Chehel Sotoun Palace / Isfahan

Chehel Sotoun Palace / Isfahan, a photo by Behzad Bagheri on Flickr.

کاخ چهلستون / اصفهان

Parque del Oeste, Málaga

As it can be expected from a park that was built in the eighties, the Parque del Oeste (Park of the West) shows features as: lots of concrete, steel canopies, rectilinear shapes... perhaps also looking back on the industrial past of the district. But it is a very frequented space with an interesting open-air contemporary sculpture collection. Children adore it -as much as parents fear it- as they can find many places to hide or climb; and finally, it is the place where our local group of sketchers met recently.




You can see other sketchers' drawings of the same day here.

The Prado at Balboa Park, San Diego, CA

"Aztec Woman of Tehuantepec" Prado, Balboa Park. This sketch was done in conte.

Sketching the Dinner

There's nothing as boring as standing at the cooker, watching tomato sauce reduce. Luckily, sketching always provides an answer...

OLD DOG NEW TRUCK

SEE SPOT RUN

A while back I did a quick sketch of a truck (see below). Not the most profound thing in the world.

The sketch, that is, I was pretty impressed by the truck.

I painted fast, as I was unsure how long it would stay put. When I saw the driver get in the cab, I managed to snap a quick shot with my phone, through my windshield, before the truck pulled away.

The sketch seemed like a runt compared to the actual thing. So on a recent weekend while the girls were away, I cleared off the kitchen table and on a piece of plywood, taped the majority of a 30 X 40 sheet of paper I've been cowering from for about a year.

It was a little daunting having an expanded playground (or maybe I should say battlefield), but I learned much from the experience. The photo and the sketch left many of the details up to the imagination. 

So I just winged it. Especially on the undercarriage.

Though the structure underneath would probably make a mechanic howl with laughter, I'm fairly pleased with the result of the underpainting with respect to the lamps. I played with an idea on the small sketch that I tried to use to more effect on the large one.

Rather than my usual quick shadow underpainting, this time I did an initial large bleed of bright warm colors, then my shadow pass, holding back most of the colored areas. As I layered glazes to define the forms, I selectively held back areas I thought would catch the colored light.  This produced a halfway decent impression of the lights illuminating and reflecting on the dark shapes there. I did a similar thing on the main body of the truck, using somewhat randomly colored bleedy washes underneath a fairly monochromatic series of glazes to try and give the impression of grease over dull metal.

Watercolor 101, I know, but something I had yet to try out.

So much for the old cliche. Woof.

Below are the small sketch and a work in progress snap. 

Mary Star of the Sea Church, La Jolla California

San Diego Urban Sketchers meet at Mary Star of the Sea Church to Paint and sketch.

Jackmy sketch 

part of the church

Green Lantern

This is my 12th and final drawing for the Jogyesa Buddhist Temple 2014 calendar. At certain times of the year, they string up thousands of colored lanterns around the Temple. Right next to the Temple is a very large old tree. People walk around it with their hand outstretched touching the tree as they circle it. There is a slight wearing down of the bark in that area around the tree. It's a very tall tree. From a high vantage point, you can see the rows of lanterns and then magically, a giant tree growing out of the top of them. At night, the lanterns are lit up. It's quite something. I'd like to thank everyone who came to my Etsy shop and bought prints and originals from me. They're going like hot cakes.

Sketching Ancient History

On May 10th, I hopped on a plane from Istanbul to Şanlıurfa, a city in Southern Turkey, near the Syrian border. PeF and I joined a group of Turkish artists called karala(ma), who were invited by Harran University to sketch Şanlıurfa— or Urfa, as the city is commonly called. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Göbeklitepe, a Neolithic sanctuary built by nomads around 10,000 BCE. The sanctuary is a series of circular arrangements of T-shaped pillars, which vary from 3 to 6 metres high. It is believed that the T-pillars are stylised representations of the human form, as some have reliefs of arms carved into them. What I found most intriguing were the beautifully rendered animals— foxes, boar, birds, and other animals were carefully carved into the faces of the pillars, some with great detail. Göbeklitepe is the oldest example of a religious site ever found, and its complexity is baffling.



I thought I'd add two photos of the sketching event at this important historic site— it was such an honour to be invited by Harran University and karala(ma).

Me, Orhan Zafer and Ayşegül Güvenir, founders of the Turkish artist group karala(ma)

From left to right: I did not catch this lovely lady's name, Orhan, Nur, Turkish archaeologist Mehmet Önay,
Aysel, Ayşegül, Ayşe, Ayla, PeF and me.

If you'd like to read more about my adventure in Şanlıurfa, and see some of the photos and sketches I made along the way, please visit my blog Harika.

Flea market

Flea market in Frankfurt, quick sketch on the smartphone while watching the sellers pack up.

Reading and riding in Spanish again.

Weekends in Brooklyn (and Queens and the Bronx) are always an adventure: track work time. Going from one part (Windsor Terrace) to another part (Greenpoint) of the big borough of Brooklyn can mean 3 line changes, 4 trains. This ride saw a broken G train: into two legs. The Bolaño quote reads in English: At first sight it seemed the same as always, better even, more animated.

My studio is big enough to be multi-purpose: not just art making, but also reading, Spanish study, yoga. I love to merge the art and the Spanish. I think of them both as languages within which I'm working on fluency. It's so much easier to read in Spanish on Kindle, where you can work with an interactive dictionary. Qué pena that some of my favorite authors aren't yet available in that format! The Muñoz Molina quote: wandering among things impelled by the impossible task of speeding up time.
Sketchblog:  DayBooks

'The Love Box' ?

