Back to Work I Go

I rejoined the workforce this week after 10 months of semi-retirement. You would think that I should have lots of time to sketch and post, but alas the to-do list seems to get in the way.

I have managed a few sketches from time to time, just not found the time to get them posted. This morning was a good opportunity for me to get something posted. I found a new pencil the other day and finally ordered one. It is the MLP2 Zebra, a 9mm 2B flat lead mechanical pencil. This morning I made a quick sketch while I was at the coffee shop.


Better detail of the sketch.

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.

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.

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.

Exploring Body Parts

Life, once again, gets in the way. I have had little time to draw of late and what time I had was short. So, if you don’t have time to draw the whole figure, then draw an interesting part of it. I was doodling around and was experimenting with various body parts.

Mostly in graphite but I also experimented with my Pitt Artist Pens – I bought a set of the Gray shades a while back and hadn't really done much with them.

The reference for some of these was Bridgmans Complete Guide to Drawing from Life - hence the muscular appearance.

Some Metro Art and More From the Margins

Last week was a very intense week. I attended a seminar on Simulation Modeling and Analysis – read heavy on statistics. To avoid the traffic and parking I rode the Metro (subway) to and from the sessions. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to do a little sketching. The ride is not very long so I decided to try sketching heads to start with. I did a couple on each trip in. On the trip out it was to crowded to try and draw – there are lots of stops so trying to draw standing up is near impossible – need an extra hand to hold on to a support.

The seminar was really good – but even a good seminar will have some slow moments. So, as the math began to get deeper than I needed I doodled in the margins of my notes. Well, there was five days of this and I tend to doodle a lot. I used my fountain pen for almost all of these doodles.

My first couple of days I tried heads, as I mentioned, a couple were good and others dismal. I still find myself noodling with the image and trying to put more detail than I need, in my opinion. I am trying to improve my sketching speed! But, as Dave Rankin would say I tend to draw rather than sketch.

I thought I would try my hand at hands one morning and that was not so good. I really got wrapped around the details and lost the image I was after. The fact that some people move their hands around a lot made it difficult as well. So, I need to really concentrate on speed – to capture the shape that caught my eye and worry about the detail later.

After my questionable effort to capture hands I thought I would try one of the EDM challenges – to draw a mouth. This was particularly interesting and I really had fun with this. It is extremely enlightening when you begin studying the mouths of those around you. The amazing range of subtle and dramatic differences could fuel drawings for a very long time.

In spite of all the marginal art I really did get a great deal out of the seminar. I expect that I will be applying many of the concepts presented in the very near future.

Barstool Doodles

On my last trip to the North I decided to stay at a Holiday Inn that has a Pub. Of course I went to the Pub for dinner and decided to sit at the bar. While I waited for my meal to arrive I decided to doodle away at the bottles on the bar back counter. So, I whipped out my little 3”x5” sketch book and began. First, using pencil on a couple and then one in pen and ink.

Of course this is drawing in a very public place and since I was sitting next to the waitress station I was observed during my efforts. Even though I only had one person comment on my doodling. It was fun and I think if I practice some of Dave Rankin's techniques I could really develop a collection of people. As always - practice - practice - practice.

I used a 9B pencil for the pencil sketches and did not erase anything. When my drawing instructor saw them she said I should just use pen and ink since I don't erase anything.










I used a brown Pigma Micron 005 pen for the sketch below. It was an experiment with the scribble style of crosshatching.

I even made an attempt at capturing the likeness of one of the waitresses as she made trips to the service bar for here orders. Not as quick a sketch as I would have liked but it was a step in the direction of improvement.

EMC #30

Well, Danny said draw a chair. EMC challenge #30 is to draw a chair. So, I did. It started out as a BC but my dog (yeah, I know) got in the way so I peeked to finish it off. I used my fountain pen with black Noodlers ink. This one I will color. I have printed a couple of scanned sketches on watercolor paper to experiment with.