Tag: People

Santa’s Name is James

Icky Shrimp Taco and Signed by Santa James — (left) Cactus Taqueria Diners with Xmas decor; (right) Santa Sketch Signed by Santa James

Cathy had the brave idea to sketch at the San Francisco Centre mall. I say “brave” because for some of us, entering an upscale glitzy mall during the holidays requires much girding of the loins. It was fun sketching on BART on the way there, but when I entered the mall I felt like I’d walked into a science fiction movie.

Noise! Shiny stuff! Expensive stuff! Way too much stuff! Escalators winding around and around, floor after floor, up to a huge domed ceiling where Santa and my sketch group were supposed to be. But it turned out there are two domes and I was on the wrong side of the mall.

Finally I made it to the correct dome where movies were projected on the dome ceiling, music was playing and Santa was sitting on a throne in front of a backdrop that said “The Picture Perfect Holiday Made Possible by Microsoft.” When they took your picture with Santa they cropped out the Microsoft bit.

After I sketched Santa I went up to get my free photo with him. Isn’t he the most perfect looking Santa? I asked him to sign my sketch and he did, “Santa James.” He maintained that cherubic smile all evening through dozens of crabby children and silly adults getting their picture taken with him. One group of 4 teen girls all talked on their cellphones while their picture was taken.

Tags Art, Ink and watercolor wash, Pen and Ink, People, Santa, Sketchbook Pages

Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Sketchbook Pages

Is Your Style a Mistake? How to Find Your Style as an Artist

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 11, 2011
6 Comments on Is Your Style a Mistake? How to Find Your Style as an Artist

Caffe Trieste before the band, ink & watercolor, 7x5" — Caffe Trieste (she's saving seats with her backpack) before the band (then six people crowded around those 2 tiny tables, sitting on laps), ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Caffe Trieste was crammed with people when we went to sketch and listen to the wonderful Randy Craig Trio—probably double the little café’s legal limit. The title of the post: “Your Style is a Mistake…” comes from a Robert Genn quote that I noted in my journal below:

How to Find Your Style as an Artist

In an interview, Robert Genn was asked, “How does an artist find their own style?” His answer was brilliant. He said (paraphrased here) that typically what makes your style yours, what makes it unique, is the thing you do “wrong;” it is the way you break the rules intentionally or just don’t do something “correctly” that defines your style.

In other words (mine), quit hating and start embracing those wonky lines that won’t behave, that paint applied differently than those artists you aspire to emulate or the hard edges or soft focus or pale washes… Keep studying and learning and practicing, but appreciate what you can do now and cherish those quirks. (Talking to myself here!)

Randy Craig Trio guitarist, ink & watercolor

You don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful and neither does your art. As a matter of fact, “perfect” art (in my opinion) is boring art.

When you make mistakes, think about how you’ll do it differently next time, but also look for the bit that worked even if it’s just a small passage. For example in the sketch above, the music stand didn’t work at all, nor did the singer I cropped off on the right, but I did a much better job with the guitar this time than I did last time I sketched at Trieste.

Tags Art, Berkeley, Caffe Trieste, Drawing, Ink and watercolor wash, Pen and Ink, People, Robert Genn, Sketchbook Pages

Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at Saul’s Deli

Waiting for my dinner, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

When we sketch at Saul’s Deli, a favorite during the dark winter Tuesday nights, I often feel overwhelmed by the complicated architecture with diamond patterned floors and maybe 70 booths and tables. So I started with something easier: what was on the table. Immediately I screwed up the ellipse of the glass but am learning to say, “that’s OK” and just move on.

After I ate I started drawing people. The place was packed since it was Thanksgiving week and there were many guests in town. I asked the waiter if it was a problem we were hogging three tables and he said we were doing him a favor by lightening his load.

These guys were having a good time and I enjoyed drawing them. Then for some reason I drew some other people on the same page but tried to hide them when I painted it since they didn’t belong there.

I messed up her lips and tried to fix it and made it worse. I’ve noticed my sketching has suffered a bit lately from neglect as I’ve been working on some 16×20 oil portraits and all my drawing efforts have been on the paintings. It’s amazing how quickly I lose sketching fluency without daily practice…so I’m back to it now.

Tags Art, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages

Drawing Faces People People at Work Portrait Series Sketchbook Pages

Working People Pre-Portrait Portraits in Blue

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date November 8, 2011
11 Comments on Working People Pre-Portrait Portraits in Blue

County Fair Taco Seller, ink, acrylic, watercolor, 7x5"

I finally started working on a series of 16×20″ oil portraits, mostly of people who work in my neighborhood shops. It took a long time to figure out how I wanted to approach the paintings and in the meantime I made several preliminary sketches in my journal.

