While I Was Away...

On my last visit to India I stayed in the Ellaa Suites Hotel in Hyderabad. During my stay the hotel hosted the Hyderabadi Food Festival. There were all kinds of food dishes representing many food preparations from all over India and especially from Hyderabad. One of the features were Hookah pipes with a variety of herbal fruits. The pipes were a variety of shapes and colors.
Some very interesting sketch material.

Now, where was I?

My last post was all too long ago. I have been whirling about in a daze it seems. Between work and taking care of two houses 100 miles apart, I have not taken time to post any new sketches.

Since my last posting of images, back in May I have been to India twice and to New Mexico again. My stays in India were mostly work and little play, but I did manage a couple of sketches.

My trips took me to Hyderabad, in the southern part of India. Hyderabad is known for a lot of things but the one that most people notice first off is the rocks. Yes, rocks. There are these very unusual rock formations all over the place. Most of them look as if they are man made. I noticed one formation not far from the hotel I stayed in and took time to sketch it.

Blog Award! Me?

Thank you Mike for my nomination for the Blog Award! I am honored to be a mentor. Although, I could take some lessons from you as well. This is a heck of a way to get me to update my much neglected blog.

I now have to select 7 blogs which I feel should be nominated. This is not so easy because there are so many blogs which demonstrate the sketching/paintings style and skill which I draw inspiration from. Most of the following blogs are already on my ‘Amazing’ list:

Not in any special order
Jeanette Jobson - Illustrated Life
Karen Blados - Sketch Blog
France Bellville - Wagonized
Juj. – Everything Is Contextual
Terry Banderas – Ink and Watercolor
Susan Buchanan - an Open [sketch]Book
Miguel Herranz – free[k]hand

To accept:
Right click on the award to save it to your computer. Then you can insert it into your blog.
The rules of acceptance are:
Put the logo on your blog.
Add a link to the person who awarded you.
Nominate 7 other blogs.
Add links to those blogs on yours.
Leave a message for you nominees on their blogs.

Watchfull Eyes

I thought I would sneak in another post before I head for the airport - off to India.

It seemed as though everywhere I looked I saw surveillance cameras while I was in England. The were on street posts in London, they were on lamp posts in towns along the railroad, and they were on all sides of the Six Bells Pub.

This is sketch is of cameras I saw in London. Done with the Pilot Hi-Tec-C pen and washed with a waterbrush.
This sketch of cameras in a town along the railroad is also done with the Pilot Hi-Tec-C pens, but without the wash.

New Pens Put to the Test

For Christmas last year my son gave me a set of Pilot Hi-Tec-C .3 mm gel pens. The set has 10 different colors. When I learned of these pens I thought they were waterproof. But on experimentation I found that they were not. At first I was disappointed but later I decided it was a good thing. Here is a photo of some of the pens. These are not easily found in the U.S. of A.This is a simple color chart I made and used a waterbrush to create a wash effect. I found that the Blue and Yellow did not wash as well as the other colors.This is a drawing I made of some chimney pots while I was in England. I used the Black pen and a waterbrush to create the wash effect.

Back Home for a Short Visit

Well, I am back home for a short visit before I dash off to another part of the world. My London trip was mostly business and I seemed to get very little time to myself. But I did take time over the weekend to tour London and do a little sketching.

This sketch is a tree in the church yard next to the Six Bells Pub, where we had dinner several times. The tree had been cut back reveling very gnarled limbs. There were tufts of leaves indicating new growth here an there.

Just Some Doodles Before I Go

I thought I might get in one more post before I zip off to London. The other day I was waiting for my bride so I decided to work on some pen techniques. This first is the result of a scribble that morphed into the start of a face.This next is a preliminary drawing of a breast stroke swimmer - a project that has been bouncing about my mind of late. It needs work . . . but the concept is getting clearer.

Artomatic Preview

These are previews of the five drawings I will be putting up at the Artorama this weekend.
A drawing of my Dad as he posed on his adobe brick making machine in Albuquerque, NM.
Arthur's Shoe Repair. Arthur retired last November and I have a feeling that this sign is not long for this world.

This is a crane (Duh..) it seems to be a dominant sight on the landscape these days.
This is a re-do of my RFK Camera Guy in my sketch book. Just before I went to Albuquerque I was at a Nationals baseball game and he caught me on camera and put my mug on the big screen - I made fan of the game!
This fountain in Albuquerque always intrigued me so I had to draw it. The big 'pots' are actually made of copper and I tried to find out what they are called - nobody knows! The best I could find was Bahri - so the title of this one is "Los Bahri" until I learn better.

Busy Making Art?

