Michigan sketches

Pregnancy has impacted my sketching productivity. I’m just not sketching as much as I was pre-pregnancy. I seem to be devouring books, but it’s taking me so much longer to get through the pages of my sketchbook.

But, I did do this sketch of Tad on the train from Chicago to Michigan at the end of June. We had a short but sweet visit to see family.

We also squeezed in a trip to the beach, at Grand Mere State park, and I captured my sister in law. The day was HOT and the water was cool and refreshing…though the rocks made it a little challenging to get into the water.

Journey to India

On my honeymoon in India, I kept a journal/sketchbook. I decided to take a video of it rather than scan in the sketches one by one. It was quite a three week adventure. Enjoy!

2012 sketching – a year in review

A year ago, I noted all the places I sketched in the year. What a great record of all the great sketching!

I thought I would do that again here.

Here is a list of all the places I sketched in 2012 (in random order)

Oregon: at work, at home, Bill Sharp’s studio, Seattle’s best downtown, SW 2nd & Taylor, Oaks Park skating rink, Silk, outside the Chinese garden, west moreland, the Hazel Room, on SE Hawthorne, Cha Cha Cha’s, Portland Memorial, Staccato Gelato, Portland Nursery Apple Tasting, Social Security office, DMV, Sound Grounds cafe, on the bus, at my in law’s house, in the car, at Yummy GArden, at Thai Lahna, barbur transit center, at the coast, Thai Bay in depoe bay, St. Honore in Lake Oswego, Peet’s coffee in Lake Oswego, Nicholas’ restaurant, An Xuyen bakery, Foster Burger, at a Peace Bike presentation, airport, mt. hood, Floyd’s, mocha express, fort stevens, rose parade, white eagle saloon, nw documentary’s home grown docfest, downtown Dayton, tom mccall park, I-84 east and west bound, Oasis Cafe, Jam Cafe, Appathaizing Thai Cuisine, PSU, Portland Action Summit, Ringler’s annex, by the willamette, moreland farmer’s market, kelley point park, bob’s red mill, Jade, La Carreta, st Johns Cathedral park, proper eats, wooden boat festival, in my car in oregon city, elk rock island, flying pig, se 13th, Dwaraka, Jantzen beach, produce row cafe, Bertie Lou’s, laughing planet, bipartisan cafe, biddy mcgraw’s, seven virtues, muddy rudder, clackamas county sheriffs office awards ceremony, Izzy’s, Pascale’s studio, costello’s travel caffe, vancouver children’s library, filming of a documentary, wilsonville pub, eastbank esplanade, mongolian bbq, on the back of a tandem bike, oregon berry festival, backyard concert at a friend’s house, chapman elementary, clackamas town center, david’s bridal, Henry’s tavern, astoria, Gregg’s office, Waldo Middle school, sidewalk out front of Saburo’s, Saburo’s, Johnson Creek, wong’s king chinese restaurant, Swagat, Columbia park, Nova tattoo studio, food carts on se belmont, rain or shine coffee shop, old town pizza, dang’s thai restaurant, pastini pastaria, stuck in traffic on se tacoma going west,

trips:
Montana: the road into the tri-cities,Kootenai creek, university of montana,
Idaho: McCall,
Airport to Seattle, Miami airport,
Dominican Republic: airport, santo domingo, parque colon, el beaterio, iglesia santa barbara, ruinas san francisco, cafeteria el conde, mercado modelo, Irie Lion, panteon nacional, Puerta del conde, calle el conde, Hotel Mercure, Samana, quintana bar, playa anadel, falafel, parque billini, plaza espana, butcher shop, meson d bari,

All but the red sketch book have been completely filled in 2012

some sketches in each book

 

Almost five sketchbooks, three states, two countries and a partridge in a pear tree…okay, no partridges, but a pig’s head in a butcher shop.

Life

Life happens and blogging does not.

But I have been sketching since I last posted in March 2012!

Here are some random snap shots from my sketchbooks

the first few sketches are from an Urban Sketchers meet up in May. We met at Staccato Gelato in Sellwood

I captured Kalina sketching twice

we inevitably talk about Pete Scully when we sketch fire hydrants

 

a bridge

 

 

another view of the bridge to nowhere

 

 

drawing Tad at one of our many dinners

 

 

I went to Santo Domingo to attend the 3rd International Urban Sketchers Symposium!

Thanks to Orling for organizing it!

it was hot, but fantastic. I enjoyed brushing up on my spanish (and even my french, thanks to our Haitian hoteliers!)

 

capturing some daily living

 

and a self portrait

 

 

grandad reading on Christmas day

 

Paint Set

I bought my paint set back in 2006. Since then, as pans of paint have been used up, i’ve merely added some more paint into the near empty pan, or put in a fresh new pan of paint. For six years this has worked for me. In the summer of 2011, painting on the beach on the gulf of mexico and again on Lake MIchigan, I dropped my paint set, and sand got in to all the little cracks and crevices. It continually annoyed me until today when I started trying to clean it out. Soon, I was prying up all the pans–a lot of them were so congealed with old paint that i had to chip away, breaking, the pan in the process, to pull out the pan.

I realized that the old paint, even if some wasn’t necessarily that old, was not going to go back into my (as near pristine as it could be using the cleaning tools available to me) kit. So i pulled out my tubes of paint and filled the clean pans with some fresh paint. The palette is different- going just with what i have: cerulean blue, prussian blue, turquoise, permanent rose, cadmium red deep, cadmium yellow, lap black, payne’s gray, sap green, olive green, hooker’s green light, and chinese white.