This blue series began as a way to cover a really ugly page in my journal. To cover the mess, I mixed some Golden Absorbent Ground (gesso-like, but designed to prepare surfaces for watercolor painting) and some ultramarine blue watercolor. I didn’t mix it very well, as you can see from the streaks, but I actually like it this way. Drawing with a pen worked well on it too. When taco girl (above) dried, I painted in her very red hair.

Kim the Barista, ink & acrylic & watercolor

I covered two more pages in my journal with the remaining blue Absorbent Ground. Something went a little wrong with my drawing of Kim’s eyes (above) which don’t quite match in size or location. Oops. I sketched Kim before (see pics here) when I was taken by the scene’s resemblance to Manet’s “Bar at Folies Bergère.”

I felt a little embarrassed to ask Elliot to let me take a photo of him behind the meat counter but I had to. There is something old-fashioned about him that always makes me picture him in a Norman Rockwell painting. I had a little problem with one of his eyes too, but his oil painting is coming along nicely.

Taco Girl and Kitchen on Fire Spread in Journal

This is the spread in my journal where this series started. The Taco Girl oil portrait is half done. It will be a while before I finish and post the oil paintings but I am enjoying working on several at once, so that while a layer of one dries another is ready to work on.

And I’m so happy to have figured out how I want to paint them: I’m painting how I paint! More about that in another post.

Tags Art, Faces, Pen and Ink, People

Bookbinding Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Quick Sketches in Stonehenge Kraft Brown Potato Chip Journal

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date November 5, 2011
9 Comments on Quick Sketches in Stonehenge Kraft Brown Potato Chip Journal

I breezed through this little pamphlet-bound potato chip box journal in a few weeks. Since Roz Stendahl just posted about her problems binding this paper, I thought I’d share my results with binding and sketching on this paper.

Since my sketchbook was small, pamphlet-bound (stitched down the middle only) with just 3 holes, I didn’t have trouble with the pages cracking like she did in her case-bound journal. I found the paper too rough for drawing with a fine point or fountain pen and settled on a Faber-Castell Pitt Medium pen. I also experimented unsuccessfully on one sketch with a white gel pen.

I do like the paper for quick sketching and I’m going to continue experimenting with it. Roz says it’s good for gouache. I’d like to try it using black line and wash with white gouache for highlights. I used it for oil pastel and wasn’t happy with the results.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Stonehenge Brown Kraft Paper, Subway drawings

Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Kensington People Sketchbook Pages

Kensington Harvest Parade

Boy Scouts Waiting to Parade, ink & watercolor 5x7"

I was supposed to go to a plein air paint-out but woke up in an ornery mood with a headache and decided to stay closer to home. Kensington, a nearby community of hills, big houses and trees was having their annual Harvest Parade so I drove the mile or so up there and perched on a low wall outside the combination drugstore/post office. These boy scouts above were fooling around on the bench beside me, waiting for the call to line up. They were constantly moving but I somehow managed to draw them as if they were holding still.

Lining up to begin the parade, ink & watercolor, 7x5" — Ready to march, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Across the street in front of the Sugar Cone Cafe in the hardware store parking lot staging-area, people started lining up. The El Cerrito High School Gaucho’s marching band practiced their flute and drum routines, cub scouts hug-wrestled, and a girl in a fairy costume twirled.

Once the parade started moving I followed along the six blocks to the library/community center destination. It was a charming, small-town event that had everyone smiling.

Tags Kensington, Pen and Ink, People

Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Cheeseboard and Kitchen on Fire

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 27, 2011
6 Comments on Cheeseboard and Kitchen on Fire

Kitchen on Fire Tools, ink & watercolor, 7x5" — Kitchen on Fire: Tools of the Trade, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Don’t worry, nothing’s burning! “Kitchen on Fire” is the name of a cooking school in the heart of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto. We ended our sketching evening there when it got too dark to draw on the street. The chefs were cleaning up after an evening class and were nice enough to let us hang out and sketch until they finished. I’ve heard classes there are a lot of fun.

Cheeseboard Musicians, ink & watercolor, 7x5" — Freddy Hughes Band, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

The Cheeseboard Collective (PLEASE see wonderful sketches on their website here) has over 400 kinds of cheese and in the evening sells their pizza of the day to people who line up for it. They host bands who entertain the diners sitting on benches, at cafe tables or picnicking on the grass in the median strip of the street.

Be sure to watch this video long enough to see the two “Keep off the median” street signs and the guy using it as a back rest: pure Berkeley.

My first sketch of the evening was of this group of burly gentlemen below, enjoying their pizza crowded around a table in the dark, lit by streetlights and storefronts.

Eating pizza, ink & watercolor, 5x7" — Eating pizza outside the Cheeseboard, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

I had a hard time with the sketch. There were actually 6 guys but they arrived one at a time, and kept changing places at the table outside the Cheeseboard. I had a whole story going in my mind about how they were Greek or Russian furniture movers.

