where does the time go???

It's been almost a month since I shared here.  Sheesh!  Where DOES the time go? Well, I was on  vacation for a couple weeks, so that might be part of it. And, I took my sketchbooks and pens. I did post a few things here and there on  FB while on the trip, but I'll share a bit more here for those of you interested to follow along.

Week 1 was spent in Myrtle Beach, SC. Our timeshare was on the beach which was good - just a trip down the elevator and walk on the short boardwalk to the beautiful white sand beach. Dan and I walked 3 miles every morning up and down that beach - alternating north one morning, south the next.

All of these sketches are from around our resort area - the beach umbrellas and chairs were set up every morning by the lifeguards about 8-8:30a. You could rent 2 chairs and an umbrella for $35/day. We went and bought 2 low folding chairs for a total of $25 and just left them at the end of the week - a much better use of $$$.

sitting on the beach, looking back to the row of hotels/resorts and umbrellas. Those stupid recliner chairs became the bane of my sketching efforts! Never did really get the figured out.

those stripey shapes going through the bottom right are supposed to be tire tracks from the early morning police check.

dan prefers no color, so I tried one with less color.

there are those stupid recliners again! Obviously need more practice.

Don't laugh.Okay, go ahead and chuckle. We had an hour or so wait between dinner and an  outdoor concert - so I sketched several pages of what I could see, which was mostly people. People are HARD! I kinda get the bodies, kinda sorta, but heads.....not so much. Do people really need to have heads?

We thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing week of sitting on the beach, drinking on the beach, sunning on the beach, talking and walking and relaxing on the beach.

We did take a day trip to the Georgetown area (about 1 hour away) where we visited historic homes and a historical rice plantation house (Hopsewee Plantation) and another half day trip to Brookgreen Gardens & Pawley's Island. The garden is the largest sculpture garden in the US with over 500 sculptures placed throughout a huge garden. Gorgeous!

Kaminski house in Georgetown.

Don't we look relaxed?  Vacation is great!

sketches for last week of April

I only did a couple on-site sketches this week - stopped at South Seattle College and wandered around & discovered this clock tower.  Man, it was hard!

The black smudges are because my fountain pen leaked and made a big black blob on the shirt I was wearing so I was trying to press some of the ink out.  Hopeless.  Ruined.  Oh well.....in the name of art, right?

Neighborhood house sketch done on my way home from work in my new Stillman & Birn book - that sure is great paper but I haven't decided if I like bound or spiral yet.  Also tried a new brush pen and discovered the ink isn't waterproof.

drawn from a photo  - Whistler Village from vacation  a couple years ago.

I purchased the book The Art of Urban Sketching - it's a wonderful book filled with contributions from sketchers all over the world, and so full of a variety of styles. Since copying is some sort of form of flattery, I thought I'd practice on some of the sketches from the book:

I particularly like the food truck on the top - it's the first time a vehicle drawing of mine doesn't look cartoony. I'll have to pick just the cars out of some of the others from the book to try to understand drawing vehicles better.  The colored sketch is a Cape Cod lighthouse from my photo.

I love that I'm continuing to work without penciling in anything first and yet shapes still seem to appear, mostly correctly!

This practice sketch is copying a Pinterest image - we'll be headed to FL in a few weeks for vacation so I wanted to get an idea about how to draw palm trees. This is one effort - more will show up next week.  I also want to practice a few ocean / water scenes since we'll be on the beach. I don't want to get there and have no clue about how to capture what I'm seeing. :)

thanks so much for checking in and browsing all my sketches. Hope you have a fabulous, creative week.

learning perspective drawing

I took a perspective sketching workshop last weekend and loved it.  The instructor, Stephanie Bower, was so clear and full of good examples and tips that I actually had several "aha" moments in being able to "see" vanishing points and angles. She was great!  She also offers a really good class on Craftsy.com (and they never expire so you can watch it over and over) which hits the high points covered in her in-person class. I highly recommend it.

So, we primarily focused on one point perspective in the class.  After a morning of instruction and practice, we went "out into the world" and sketched in the atrium at Pike Place Market. I was actually able to create something in perspective - hooray!

