A Bird...A Red Bird

From the cover photo of National Wildlife Federation magazine.

Started over the weekend, finished tonight. Sleepy. Nighty night.

Weekend Sketching

On the first day of spring we had a snow storm. "Storm" might be overstating it a bit, but it was still a better day for sitting inside by the fire and sketching than playing outside.

So, here are a couple more sketches inspired by the talented photographers contributing to National Geographic magazine.



Han dynasty gilded bronze horse photo (sans chipped gilding) by O. Louis Mazzatenta appearing in the Feb. 2004 issue.




Red bird of paradise (resident of New Guinea) photo by Tim Laman appearing in the July 2007 issue.

Thanks for stopping by!

A YouTube Video

Bike Hugger Mobile Social at SXSW 2010

If I could be anywhere else, doing anything else, I'd like to have been there :-D

Sunday Sketchin'

I couldn't honestly tell you what got into me today. Three sketches in one day, and three sketches of somewhat decent quality to boot, is practically unheard of. Yet, here they are. The monkey sketch is based on a Kevin Horan photo which appeared in the March 2010 issue of National Geographic Magazine.



After I finished drawing the monkey, and giving him a splash of color...watercolor that is, I took a break outside with the cat. While he stalked various and sundry flying critters, I took note of my neighbor's lacy tree. It's actually a very large tree, so you'll just have to use your imagination to fill in the rest.



Gimli (the cat) only wanted to stay outside for a short time (it's not all that warm yet), so I went for a walk along the lake and pushed a little fresh air into the lungs. The back porch was filled with sunshine when I returned home, so I camped out in a chair with my drawing board and drew the pitcher plant about to capture an afternoon nom. Now, according to the article, the pitcher plat can get up to two feet tall. If this particular specimen is that large, that beetle is HUGE and it makes my skin crawl! This was drawn from a Helene Schmitz photo appearing in the same National Geographic issue.

Thanks for stopping by!

Google Maps for Bicyclists!

Wooohoooo!

YouTube video featuring Google Maps for cycling.

The site: http://maps.google.com/biking

Thanks for stopping by!

Things That Are Beautiful 3

Cameron Moll's letterpress poster entitled "Colosseo". Do yourself a favor and follow the link to see the whole thing—gorgeous!



Drool... covet... want... adore... sigh...

Via Coudal Partners

Thanks for stopping by!

Stained Glass Coffeehouse

I took my trusty Moleskine with me when I went to the Stained Glass Coffeehouse on Saturday night. The featured artist was Kat Eggleston, and she was awesome.

I'm not all that familiar with folk music, but I have fairly eclectic tastes, so I really enjoyed what I heard.

I started sketching her hand playing the guitar and then someone sat right in front of me. No great loss...the sketch wasn't going all that well. The audience became fodder for my doodling.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sketchcrawl 26 Results

I was waiting to post this until I could post the digitally colored version along with it. That particular project is coming along slowly because I have this other thing to do...they call it work, I believe.

Anyhoo, I went to one of my favorite Kenosha lunch spots, Common Grounds, and enjoyed half a sandwich and some lemonade in their room overlooking the river. It was busy, but there were other open tables so I didn't feel too bad about lingering over my sketchbook in hopes of having something to show for Sketchcrawl 26. This started out as a pencil sketch, and then it enjoyed a going over in Micron pen.

After I scanned it, I did some fairly aggressive Photoshop cleaning. I'll eventually get around to finishing the digital painting.

The original scan is below—complete with little color notes, page shadow from the sketchbook not laying flat in the scanner, and other rogue schmutz.



Thanks for stopping by!

Scribblin' in Front of the Tube

From a Kim Cornelison photo appearing in the March/April 2010 issue of Midwest Living magazine.

Thanks for stopping by!