Maryland for Grammy's Memorial

Travel isn't always about the food, but when you're sitting still to eat, it's a handy time to sketch.

It's not often that our family gathers in numbers, so it was a charmed breakfast that brought a steady stream of family through the door for breakfast. Makes me wish we all lived in one town and could recreate the experience on a daily basis. 

The coat draped over the chair was the only part of this sketch I liked. The guy looked like a Peanuts character and the Southwest marker post was waaaaaaay out of proportion. The page just needed a whale with a ridiculously pointy nose, and then a tree to balance the spread—perfection.

In between the drawings we ate many more meals, shared many memories of wonderful times, visited with more family, and memorialized a wonderful woman who will be missed by many.

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Mundane Sketchiness

Just hangin' out doing a little careless drawing. 

My Fitbit has high expectations about my ability to consume water. As a result, I have a permanent sippy bottle by my side. Soon I'll need a diaper bag to handle all the stuff critical to my existence. Maybe I'll pick one with little elephants and giraffes and feature it in another careless sketch...don't get your hopes up though.

Need to start getting in the groove of fun...I'm starting Sketchbook Skool's "Playing" kourse on Friday. Weeeeee!

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Moleskine Exchange Started

I've started a Sketch exchange with Dad. My drawing of a dragonfly started us off. It stopped by a few summers ago, and very kindly hung out on a piece of bamboo that was propping up my summer tomatoes. It allowed me to take several photos...I'd had enough of shooting photos before it ever decided to fly away.

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Weekend Sketching

I sketched this from a photo that appeared in The Nature Conservancy's magazine, 2012, Issue 3.

Not real happy with my rendering of their faces, but it's a sketch.

Wonderful familial relationship depicted amongst the usual sad tale of shrinking territory and the resulting cost to chimp and human alike.

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Weeks of Staring

This particular drawing has been works in the making—fussing with it now and then.

Looks better with a bit o' contrast added.

Sorry, I didn't make note of the photographer. However, if you have the 2011 World Wildlife Fund calendar hanging around your house, I'm pretty sure you'll find the photo inside.

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Sunday's Ride 'N' Sketch

Every now and then I enjoy exchanging my cycling jersey for a t-shirt and bag with my Moleskine, a snack, a camera, whatever. I head out on the road with no solid plan as to where I'm going. There is no pressure to get in X number of miles, or ride for X amount of time. There is no pre-planning of anything.

Sunday I set out on one of those trips, and found myself sitting at a sunny picnic table in front of the Southport Beach House. Not the best sketch, and not the worst. But the sun was beating down on my back taking the chill out of the 60-something degree day, and I was happy.

My ride continued, and there were no more sketches, but several photos. Fall is falling, and my phone took at least one fairly decent photo. Should have had my regular camera along for the ride.

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Evening Scribble

A very fine mugshot, no? In fact, it was the cover photo for the A&E section of last Sunday's Chicago Tribune. Article here (tried to find you a link, but in the world of news, last Sunday might as well be 2006. Of all the clickable options on the page, none had to do with the past). All I have is the torn out photo from that page, so it isn't much help. If you happen to have the section tucked in a corner of your living room couch (perhaps wrapped around that PB&JS you were meaning to eat for lunch), and you view the two side by side, you'll notice I did a fine job of turning Paul into a strung out version of himself. Didn't quite go far enough to qualify for magna status, but his eyes do occupy a larger territory than they rightly should.

I've discovered the problem I have with the human face...the broad expanses of shining (seemingly empty) flesh. The forehead and the cheeks are daunting and easy to misjudge. They look so very expansive to me, that I make them so. It takes a face with "character" for me to create a somewhat successful drawing. The airbrushed feline men and women of the fashion pages are a nightmare in this context. There are no reference points! Animals are wonderful...all that detail in the "in-between" space...the space between the features have features of their own.

Show me an airbrushed model and the face flutters over the surface of my mind leaving no lasting visual impression...just the suggestion of a cool breeze. But show me a face with detail—a face that has walked under the sun, squinted and smiled—and I can see it.

Just Paul's beard was a festival for the pencil—wonderful salt and peppered areas with dense patches of solid brown. The indentations on a whale's fluke have nothing on the unique character of this man's beard. If you had nothing but a photo of the beard, and you showed it to his family, friends and associates, they would exclaim, "What are you doing with a photo of Paul's beard?!?"

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Mere Meerkat

It was a fairly productive weekend, but there was a good amount of sitting around on my duff too. This meerkat was sketched during some quality duff time.

More than you ever wanted to know about the meerkat brought to you via Wordnik.com.

