Happy New Year!

The first sketch in the 2011 Moleskine planner. This little Black-Capped Chickadee hopes you have a wonderful 2011...and so do I!

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Sketches a Go-Go

An overview of some of the sketches I've done over the past few days—vacation time is nice for sketching. That owl will be the last drawing in my 2010 Moleskine planner...**sniff**. On the upside, I've got a 2011 planner filled with blank pages.

Also from the Moleskine.

In my "Off the Edge" book.

A 5-minute sketch in a composition notebook.

Christmas Crane for Mom

Mom requested some bird art as a Christmas gift this year. Several years ago, I had done some pen and ink birds (a series of 6 or 7), and I have a few large prints of them on my office wall. She wasn't specific about which bird, so I did my favorite of the series. As you can see from the photos, the original photo appeared in a magazine ad.

After completing the contour sketch I started to sweat my pen technique (or relative lack thereof), so a scribbled up a rough in my sketchbook. I used a bit of pencil for the shading and decided to run with that on the final art as well—I LOVE my blending tool.

Why a box? Because in my head there was going to be a wonderful watercolor there with a lighting effect that bathed the bird in soft color. Didn't exactly turn out like what I had pictured in my head.

The rose was always part of the plan, but it blocked what I'd planned to be a burnished sunset. It looked a little anemic as just a yellow rose. Considering the final outcome, I should have stopped here...sigh.

Yeah, that's right...blue. It's very blue, isn't it? Really blue, and overpowering the rose. So then the rose needed more color, and then the blue was wimpy. Watercolor out of control.

Finally I put down the paintbrush and stepped away from the paper. Overall, I'm very pleased with the bird. In comparison to the original pen and ink from about 4 years ago, my technique has developed nicely.

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Evening Sketch

Can you say wonky? Meh. Still nice to put pencil to paper.

I have now despoiled my newest sketchbook. My old 5.5x8" sketchbook has disintegrated at the binding, so I found a lovely new replacement.

Nice to draw on a page without rules for a change too.

Sleepy...good night.

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While Listening to Angels Sing

I had the great good fortune to attend the Chicago Master Singers' Chistmas program at the Devine Word Chapel at Techny last night. The Singers were joined by members of the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra and all were under the direction of Alan Heatherington.

While listening to angels sing, I sketched the back of the head of the wife of the pastor who baptized me...didja follow that? Mom and I had meet Rev and Joanne for dinner (delicious!) at Deerfield Italian Kitchen before the performance. I couldn't tell from my angle whether Joanne was feeling the effects of a tasty, sleep-inducing dinner or just reading the program. I'll admit to doing a bit of both during the performance myself—one of the wonderful things about attending a concert is the ability to absorb the beauty of the performance while flitting through multiple states of consciousness.

Luckily, Alan incorporated a one-verse sing-along at the very end of Oh Come, All Ye Faithful (the last programmed song of the evening) to shake us all awake.

In about an hour, I'm going to enjoy my leftover Chicken and Truffle Risotto (no you can't have any, go get your own), but thought I'd share the sketch first.

I enjoyed the evening so much! Thanks for stopping by!

Mrs. Duncan

Mrs. Duncan...you know, Arne's mom. Her friends call her Sue, and she is an inspiration to her son. At least, that's what the article on the front page of last Sunday's Chicago Tribune said.

I needed a quick something to sketch at the end of the day, and the newspaper was still loitering in my living room. It missed the big purge of last Friday...ha!

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