Stephanie has broken down the beginning steps of a perspective drawing to three things:  define the main shape (usually a square or rectangle), establish your horizon or eye level, find the vanishing point. After doing those 3 things, I got my 2 walls in perspective (ignore my funky looking people). (see my vanishing point pretty much right in the middle, lower half?)

Stephanie giving class demo

The 2nd day of the workshop was about adding watercolor to a sketch to bring it to life - then we went out into the market again and sketched during the afternoon. This was much harder - there were lots of people milling about in and out of view and each of us picked our own area to draw. I picked this hallway:

That's a store front and restaurant entrance on the right, elevators on the left. This took me forever, but I'm pleased that I was able to complete it. The white space in the center is actually open to the outside and I had trouble with that, so left it blank for now.

Stephanie demos watercolor techniques.

Here's my class watercolor efforts - we painted from a slide.....it's always so interesting to see how people interpret the same information so differently!

If you're in the Seattle area and interested in learning or improving perspective drawing, I highly recommend Stephanie's class.  Or, take her online class - it's also REALLY good and this comes from a chronic failure at understanding anything about perspective!

sketching chairs

OMG - I can't tell you how many times I've attempted to draw an Adirondack chair - they're HARD! That angled back, the angled seat, the slats - man oh man I've struggled.  I tried it again with my new-found knowledge and feel like I have a better result.  At least they look like chairs you could actually sit in!

It was a rainy day in Whistler when I took this photo so I tried to impart that with the paint spatters. Here's the original photo - didn't attempt the Olympic sculpture in the background.....

Dare I try to commit to a sketch a day?  I'm pretty close to doing that anyway, but do I need the pressure?  Maybe.

a beijing sketch

I tried a few more sketches, most not worth sharing, but teaching me something each time. Tonight's sketch was a bit more satisfying, so here it is.....

Drawn from this photo of a neighborhood street while we were in Beijing

My efforts (obviously with some elements simplified)

Drawn with my new extra fine tip Platinum fountain pen (suggested by Marc Taro Holmes), colored with Inktense & watercolor.

Am thinking of trying to sketch something "out in the world" soon to see if it's harder or easier.......

a few more sketches

I'm enjoying looking through pictures I took in Paris to now turn into sketches.  

Here's a more complex attempt - the Paris Opera House, which I actually didn't see; Dan took this photo.

My humble attempt..........starting to include darks and some shadows (ala Marc Taro Holmes sketching video series)

This one was a quicker sketch with the idea of hinting at the row of fall trees some with no leaves and some with fall color.  That's a row of parked cars on the right.....obviously need to work on that!  :) Color again added with Inktense.  Will graduate to watercolor sometime soon.

365/3 for june

#139-145 - finally a new page in one of my art journals using a photo of grapes I took, followed by some painty/stencily/stampy background starts for mail art.  I'm overdue on returning mail again, so made a start on getting some backgrounds started.

Continuing my sketches from "Learn to Draw in 30 Days" by Mark Kistler.  Seeing some improvement though I'm still definitely just copying.  The lessons seem to be sinking in since the basic cubes are getting easier & more intuitive.  These didn't make it to ICAD cards, just in my sketchbook......
#146 & 147

So, I'm about a month behind in my 365 project - I need to double up on a few days to get back on track.  And, my Denver trip (see the previous wedding post) threw me off my ICAD progress. So I need to get back on track there.  Sheesh.  There is a long weekend coming up where I could really make some arty progress, but it's supposed to be record breaking heat and my art room is upstairs & faces west - HOT!  Maybe I'll just move some supplies downstairs.....

Hope you're finding time to escape the heat (or whatever weather) and be creative!

ICAD and 365 and just general catch up

There's a lot of pics to share so should probably split this up, but won't.  Skim, peruse, linger, whatever your time allows, or just check in to see what I've been up to.

I've been keeping up with the ICAD daily challenge - you can see my efforts showing up on instagram (tpurk13), and on flickr when I remember to put it there, and, of course, here.  Here we go - lots of pics,.....

ICAD #8-13, 365/#121-126

ICAD #14-17; 365/#127-130

I picked up a book at the library:  You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler.  I thought I'd try working through the lessons for a bit and see what I can learn.  I'm exploring each idea more in a sketchbook but doing a quickie on my index cards.....