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The Martian Calla

NASA's projects never fail to fascinate me. I'd hazard a guess I'm not the only one who was sad to see the era of the Shuttle come to a close. But now we have the Curiosity! Sweet! The pictures sent back by Curiosity are wonderful, and for some reason I keep going back to take another peek and the panoramic shot of Mount Sharp.

I was in the garden (again) taking a close up look at some of the blooms around the yard, and the seed pods from the fading bloom of the calla plant looked like they would be right at home in the foreground of that picture.

It wouldn't do too bad in the possible 70 degrees (F) at noon in summer, but the -225 degrees (F) might be a small issue. Pesky reality...keeps getting in the way.

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Semi-Finished Ink Lizard

My work day is split up into short bits of intense concentration when we are at the height of production. It is simply the nature of the beast...not a good thing and not a bad thing...just the way it is. There is a bleed-over into my off hours that I find a little exasperating—particularly because of all the resulting semi-finished drawings, projects and chores.

This guy is one kinda cute example. I didn't even take the time to find a pencil (my preferred drawing tool) and went with the pen in hand. I could already feel my attention wandering...sneaky little thoughts of the mail box that hadn't been checked yet, the load of laundry that needed shifting to the drier...the list is endless and ever-morphing.

Can't tell from this, but his tongue is blue...really.

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Clover Bits

While we're on the topic of sitting in the garden for five minutes...sometimes the dog comes with me. Who am I kidding, Clover always comes with me. Sleeping, she's a very fine model, but awake...not so much.

I was particularly pleased with the elbow and the shoulder (see arrows), but overall the session was a bust.—except for the fact that we got a little fresh air and sunshine, that is.

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Leafy

This is what happens when you plunk an extremely stressed out, overworked woman in a garden for five minutes to "chill out." Dunno...success or failure? Who can tell?

Don't be sucked in by the date in the corner. My summer has been so busy at work that I've torn pages out of my Moleskine rather than face their blank surfaces. I'm randomly scribbling on the remainders and contemplating a weekly planner instead of a daily planner next year.

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Saturday's Sketches on Thursday

It's been a busy week at work, so it's taken me a good portion of the week to get around to posting these. We're all on the cusp of enjoying a long weekend, and I'm still reveling in the last one a bit.

Saturday was one of those ideal days when you just float from one relaxing bit of the day to the next, and only the idea popping into your head tells you what comes next.

Obviously, I spent some time in the garden, and I was not alone  :-)

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The Eye of a Very Brave Woman

"'I knew how much Qaddafi armed himself, what he could do to people,' says Asma Gargoum, who spied on government troop movements for the rebels in Misrata." In "Women: The Libyan Rebellion's Secret Weapon" by Joshua Hammer, April 20012 Smithsonian magazine. Photos by Michael Christopher Brown


Just one instance amongst many of brave men and women stepping forward/up/above and beyond. I'm awed by her strength.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum...went to lunch and while I was waiting for my food, I scribbled. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, the hair is the window dressing...ha! Just one instance amongst many of hungry men and women sitting down to a tasty lunch. I'm feeling a little full myself.

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His Name Is Tatanka

And this is his eye. He's from South Dakota, or so the ad tells me.

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Now I'm Just Nutty

The squirrels leave all kinds of goodies in my yard, and this walnut shell was a find from the fall.

My neighbor had planted quite a few flowers last summer—something he hadn't done for a few years. There was a particularly lovely sunflower in a protected corner right up against his house and conveniently outside my kitchen window. I congratulated Bill on the lovely blooms, and he credited the neighborhood squirrel planting committee. They really are very talented landscape architects. Of course they're dirty, rotten thieves as well, but I suppose it all balances out.

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He's Grounded

Sometimes I fall into old patterns of trying to arrange my moleskine so several pages reflect a theme. As hard as I try to be more spontaneous and carefree, it falls back to organization. Since I'm sometimes a success at spontaneity and sometime a failure, my moleskine actually possesses a signature...the blend of spontaneity and structure.

This year I took to heart some feedback I received from my former college roommate that my sketches would be ever so much more pleasant if not on ruled paper. I taped plain paper into the weekends. This particular page is on the weekend before Groundhog Day (yep, I'm a bit behind).

I have the urge to watch Caddyshack...hmmmm.

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Gone Buggy

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Woolf Leaf

A little sketchiness started in front of TV last night. Page needed a little something more...thankfully, The Quotations Page was a few clicks away.

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Lazy Eyes

Made me sleepy lookin' into those eyes, but I focused on keeping the pencil moving between naps and it all worked out ok.

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