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.

Red Truck

My trusty Sailor Fude de Mannen Fountain pen (http://flic.kr/p/cmtQBG) I had out on repair for over a month finally came back home. It was a rough month without it but I made it through using other pens in between. I drew one of my favorite subjects once it came back - a heavy duty truck.

San Diego Urban Sketchers Meet Up at Old Poway Park

Jack, Lydia and Dominique

Dominique

Lydia

Jack

Lisbon

Are the billboards advertising an obstruction of the visual landscape? The drawing can return to town the missing part of a view. This was my proposed in a billboards artistic circuit in Lisbon.

Hot Air Balloons and Vintage Cars

Getting my family up and out of the house on a Saturday morning is like pulling teeth. But today was an exception. Nobody complained about the 7am wake up call to go up on hot air balloon and helicopter rides at the Wings of History Museum, a little volunteer run airplane museum and restoration center in San Martin, California.

I sketched while we stood in line for our tethered balloon ride.

We met a balloon pilot who comes down to volunteer all the way from South Dakota every year, and watched as a volunteer crew helped hold down the basket and tethers to load and unload people after their rides.

My daughter was old enough to go up in a helicopter ride ( free, just like the balloon rides) but my son was not, so he and I hung out and looked around at the vintage cars while she  was on her ride. Here are a couple of cars from our morning.

More sketches and stories from my morning excursion on my blog and a complete set on flickr.

Hikichidai Park sketching

My watercolor class students and I had sketch outing to Hikichidai Park, Kanagawa prefecture twice this month.
I brought different sketchbooks and different brand's watercolor sets each time. I applied different technics. Am I too capricious? I'm still experimenting and I keep asking myself what is my style...

I minimized my brush strokes and added details using black of pen and white correction fluid.


For this one, I had no intention to depict reality, rather my priority was to explain what's going on there using minimized color and strokes because I was standing and carrying heavy bags..


I wanted to depict more in detail with pencil lines but pencil lead made the drawing a bit too grayish...


This one, I took more time and I observed much carefully.


The half right was almost finished and the half left wasn't. It wasn't on purpose, just the matter of time, I just gave up further drawing.

Comic style

Victoria - red fish blue fish - lining up for seafood, originally uploaded by Matthew-1.

I drew this with a selection of grey pitt pens I won in a draw around Christmas.
I like the way this turned out in what I call a "comic book style". It feels like a page from a story somehow...
I saw an exhibit of Art Spiegelman's work recently at the Vancouver Art Gallery (he won a pulitzer prize for his illustrated novel "Maus"), which included a lot of "comic" style drawings. It's actually a very mature medium now and I like it more and more.

Crossfit Regionals, Del Mar, CA

An out of town friend was in Del Mar today attending the Crossfit Regionals. While she was performing her volunteer duties I got to sketch!

ice 1608

leipzig > berlin

comfort = seat + no network connection

| rolf schröter

Zzzzzzzzz.....

Drawing on the train again, this time coming back from a school visit in Selby:

On the way there first thing, my train was cancelled and the train company put me in a replacement taxi instead. I didn't dare draw the other 5 people crammed in with me - a bit too obvious even for me!