Scouting for a Sketchcrawl

This was my quick sketch of the wetlands demo at the Anita Gorman Discovery Center, a Missouri Department of Conservation nature center.

It's a beautiful facility with lots to look at and explore...this is the lobby, looking toward the gift /book shop

I'd walked enough that my knees complained, so I tottered over to the tables by the wetlands display to sketch--handy!

I was trying out my Noodler's Konrad pen and some gorgeous new ink also from Noodler's, Kung Te-Chung, a blue so dark it's almost black.  Waterproof, too!  (Their little ink samplers are FUN.)  Brian at GouletPens.com also suggested Polar Brown, which seems to be working well, too.

Here's my setup with my new bag...more on that in a day or so!  Works great, so far...

The site has a wonderful garden, a prairie habitat, a half-size copy of Lewis & Clark's boat, mounts, skulls, turtles, bird feeders and SO much more...we'll definitely be having a sketchcrawl there!

A progressive urban sketch

This is my sketch, using a Hero calligraphy pen nib in a Noodler's body--lightweight and handy for on the spot sketching when you want a larger variety of line weights!

I happened to have one of the original Noodler's flex pens on hand, so decided to give putting a Hero 86 nib in place instead of the one that came with it.  It's my favorite sketching pen now! 

You can find more information on how to do that down the page a bit on the Fountain Pen Network.  Definitely does NOT fit the Ahab, but it's fine in the Creaper--the original flex pen.

I was careful to keep the non-essential areas very high key so they wouldn't compete with the building. I painted the white room that extends over the deck with suggestions of blue to suggest shadows.

I wanted the trumpet vine's flowers to show up against the green, so I broke out my set of Crayolas--kids' crayons for those who aren't familiar with them.  A dot of waxy color here and there would repel the paint...

You can see how that worked!  I varied the greens, too, flooding in blues and yellows while it was still wet.

Raw sienna underwash worked for the areas that weren't painted white--that one room extends over the porches.  I let that dry and left some bits of white paper here and there.

Finally, I added the warm color of the bricks--burnt sienna and a bit of quinacridone burnt scarlet, adding ultramarine blue in the shadowing and encouraging variation in color.  I used more of the green mix where the potted plant was.  I decided to keep the foreground mostly unpainted except for the shadows to keep the focus where it belonged.

I love this crazy old building...just wish I'd caught it when there was laundry hanging on the impromptu lines and over the railings!

Painting on the spot

I did this video last summer, and never got it up!

Capturing Special Events

We were at a family wedding in the Ozarks over the weekend--my godson Aaron and his new wife, Bonnie. It was two big, wonderful, blended families, with spouses, kids, food, music and all those things that make for a lovely event.  Composite pages work well, in a case like this.

I'm happier sketching than taking photographs, though after I got most of my fast, rough pencil sketches done, I DID manage a few photos, and youngest godchild Nora let me work from a couple of the great pics she shot...the sketches were mostly quick, unfinished gesture sketches that I intended to add color to when I got home, and I wish I'd scanned THAT stage.

You can see the pencil sketches on this page, still partly unpainted, and the beginning washes (except Bonnie, who was almost finished here...I had to work from a photo I took of her, because I was too far back to sketch.)

Here's the second spread, partly finished, with Celtic knots since they exchanged silver knot pendants...I tried to keep the washes simple and fresh, as much as possible.

Munchkins Max, Miriya, and Finn ran around like mad things after the wedding--all that pent--up energy!  So I cut a footprint stamp from an old eraser to represent their romps.  You can see I've added more detail here...

Footprints and details on this page, too...and you can see Max running madly between the two sketches of middle godchild Rachel in her cool striped dress.

I wasn't thrilled with the busy area at upper left, so I washed some of the stamps back out and did a soft, wet in wet wash.  (As you might guess, the bride's color choice was purple!)  Things seemed to need a bit of definition and punching up, so I added a few ink accents here and there.

And finally got the nerve to add the lettering!  I decided this page could be a bit less busy (ya THINK??) so let some of the figures be ink or only partly painted.  I like it...I think!

And of course I wasn't able to sketch an 8th of the people there--in a case like this we just have to concentrate on what we're closest to, what catches the eye or tells a story--as well as who stays still for 5 seconds!!  (Happily I wasn't getting paid to record the wedding, or the bride's family might have been seriously miffed!  That's Bonnie's sweet mama and her brother manning the food table at upper right.  But of course I only managed to capture one of Aaron's sisters (twice!)...he has four.

They're not the BEST designed pages I ever did--they're awfully busy and crowded--but they DO recall the happy chaos of the event!

The more peaceful, contemplative bits were done from the window of our trailer in the early morning, before the merry-go-round started up!

Editing Life...

Soooo...who says we have to sketch EXACTLY what we see?  We spent a HOT weekend in the Ozarks for my godson's wedding, and the wedding party stayed in the RV park where the bride's family camps--the rentals are FEMA trailers.  Trust me, they are NOT picturesque, and short of both room and windows...I know I'd be really grateful if I didn't have roof over my head, but pretty they are not!

Morning light coming through the tall cedar trees at the edge of the campground WAS pretty, though...so that's what I zeroed in on.

I had a brand new journal for the trip, and had put some of the new tan paper in it, so took along my lightweight little gouache set.  I sat on the fold-out couch near one of the windows and sketched in the AC!  (As somebody said recently, in this heat my "plein air" has become "plein window" for the most part!)  The Lamy Vista pen with Platinum Pigment ink in Sepia worked beautifully on this paper.

 

This is how it turned out...no cars, no trailers!  I added a few more notes and a few touches of colored pencil and called it done.

The page on the left was sunrise over the trailer that two of my godchildren and their families were in...somehow that didn't make it into the picture.The color is truer in the photo above...

Mind you, sometimes it's fun to include reality...but I was in the mood for beauty and nature!

Now THAT is an arts group meeting!

We met at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for the landmark Monet show, had lunch at Rozzelle Court, got to see our buddies, rode on a shuttle, walked our little legs off...

And yes, this one IS on two different colors of paper in my journal.  Who cares??  I did the ink drawing on the spot...that's Joseph on the right side of the painting--and added colored pencil, watercolor, and bits of collage later.  That's Monet himself, shortly before his death in 1926...the year he finished the giant, luminous triptych.  (He worked on it for 11 years; one panel is owned by the Nelson, one by the St. Louis Art Museum, and one by Cleveland Museum of Art, but they're together again for this show!

Lunch at the ancient Rozzelle Court at the gallery was delightful as always...who can resist sketching there. surrounded by sun and antiquity?

Afterward, we has dessert--back at Rozzelle, of course!--and then I sketched Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's giant--and once controversial--shuttlecocks.

This gives you some idea of the scale...that's a VERY tall water tower beside it, KC Art Institute buildings across the street, and skyscrapers on Main Street beyond the trees.

Finally, worn out, I sat and sketched Tom's Cubicle...hey, don't ask ME why Calder named it that!

  This is definitely what I call an arts group meeting...no agenda, no business, just a great time with friends!