The last day of the figure drawing class one of the other students declared that she was going to participate in Artomatic (see the link in sidebar) and wanted someone to share her space with her. Trinka (our enthusiastic instructor) talked me into participating with Ami. Soooo. I have been trying to get stuff ready while traveling to New Mexico and now having to dash off to London. So I will be trying to get some posts in before I leave and provide a preview of the work I will be putting up at Artomatic.

This drawing was the last one I did for the figure drawing class using the Nexus art pens and oatmeal speckletone paper.

A Figure Drawing Experiment

I came across Cachet Earthbound sketch books from Daler-Rowney and am fascinated with the paper - oatmeal colored Speckletone. It really has an interesting feel and enhances figure drawing. I want to try some other things with it as well. Here I am using Nexus Art Pens (yellow-ocher, and light-sepia) from Koh-l-Noor and Conte pastel pencil for highlighting.

Back to Figure Drawing Class

I tried something different in figure drawing class this time. I wanted something loose and maybe a little color. These were done with watercolor.

Small Works

Every day before I would go to the hospital to visit my Dad I would stop by the local Cyber Cafe to check my email and catch up on work related stuff. One day I was inspired to make a quick sketch and all I had handy was a business card...so I did a quick sketch on the back side of the card.
That night I was at one of my favorite restaurants in Albuquerque and was inspired by the line of Tequila bottles on the bar back in front of me. So, once again I grabbed a business card and sketched a small drawing.

Hospital Equipment

This sketch is done on a piece of parchment paper - you know, the paper you make certificates and diplomas on. I was using some new pens I cam across - the Nexus Art pen from Koh-l-Noor. They are pretty interesting... This was a CPAP machine in my Dads hospital room.

My How Time Slips By

Just after my last post I rushed off to Albuquerque to visit my Dad. Somehow time has escaped me and I haven't posted in almost two months - I have been worse.

I do have some sketches I made on my trip to post today and some more drawings from my figure drawing class that I will post later.

This is an entry in my sketch journal on the flight to Albuquerque.

Figure Drawing - Second Week

This weeks subject was more fun. We worked on foreshortening. Trinka had us exaggerating proportions to really get a feel for it.





Getting ready to go off to Albuquerque for a couple of weeks. If I get a chance to copy my class work this weekend I'll try to get it posted next week.

My First Life Drawing Course

Day one was the basic sort of stuff trying to capture gestures and proportions. These are some sketchbook entries that I made before going to the first class. I was using photographs of baseball players as a reference. These type of sketches are described it the book "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way."
The first day of class we did some really loose gestures and then tried to actually draw our live model.

I think our instructor has her work cut out for her in my case.

A Light in the Night

Many of the Chesapeake Lighthouses are being renovated by private individuals and organizations. This is a sketch of one - only accessible by boat.

From My Travels a Standard Sketch

Isn't this the same picture that every one sitting in an airline terminal draws?

Traveling Watercolor Moleskine

I was traveling with my new watercolor moleskine and as many of us I had waiting time in the terminal. So out came the moleskine and this is what happened. I was struck by the bright yellow handsets on the telephone kiosk. They seemed to jump out at me - so I tried to capture some of that.

The style of my moleskine entries has been, I must confess, highly influenced by the marvelous posts on Karen Blados' Sketch Blog. Karen is a very talented and imaginative artist. Stop by and take a look at her site.

A Day Remembered in my Moleskine

It was just a clogged drain...easy to fix..right? Well it turned into an all day project. One of those where each step you take you find two more thinks to fix.

Moleskine Records the Forgotten

As we headed up the road from Florida we suddenly became aware that we had forgotten a couple of items. We keep saying that we should make a checklist for departure - who makes checklist!!

From my Old Molskine

Visiting my relatives in Boca Raton, FL I sketched the view from the patio. I was amazed at the number of Cable lines radiating from this one pole.

More From My Molskine

This was an entry after my external hard drive crashed. I was able to salvage most of the data but not all. It goes to show that even external backups to magnetic media are also subject to the same problems of internal hard drives.
The other page is another limp attempt at starting to be more active in journaling. That was a while back and it didn't last long.

What's in My Moleskine Cont'd

This entry in my moleskine was an experiment with some colored pens. I didn't get the result I wanted but I had fun trying.

What's in My Moleskine

Once again life had intervened in my postings. I have decided to put some posts up that recap 2007 and prove that I have still been sketching - even if I haven't posted much. Often I would just doodle in a spiral bound sketch book - and I do mean doodle meaningless scribbles. The next few posts will chronicle some entries into my moleskine.

These were some interesting bookcases - the stackable lawyer bookcases - I saw at a big antique flea market.