Last spring was the season for the e-bikes explosion, and this fall is the season for e-scooters. Scooters are everywhere in my neighborhood near San Diego State University, and ever so much fun to ride. The pathways up at the college are full, which means I have lots of opportunity for quick gesture sketches, like this one.
I hope to get more sketches tomorrow and then to develop a larger painting.
This is a gouache sketch on a 9 X 9-inch sheet of black paper.
My brother sent us wonderful photos of his newest grandchild, including the one this sketch is based on. I did not succeed in doing justice to the preciousness of the child or the pride of the father, but I like this painting anyway. There is something about the way the young father is looking off into the distance that suggests he is feeling the weight of his new responsibilities, and it is a look I recognize. It may be that some of the worries I felt as a new mother became imposed on my nephew’s face. In any case, I like this sketch.
We are getting bits of fall color throughout San Diego, now that it is mid-November. This is a street not too far from my house, but with a much more rural feel, especially if you position your easel so that the nearby homes are outside of the view area.
This is a gouache and colored pencil sketch on a 10 x 12-inch sheet of black paper.
An Outside Table
I was early to lunch and able to sketch a bit while waiting for my friend. I used colored pencils and gouache on a small sheet of black paper.
First Poinsettia of the Season
I love those huge poinsettia plants that appear in stores just about now, and could not resist buying and painting one today.
Descanso Hillside
Most months the San Diego Watercolor Society invites a plein air artist to give a demonstration somewhere in the county. Today Keiko Tanabe demonstrated and as I watched her paint with bold, confident strokes I remembered how much I love paintings with strong brushstrokes. Following the demonstration, we all worked on our own paintings, and I had fun with my own bold brushwork.
Descanso is in the mountains east of San Diego, it is full of oak trees, boulders, and at the moment, very dry brush. Since much of our state does not get rain between late spring and mid-fall, and fall can bring us huge winds from the desert, gems like Descanso are vulnerable to fire. I felt especially lucky to be painting in California today.
This is a gouache painting on a sheet of 12 X 17 -inch black Derwent paper.
Gallery Lights
Every now and then it’s my turn to volunteer at the SDWS gallery so visitors can see the current show. Today was kind of slow at first, so I had a chance to pull out my crayons and color pencils. I was able to get this 9 by 9-inch sketch of the morning light coming into the gallery. Later at home, I finished up with gouache and watercolor.
Plant on a Desk
It has been a while since I posted, and it felt good today to sit and experiment with crayon, gouache and colored pencils. This was my third pass at this small aloe vera plant and I am starting to catch its rhythm.
Frida Underwater
This week the assignment in our illustration class was to show a character in an underwater environment, using black ink and traditional pens. I had trouble thinking of a character and began several sketches only to abandon them when I did not like the outcomes. I found conveying water to be especially challenging.
This week I was coincidently reading about Frida Kahlo and got to wondering what her environment would have looked like if she had lived underwater. I am guessing it might have been something like this and that her self-portraits might have included fish, eels, and jellyfish. I am still not happy with the way I showed the water but this is as good as it gets this week.
After seeing the work of the other students, I came home and added back some of the whites behind Frida on my sketch, using Procreate on my iPad.
Do They Like My Work?
I am taking a ten-week illustration course at a local university. Our first assignment was to select text from an unillustrated book and then to illustrate it using five types of pencil marks- hatching, crosshatching, scribbling, tick marks, and pressure marks.
I chose text from “Miss Potter,” by Richard Maltby, a fictionalized account of Beatrix Potter’s life. The scene has Beatrix sitting at a publishing house while two dour businessmen look over her work.
“Hmmm,” said Harold Warne
“Hmmm,” said his brother Fruing.
“Hmmph,” snorted Harold.
“Garrumph,” echoed Fruing, twitching his nose.
Arches and Shadows at Balboa Park
I painted this morning at Balboa Park with the San Diego Watercolor Society Plein Air group. I forgot my sun shirt so I stood in the shade and painted the sunlight coming through the archways. I like the composition and plan to return and do some variants of this view.
This is a gouache sketch on black paper.
Primates
I sketched along the Monkey Walk this morning at the San Diego Zoo. I noticed how much we enjoy our cousins and showing them to our children and wanted to capture this familial feeling in a sketch.
This is a gouache, ink, and charcoal sketch on brown paper. Later at home, I added the light lines to indicate the enclosure.
A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, the author of the Pentagon Papers, spoke at San Diego State University this evening and I was in the audience. He talked for two hours about the danger of government keeping information from its citizens, and of the courage required of people who can help make sure that truth is available to us all. I sketched as Daniel Ellsberg, who is 87 years old and seated on the right, answered questions from Professor Mark Wheeler on the left. This sketch and the others below are made with marker on brown paper. Four of the sketches show a few of the 900 audience members.
Beach Day!
What could be more delightful than the beach on the last day of September? I wanted to capture all the swimmers, birds, surf, splashes, waves, and fun of summer. This is a gouache and charcoal sketch on brown paper.
Three Giraffes
Here are three very sweet giraffes from the San Diego Zoo. This started off as a gouache and charcoal sketch on brown paper, and then I imported the sketch into Procreate on my iPad and added the gray wall and the blue sky.
