a first layer so I started using just the Gamsol thinner and that didn’t work too well–it started dissolving the paint around it. (Oil paint has to be painted lean to fat — the first layers need to not have too much oil in them or subsequent layers won’t adhere properly.)

I loved the way it felt to work with oil — to be able to sort of sculpt with paint and have it slide around nicely. Now I need to wait for this to dry and then I can go in and fix the drawing and then start on skin tones. It’s interesting feeling like a beginner again…I’ve forgotten so much of the little I knew about oil painting but hopefully that little will return and the knowledge and skills I’ve developed with watercolor and drawing will be helpful.

Fortunately it was a warm evening tonight, even though it’s raining, so I could leave my windows and door to my studio open while using the OMS. The stuff didn’t smell, but now I have a weird metallic taste in my mouth which means there was something toxic in the air and which means I won’t be leaving a container of OMS open while I work again.

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Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Drawings (BART)

Subway Drawing - BART 7

Ink in Moleskine (click image, select All Sizes to enlarge) 

He was sitting two seats up from me this morning and his profile was irresistible. He was a perfect model for the whole 13 minute ride. When I got off he gave me a knowing look. He couldn’t see me drawing him (the seat between us hid my notebook on my lap) so maybe he thought the times he caught me looking at him were because I found him irresistible.

Bart-Susie
Ink in Moleskine (click image, select All Sizes to enlarge)

The drawings above (Susie) and below (Sharon) were done last Thursday night on BART when we were returning from the art show in San Francisco. Neither of the pictures capture their likenesses though they do capture something of them.

Bart-Sharon

Ink in Moleskine (click image, select All Sizes to enlarge)