I thought they didn’t notice me drawing them but when they got up to leave they asked to see. I was mortified since I’d done them no favors with my rendering. They were very nice anyway, recognized each other in the picture and laughed as much at themselves as at my sketch.

Then the guy on the left told me he was an artist who loves to draw and he was very encouraging. That’s the nice thing about sketching in public. Nobody ever criticizes your work, no matter how bad you think it might be.

Tags Art, Berkeley, Drawing, Ink and watercolor wash, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages

Art supplies Bookbinding Drawing People Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages

End of Tablecloth Journal Self Portrait

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 10, 2011
10 Comments on End of Tablecloth Journal Self Portrait

End of Journal Self Portrait, colored pencils, 7x5"

As I complete each journal I draw a self-portrait for the last page. I really liked the ink drawing I made for this one but then totally messed it up when I was painting it and tried to “fix” something. The more I tried, the worse it became. So I scanned the sketch and used Photoshop to remove all the color, leaving me with just the original line drawing below.

Line drawing for self portrait — Line drawing for self-portrait scanned from bad watercolor sketch

From Photoshop I printed the line drawing onto a piece of the same watercolor paper I use in my journals. Since the ink from my inkjet printer is water-soluble (darn) I couldn’t add watercolor. I used Faber-Castell POLYCHROMOS colored pencils instead and tried to keep a light touch after having overworked the original.

I cut out the sketch to fit into the journal (and cover the yucky sketch), and glued it down with a glue stick. The completed journal is pictured below, covered with a piece of an old tablecloth that lost its “oil cloth” coating when I washed it years ago.

Newly bound journal; cover from old tablecloth — Completed tablecloth-covered journal

It’s so interesting to me how these end of journal sketches turn out. I’d had a rare and unusually good night’s sleep and was in a good mood when I drew this one. What they say about beauty sleep seems to be true, even in sketches — I definitely look more youthful and pretty in this sketch than some of the others I did under less optimal circumstances.

You can see previous end of journal self portraits at this link.

Tags Art, Bookbinding, Drawing, Pen and Ink, People, self-portrait, Sketchbook Pages

Albany Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Places Shop windows Sketchbook Pages

Evening Outside the Burger Depot

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date October 4, 2011
6 Comments on Evening Outside the Burger Depot

Trying to get in one last outdoor evening sketch session of the season, we sketched at the bottom of Solano Avenue in Albany. I stood under a street lamp and by the time I finished drawing it was dark out.

The proprietor of the Burger Depot who has owned the shop for over 30 years saw me trying to paint standing, with my palette and water on the ground, and brought over a plastic chair and a little table for me. The street light and light from inside the shop gave me just enough light to see what I was doing.

I was initially drawn to the scene by two seedy looking guys sitting in a window seat but they left before I could draw them. Fortunately the other two guys eating there were wonderful models who kept returning to the same positions, making it easy-ish to draw them.

Tags Albany, Art, Drawing, Ink and watercolor wash, Pen and Ink, People, Plein Air, Sketchbook Pages

Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

4th Street Berkeley Sketches during New Apple Store Grand Opening

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date September 12, 2011
8 Comments on 4th Street Berkeley Sketches during New Apple Store Grand Opening

This Old Band on 4th Street, 7x5", ink & watercolor — This Old Band performing on 4th Street, 7x5", ink & watercolor

Waiting in Line at Apple, Waiting to Play in Front of Peets, 2 page spread — Waiting in Line at Apple, Waiting to Play in Front of Peet's, 2 page spread

When the new Apple Store opened in Berkeley, I played hooky from my plein air group’s scheduled paint out and went down to 4th Street in pursuit of sketching opportunities and one of the free t-shirts Apple was giving out to the first 1,000 customers.

When I arrived an hour after the grand opening, the line was barely one block long and moving quickly. By the time I sketched a few people and balloons (above) I was in the store. I got my shirt, bought a gizmo for my gadget and went across the street to Peet’s Coffee.

I enjoyed an iced coffee at a sunny table on their front patio as “This Old Band” set up to play. The music was wonderful, with a sweet, sensitive, gentle feel to it including some Otis Redding, The Drifters and other great oldies played by talented musicians.

There were some interesting (?) conversations going on around me.

Peet's Patio People, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

This guy was actually sitting at a table with another woman beside him on his right blabbing away, but he seemed more interested in this one.

A chubby, balding, dorky-looking, baby-boomer guy sitting behind me pompously talked non-stop about his life as a rock star and the book he was writing about it. His wife never said a word, and the guy he was talking to was obviously someone he was paying to help him with the book, though he barely got a word in either.

After dropping dozens of famous stars’ names who he supposedly shared a life with, he admitted it was “Better to be a Has Been than a Never Been.”

Tags Art, Berkeley, Drawing, Ink and watercolor wash, Peets Coffee, Pen and Ink, People, Sketchbook Pages, This Old Band