I realized in this process, too, that i still have a lot of wc tubes purchased when i was in college–back in 1997! While some is still squeezable, others are hard. Maybe in the interest of using up what I have, some day I’ll cut open the tube, soak the dried paint in water and see what happens. I should really deep clean my palette once a year so that it does not get as bad again!

I did not get a photo of my palette pre-cleaning, but I have a photo of the bits of paint pried out of the pans and a photo of my fresh new palette.

Sledding on Mt Hood

i took a break from sledding to do a couple of sketches, painted at home…

Portlandia

Portland Urban Sketchers met downtown at SW 2nd and SW Taylor at a Starbucks. Downtown on a Saturday morning is a quiet place– great for focusing on urban landscape without the distraction of traffic and pedestrians.

Twelve sketchers showed up on this cold, damp day. The sun kept teasing us, but the rain still fell.

I did some warm up drawings of my fellow sketchers & pasted in a map of the area,

we did venture outside, under a sheltered area that also had tables. I managed to mostly avoid drawing buildings. I just wasn’t feeling in the mood to work on perspective. In the background, you can see something with the letter E on it. Electric cars can park in two parking spots for as long as they want, as long as they are charging up their vehicles.

I attempted to figure out the lines of a bicycle locked to a bike rack. Not only is a bike difficult to draw, but the bike rack it self, had odd curved metal that confused my eye and my pen.

Huddled back in the warmth of the cafe, I couldn’t resist trying to draw this mural on the side of a building.

Our next stop was supposed to be Steamer’s for lunch, but since it was closed, we went to Seattle’s Best. We had lunch there and tried to sketch the Portlandia statue from the window. I couldn’t get a good view without taking over someone else’s chair, so I decided I’d draw the sketchers sketching the Portlandia statue. You can see below, on Kalina’s sketchbook the trident that Portlandia is holding.

One of these days, I will attempt to draw the Portlandia statue.

We shared our sketchbooks and then parted ways.

2011

As we start a new year, I get to work in a new sketchbook! Which made me think about the sketches of 2011. Thinking I only had three sketchbooks filled with 2011 sket.ches, I was surprised to find more….FIVE, in fact!! These five books are filled with sketches, January 17, 2011 t0 December 31, 2011;

here is a run down of where I sketched this past year: 21st Ave bar, Canvas, Boyd’s, downtown Portland, purest cafe, Columbia river brewing, Brooklyn neighborhood, twilight cafe, pioneer square, bob’s house, waffle window, on the max, Kenton, Nicholas restaurant, mt. Tabor, caldera, dr. Sketchy’s @ stump town comics fest, at home, st. Helen’s, Hawaiian island cafe, earth day festival, beach house, singer hill cafe In Oregon city, papaya Thai, camp cleawox, movie madness, horse brass pub, tabor space, Astoria, luigis pizza in rainier, drink daisy in Astoria, bob’s red mill, multnomah village, lucky lab, muddy rudder, oaks park, Johnson creek park, back of tandem bike on marine drive, river place, produce row cafe, past aria pasting, festival of balloons In Tigard, Moreland farmers market, the pearl, trek in the park, Pdx airport, on planes, Lisbon poets hostel, pastalria palus, miradouro de Santa Catarina, cafe a brasileira, rua serpa pinto, tabernacle do Chiado, amazens do. Chiado,, festival au largo, sintra, palacios de Pena, Castelo SE s. Jorge, faculdade de belas artes, cais do sodre, new black restaurante, noobai cafe, largo do barao de quintela, Praca de Sao Paulo, Adega dantas, Praca de Luis de Camoes,tease, rua do Norte, Praca do comercio, ena pai restaurante, Praca de Pedro IV, living lounge hostel, Lisbon airport, Philadelphia airport, Portland farmers market, Charlotte airport, baptist health hospital, shoneys in Montgomery, chappy’s deli, b,use mountain beach, FL, country’s, tea party, Starbucks, soapbox derby, Woodstock park, Gregg’s house, st. Johns pub, saburos, Chicago, st. Joseph, MI, caffe tosis, river view park, van buren state park, Kelley’s bowl, on Amtrak, on the el, at Dave & Sarah’s house, homestead, Oregon zoo, alder creek middle, Holcomb elementary, vivace, green beans, screen door, Moreland theater, prince of life church inoregon city,wind horse coffee, grand central bakery, tabor fest, papaccinos, fresh pot, whole foods, bazi bierbrasserie, whit comb elementary, papa g’s,merchants cafe in pioneer square in Seattle, pier 52, train station, sweet tomatoes, bertie Lou’s, 13th and bybee, st honoreboulangerie in L.O., Peculiarium, OMSI body worlds exhibit, occupy Portland, Japanese gardens, Palio, nectar, jury room, on a mule drawn wagon, at night along he waterfront, st. Mary’s cathedral, pioneer place, holiday gatherings, goodwill, izzy’s, Portland rock gym…

Whew! That IS a lot of drawing… 2 countries, 8 states, a dozen or more cities, too many restaurants and cafes to count, lots of planes, trains, automobiles and even on a tandem bike and a mule drawn wagon!

December sketches

I have a lot of sketches to show!

Sketches I’ve done lately