Last week was spent on a business trip working at a trade show booth in Las Vegas.
I've been there numerous times both on business and on pleasure trips and still can't get over how surreal the place is.
Although I was really tired from working everyday, I still had to get the room sketch out of the way before I could really rest. After 8 years of drawing every hotel room I stayed in, it's almost engraved in me to get the sketch done. It does feel good after completing it though.

Out of the items that stood out in the room, 'The love box' was a small black box on sale along with other things such as snacks and drinks. I was curious on what was inside but was scared to touch it since all these items on display were on a weight sensor and touching it causes the item to be charged to the room.
The room was a little dated but was fairly nice.

Pune, India

One of the great things travelling abroad is the possibility to meet other sketchers. When I knew I was going to Mumbai I decided immediately to visit USk correspondent Sanjeev Joshi. He lives in Pune, only 4 hours from Mumbay what for India is quite a short distance.  Pune has an important industrial sector and is also know for its Ashrams.

Sanjeev was an awesome host. He invited  Michael and me for a dinner at his home, where we met his lovely wife. We got one of the best meals in the trip. The next day he took us to a very peaceful temple courtyard in the middle of a very busy market area. I think this is one of the places you can only know if you are a local.

Sanjeev paints some pages of his sketchbooks before he gets out sketching. The shapes he makes are very interesting.  He uses some calligraphic tools for that.  I made a picture of it but I lost that image when my cell phone broke.

Above is  Sanjeev's drawing.

And below is my watercolor:

Sanjeev also took us to the studio of the paitnter Milind Mulick.  I will write a post about him and his work next  but meanwhile you could take a pick at the link above.

Thanks to Michael Evgi for the pictures, and thanks Sanjeev for showing us Pune!

The Denver Public Library

After having lived here a year I finally got around to getting my Denver Public Library Card.  And lately, since I got my first Stillman and Birn sketchbook I can't stop sketching in and around the library.

The part of the Denver Public Library in this sketch was designed by Michael Graves and built in 1995 as an addition to a much smaller original portion that can't be seen on the other side of this building.  It shares a large plaza with the Denver Art Museum, and it's a great place to sketch and people-watch.



Inside the large round area are several floors of great spaces to draw.
The reference area, on the third floor:


The 5th floor Western History and Genealogy Dept has this beautiful wooden "oil derrick" in the middle of the room.

and this other nice, open reading space:


And the views of downtown Denver are fantastic.


by Paul Heaston

Line-line Journey III: Kaohsiung (Part II)

高雄港口眺望
Size: 28 x 56 cm
Media: Chinese ink & watercolour on paper

鳳邑雙慈宮 Size: 28 x 56 cm
Media: Chinese ink & watercolour on paper

橋頭糖廠
Size: 19 x 56 cm
Media: Chinese ink & watercolour on paper

橋糖文創園區
Size: 19 x 56 cm
Media: Chinese ink & watercolour on paper

鳳山火車站
Size: 19 x 56 cm
Media: Chinese ink & watercolour on paper

Another set of colour sketches done during Line-line Journey III travel + exhibition.

Do you mind some shop talk? Some tips on composition :)

Looking back, I thought this page from the other week was a good example in a few ways.

Here's what I was actually looking at.



Kind of a good example what they mean by 'simplification' hey? They keep telling you to do that - simplify. But what does it really mean?  Creating Focus. Leaving out whatever is in the way of that single thing that drew your eye.

Clearly, I don't want the truck in my sketch :)  that's easy. But also I see immediately that the yellow awning and cafe below it is the interesting part of this view.  Not the people setting up their booth. Not the larger building, but the smaller one.

So even in the drawing, you can see the focus being created with composition.  Leaving out most of the blue building, but using it to be a big directional arrow pointing to the subject. Clustering all the detail - all the little active shapes - under the awning. Leaving out distractions - even tho' I love lamp-posts and foreground trees! It was hard to force myself to leave that stuff out.



I like to say to students - "spend half the time on the drawing. and half on the paint". People never want to do that. They want to get right to the color! But if you delay your gratification, you'll be much happier. See how the shadow shapes in the roof-line are sketched in the drawing? The design is solved before I go to color. It's great to be able to put aside the design thinking - so when you're painting, you can just paint. The work is done, so you can play with the color.

So, this is the first pass - the wet-in-wet wash. This is what they mean, 'work larger to smaller'. Only the big blocks of color. This also is when you let the watercolor mingle naturally.  This is why you're not oil painting. Watercolor should be allowed to do it's magic thing. Take advantage of the physics of water.



Then finally, after an hour or more of delaying gratification - you get to draw the details! Maybe it's just me - but it's the detail that I love. I really want to just start noodling immediately with tiny tiny shapes. But if you do that, you'll lose the 'life' - the freshness that make a sketch appealing.

These smaller shadows, and dark darks are when I start painting wet-on-dry -  so I can get a sharp edge when I want it. (Window panes!) And I'm using less water, more paint, so my shadows have solidity.

The eye loves three things - contrast, chroma (intense color) and detail. If they are not kept in the same place - the eye will wander - seeking information and entertainment. A tight composition keeps the darkest darks, the smallest details,  and the brightens colors in the same place.  The focal point.

See how each window gets progressively more interesting as you work left to right, then down to the bright awning, until suddenly you're walking into a nice cafe! Looks like a great place for lunch :)

I like to call this the "Gradient of Interest". All the elements working together to lead the eye.