On the Rocks at Yosemite
My cousin, who is an amazing artist, has been working with gouache on brown paper. She sent me a photo of a recent painting and it was so gorgeous that it caused me to paint the day away on brown paper. I used photos and sketches from my recent trip to Yosemite as reference material and really had to think hard about color and composition. Painting on brown mid-tones is really different than painting on black or white.
As I worked, I had to shift from building the sketch around darks, as I do with the black paper. Thinking about the mid-tones seems to be key to working on brown paper and I think I was most successful in the sketch above, which was also my final sketch of the day. My goal for the next few gouache sketches on brown paper will be to leave larger amounts of the paper unpainted and to use more white.
Here are three other gouache sketches on brown paper from today:
By the Pond’s Edge
We stopped by Loomis California to visit relatives and had the added bonus of a gorgeous pond. This is a 9 X 9-inch gouache sketch on black paper.
Waiting for Morning at Yosemite
This morning I got up early from my campsite and caught the early morning light as the sun began to rise over the mountains at Yosemite National Park.
This is a 9 X 9-inch gouache sketch.
The Romantic Came Next
Yesterday, the woman who posed for our figure class brought costumes. For the second portion of the morning, she dressed as a dreamy romantic and leaned against the studio wall. I made more use of the acrylic markers in this one and added a background that I hope suggests a landscape suitable for romantic dreamers.
Frida Dress-up Day
Our model today came with costumes and started the day dressed as Frida Kahlo. I used acrylic markers and gouache and had fun trying to capture the Frida spirit.
Flowers above the Ocean
I sketched from the top of the cliffs at Torrey Pines Park this morning. Today I focused on a group of dried flowers and had the sea be the background.
This is a gouache, pastel pencil, and acrylic marker sketch on black paper.
A Runner
I really enjoy painting the models from our figure drawing group, especially the quick five-minute sketches like the one above. However, I am at a loss for what to do with the rest of the paper, that is, how to add a background. Sometimes I leave it blank, other times I draw the shadows on the wall.
What I would love to know, is how to compose a background that frames the figure and adds to its emotional message. Today I decided to do something about this and began going through my old sketchbooks to find sketches of people without backgrounds that I could use for practice. I have hundreds of these quick background-less quick sketches and think if I take a ‘sketch a day for 30-days’ approach, that I will soon be making better backgrounds. Anyway, that is my plan.
Balboa Park Courtyard
I painted this morning at Balboa Park, and this is a place I have to go back to soon. I stood under a shade structure, and the shadows it made were lovely. The cement pathways had patterns, and the greens against the adobe colors were striking. I want to go back soon and make some sketches in black and white, so I better understand the structure of the courtyard and how it all fits together.
This is a gouache sketch on a quarter sheet of paper covered with black grounds.
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Flowers on a Table
There is something beautiful about flowers on a table, and I wanted to capture this in this quick gouache sketch.
Along the Path at Torrey Pines
I was back at Torrey Pines State Nature Reserve this morning. It has been a long time since we have had rain in San Diego and the arid landscape is a lovely combination of yellows and browns.
I had some rice paper on hand and wondered how it would work with gouache. I prepared it with watercolor grounds, but even so, it buckled in a few spots.
Artist in the Park
I noticed an artist bent over her work and quickly sketched her. I liked her intensity as she focused on her work.
This is a 9 X 9-inch (22 X 22-centimeter) gouache sketch on black paper with some pastel pencil marks.
Two Doves on the Rocks
I stopped for a few minutes at a park near my house and sketched two doves on the rocks in my small sketchbook.
From the North Side of Torrey Pines
This was a challenging painting. It started off as a quarter sheet of paper covered with golden watercolor grounds. I have been wondering about the gold background for seascapes and today seemed like a good day to explore this, since I would be painting with friends. I began by blocking in some of the major big shapes of the view of Torrey Pines looking south from the north parking lot. Soon I had a gray scene that was not very interesting. At about an hour into this painting, I got out a pen and drew lines, trying to save the sketch by defining the edges of the mountain, foliage, and sea.
I left Torrey Pines thinking I would abandon this sketch but after putting it aside and then looking again, I wondered if the problem might be a lack of contrast. Because I used gouache transparently over the gold watercolor ground, the sketch was mostly middle values. I lightened the central area, brought in some blue to the trees in the upper left, added the boulders at the lower left, painted over some of the pen lines, and decided I liked the sketch after all.
At this point, I prefer the gold grounds for figures, but don’t want to give up too quickly on the golden seascapes.
This is gouache, gel pen, and watercolor pencil sketch on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper that was prepared with gold watercolor grounds.
Looking Afar II
Yesterday I did a series of 20-minute sketches of a wonderful model. She had a pensive air that was communicated through her long limbs and facial expressions. Although I had to work fast, choosing colors and brushes was intuitive because her body language was so clear.
This gouache sketch was on a large 20 x 15-inch panel that was prepared with watercolor grounds. Today I went back and cleaned up parts of this sketch by lifting off some of the color that seemed too intense to me today.
Looking Afar
I painted with other painters Thursday morning. Our model seemed pensive and trying to capture this in a sketch became my goal for the morning. I got a good start in this twenty-minute sketch and left the studio with several sketches that I could develop further.
This is a 12 x 12-inch gouache sketch with white and black pastel lines.
