Wating Room Art

I am getting ready to fly off to Albuquerque tomorrow and thought I might post a few waiting room sketches - I am sure I will have more waiting room art to add when I get back. This first sketch is one I did waiting for my bride at the doctors office. The plant is a small thing sitting on a plant stand table - and it is plastic!


This next one is done while waiting for my Jeep to be inspected at the Tire Shop. I think the next time I will try the tire rack - that should be interesting.

This drawing was done while waiting for my turn in the imaging machine during my last semi-annual stress test.

Back in a couple of weeks.

RFK Camera Guy WIP

This is a drawing in progress of our favorite camera guy at RFK stadium. When we go to the Washington Nationals baseball games one of his assignments is to wander around the stadium and get the fans on camera. He does quite a job of getting the fans excited and cheering - especially if they think they will be on the big screen for a few seconds.

I said this is a work in progress because I got to this point and didn't know where to go next so I stopped. I might try printing out a few copies on watercolor paper and experiment with some color. Comments and suggestions appreciated.

Something Old and Something New

The other day I was cleaning out some stuff in my office and came across this scratchboard project I did in high school. I thought I would post it for those interested in that media. As you can see it has aged - yellowed a bit and has cracked in a few places - need to take better care of it from now on.

Below is a drawing of Richard Serra, done from his photo in the Washington Post last week. They had an article on an exhibition at MoMA of his sculptures.

Cars Again

As I mentioned in the beginning of my blog – eons ago – I used to like to draw cars. Most of these were from my imagination at the time. The other day I stumbled upon France Belleville's site 'Wagonized' via the Moleskinerie site. She has done some drawings of cars that I found really fascinating. Most are pen and ink with some watercolor or colored pencil added. I really like France’s technique so I thought I would give cars another try…and I can see that I will need to practice a lot!


We had a classic car show in town one Saturday night so I walked down to have a look. There were cars of all kinds . Restored classics and supped up hot-rods and customized cars. Here is a drawing of one of the many Cobras on display by the Cobra club.

Here is one you don't expect to see - a Studebaker with a supper charged engine!


Some detail studies of the Studebaker engine.
These were fun and as I said I need to do a lot more before I will be half as good as France. But the fun is in getting there.

Wow! How Long Has It Been?!?!

It has been far to long since I last posted!! I have been floundering about and not really doing anything more than a few doodles and experiments. I have been trying to find my way in different media and have not really made any progress. Got more frustrated and confused the more I tried. So…I have decided to get back to the simple approach and use what I have the most experience with and maybe, in the future, add some experimentation.

Pen and ink have been my favorite media for many years and even that has caused some angst. I used to use rapidograph pens and have a good set of those today. I have tried the Pigma Micron pens as well as the new Prismacolor fine line markers and find them a little lacking in what ever it is I am seeking. They don’t always leave a constant line – sometimes looks faded. However, I have a tough time getting the values I want with the rapidograph pens – a great deal more practice needed I am sure.

In any case I have decided to post some of my doodling and noodling here in hopes that some helpful souls might have some suggestions or helpful ideas.

The next is a flower doodle that was just an experiment with the Prismacolor fine line markers in brown, sepia and black.

More Loudoun Landscapes

Yet more landscapes from what used to be beautiful rolling hills and farmland. This land is soon to be covered with McMansions and concrete. Below is a serious jackhammer. I did this in pen and ink using a Rapidograph. I then added watercolor - not my best effort - I think I should have stuck with the pen and ink.

This is a study I did in pen and ink before the sketch above.

If You Build It They Will Come - In Droves

These are a very familiar sight around my county, thanks to the corrupt county politicians. I think I will try to do a series of the construction equipment in use around our once sparsely populated county. This one was sort of fun as I am experimenting with watercolor on ink. So this was done with black India ink using a 00 Koh-i-Noor Rapidograph and colored with water colors from my home made water color set.

Traffic Lights

Traffic lights - traffic lights! They're every where - they're everywhere! So I drew one.



When you really look at these they are quite interesting.

More Moleskine Suff

Here are a few pages from my mole. Over the past year I have tried lots of different things to draw with and on. One of the tools I found was the Lamy Safari fountain pen. Several other folks have raved about this pen and I decided to give one a try (since they are not expensive). I really like the feel of the pen. It is light and comfortable - it also comes in several colors and nib sizes. I tend to like an extra fine nib but wanted to try a medium and broad as well. So I got one of each. I found that the EF nib was not as fine as my Rotring EF pens (Artpen and fountain) and that all the pens EF, M, and B tended to scratch or drag on the paper. With my Rotring the writing and drawing is very smooth no mater how I hold the pen. I can even use the nib upside down and get a really fine line. With the Lamy if I try that the pen skips or doesn't have any ink flow at all. I do use the Lamy a lot though so I tried to hone the nib a little using the stone and leather strop that came with the Rotring caligraphy set I got my wife for Christmas a year ago. It helped some - will give it another go to see if I can get rid of some more of the drag because it is a pretty reliable and comfortable pen.

Pretty soon it will be time start my chili pepper seedlings for this years crop of peppers. This mole entry is a sketch of last years batch.


I saw a couple of plan perspective drawings done in a molekine a couple of months ago and thought I might try a Danny Gregory exercise and draw the floor plan of the appartment I lived in in Key West many years ago.



Last June our 19 year old cat, Emma, passed away. In September we found two new kittens at the local shelter and brought them home. This is one of their faovirite play grounds - the rest of the house is also their playground.



I got interested in watercolor pencils and picked up a few to experiment with. I did a couple test patches in my mole to see what they looked like. These pages had been pre-treated with a thin coat of white absorbent ground. I am waiting on a copy of Cathy Johnson's book 'Watercolor Pencil Magic' to see what nifty things she can teach me about these.