More current sketches

When I reached the top of the hill where I intended to sit and sketch I found Llarry our Llama laying peacefully in the shade of a tree. Thinking that this would make a great pastoral sketch I maneuvered the jeep around to a good viewing position without disturbing Llarry which was tricky on the narrow tree covered ridge. Fortunately it was a hot enough that he wasn’t inclined to move. As soon as I settled down to sketch our other animals decided to come see what I was doing. Maybe lend a hand? Anyway, I found myself surrounded by two horses, two donkeys, and a pony all sticking their heads into the jeep looking around and generally getting in the way. By the time I pushed everyone away Llarry was up and the moment was broken but I had carved this few minutes out of my day especially to draw and this is the resulting sketch. Everybody kind of standing around with “what’s wrong with him” look, except for Cricket, the old mare, who just turned her back on me.

I'mmmm baccck!!!!!

I looked out the window this morning, saw this man sitting on the bench and thought it's a new month I think I'll do a quick sketch and start posting again. Now that I'm looking at the sketch I realized that he's sitting on half a bench! Is it still artistic license if it was an unintentional omission? The rest of the bench was boring anyway, you’re not missing anything. It’s ironic that most of the people who use this bench look like they have no visible means of support, this guy does and I leave it off. Maybe it’s my subconscious making a statement. Maybe I'm rambling. Maybe I should get to work.

More old stuff

This is a copper wire sculpture also done in 2003.

Really old stuff

This is a mild steel sculpture I did in 2003. It is also a desk lamp with a 12 led cluster in the dragonfly's head.

Continuing the sleeping dog theme

This is Cubit, or Cue for short. Cue was my replacement search dog for Keli. While Cue held great promise in temperment and drive, his legs failed him. They never quite grew to full length. The name "Cubit" comes from the ancient measurement, a cubit is about 18 inches which is how tall an adult male cattle dog should be. Ironic that Cubit never reached a cubit isn't it? Looking a Cue puts in mind a cross between a cattle dog and a pot belly pig. Nice dog, not search dog material however.

In this drawing I put the blackest black in the background and the lightest areas in the foreground. Reversed from the usual method of creating depth, but I think that the drawing still works correctly.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Grace the whippet lying on the couch. Conveying a brindle coat through value changes was an unsuccessful exercise I'm afraid.

Woods Sketch

Saturday was spent in the woods visiting with members of the canine search and rescue unit of which I was once a member. This sketch done while we talked was the result. Now that I look at the sketch it turned out better than I thought at the time. While the items in the fore ground are not as realized as they should be the back ground, I think, works well. It was interesting to figure out just how much to do to convey the density of the forest while keeping it generalized and light enough to remain in the back ground. I spent the most time on the stump in the front right and it's the part I'm least happy with.

February 15th

A study of light on glass. I'd like to rework the text to get its perspective right. There's those corner fence posts which keep turning up in my sketches.

Hands and Feet

Figure drawing classes with Sarah Mattson requires many, many pages of hands and feet drawings in your sketchbook. Above is my left hand depicted as a lazy bum by my right hand who was doing all the work....in charcoal.
I can't now remember whether these are my own toes in a mirror or someone else's. Anyway, I used a woodless graphite pencil.

Turtles at the Park

Turtle pond at the discovery park in Sacramento. Conveniently located on the path from work to school on sketch book day. It was really fun using contour lines to describe the shapes of the turtle, log, water.....as you can see in the detail of the drawing below.

Clock Towers

Two images of the Sacramento City Hall Clock Tower. The upper is woodless graphite pencil and the lower, which has been previously posted, is pen and ink technical pens with "shades of grey" felt pen washes. Each was drawn in a different season.

Captive Subject

Drivers don't move much, and
neither do TV watchers....perfect for profiles.

Old Messy Porch

Sketch of my porch when it was storage.

Spotted Whippet

When Cathleen first started to consider getting into whippets we went to the races to meet breeders and their dogs. This is a sketch of a little bitch who stayed right around where we were sitting. She kept stopping in this very pose to watch the dogs on the track.

It's a sign...

This was drawn in my sketch book for class quite some time ago and it's the first time I felt comfortable using pen and ink as a medium. Now that I look at it again I'd like to go in and rework the shadows into a real deep black to add some dimension to the background.

Original sketch

This is the original sketch for the last watercolour post. It was drawn in autumn using prismacolor pencils . This is the same tree that has appeared in several of my sketches. I don't know how many of you remember "Billy the Mountain" by Frank Zappa, but if I'm not careful the tree with want payment, go on a vacation to New York only to be pursued by Studebaker Hoch after destroying everything in it's path just by the act of moving over it. Ahh, they don't make music like that anymore.

Trying my hand at watercolour

A lot of my more recent work has been pen and ink. In an attempt to record color information in my sketches I began to try colored pens, water soluble pencils and oil pastels. Lately I have been trying watercolors with a water brush. Some of those sketches have already made it to this blog. In this painting I’ve dropped the use of the pen and gone directly to watercolors on a watercolor paper post card. The scene is a view from my house that I did eighteen months ago as a prismacolor pencil sketch for class. I’ll post that sketch and the resulting oil painting soon.

How the eagles see the ranch

This is a sketch of our ranch buildings from the hill behind the house. I know that there are some perspective problems, especially in the background where the creek bed is starting to stand on edge. Also the round pen is a little too round. Just below the center of the drawing you will see the corner fence posts and fig trees from a previous posting.

Skull & Vases

This was a still life from an oil painting class. There were two other components to the assignment; a monochrome study and a full color study. Each piece had to be a different scale. I did an 11x18 charcoal study and a 8 1/2 x 11 pastel study. If I can come up with them I'll post them here. The skull is from one of our sheep which fell victim to a coyote and the vases I bought in a second hand store specifically for this project. The vase on its side was bronze with a patchy patina. I found it challenging to render the roundness of the vase while maintaining the various colors on its surface. I really enjoyed modeling the skull and the overhead lights reflected in the center vase. I'm still not happy with the rendering of the brown vase on the right, it feels flat and course to me, although everyone else seems to like it. The most criticism I've received is the upper background not having enough going on in it, although I did vary the shading and texture.

Trees and Fences

Pencil pastels on 8 1/2 x 11 sketch paper. This sketch is from an oil painting class required sketchbook, later the basis for a 24x48 oil painting. The scene is just outside my front door and a friend looking through my sketchbooks noted that these corner posts show up often in the background of other sketches. I worked on this sketch from late afternoon until dusk and the sky was redrawn several times to reflect those changes.

City Hall Clock Tower

Simple Still Life

Rail Road Cars

The Bet

This is a painting I did as the final project in a figure drawing class. it is acrylic on two joined 24" x 36"canvases to make it 48" wide by 36" tall. This was the first time I had worked in acrylic after two classes in oils and I struggled with the drying times and the tactile differences of the brush on canvas. The project was to be a self portrait and I used myself for all three figures.

The Blue Room

Sight Hound Racing

Oil pastel sketch in my front yard

Arbuckle Alley at Night

10th and I

Sketches for posting

I began sketching when it was required for art classes I've taken at local colleges. Somehow it has become a way of life and I carry at the minimum a sketch book and pen with me all the time. Recently, I found a whole world online of people who live this same way of life. Since I have enjoyed and learned from their work I've decided to share some of my own work in hopes that it will also be enjoyed.