Drawing Kids

Going back to sketching started as a very scary prospect.  Thanks to the Tr-City Urban Sketchers, regular sketching has increased my confidence in every aspect of my art.  Instead of pushing paint around until it looked right (or as right as I could make it) the drawing underneath starts out right and color is added on top.  Pen and ink drawing with watercolor washes has become my favorite!  This is a drawing of 2 of my grandkids - "Elayna & Eli".

Colonial Williamsburg: Guard House and Magazine

Along the main road of Colonial Williamsburg, Duke of Gloucester (or DOG as the locals call it), sit this Guard House and Magazine where mmunitions were stored.  Can you tell I had just a little more "time" to sketch the Guard House?

Colonial Williamsburg

While our wives purchased tickets to the Colonial Williamsburg experience, I found a comfortable bench and sketched the Craft House across the street.  The Craft House sits along Duke of Gloucester Street which runs west from the Wren Building, situated on the University of William and Mary campus, to the old Virginia Capitol Building one mile east.  The City of Williamsburg has preserved all the buildings along the way and turned the far east end of the street from the Capital back to the Court House into live theatre. 

We were treated like regular citizens of the city today as we marched, like a mob, from house to tavern to court house to capital building to watch as people prepared for war with the British: a harried wife whose husband had been captured; a black couple struggling with what the war would men in terms of the endentured servants plight, a black preature extolling the virtues of our God given rights to freedom; we even saw the Red Coats marching toward us from the west; and we listened to a rousing speech given by Benedict Arnold who rode back and forth on a black steed beside the Capital grounds.

We visited the oldest Episcopal church in the country where Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Martha Custin (the latter Martha Washington) attended.  We touched the very baptistry that George Washington stood over as he witnessed fourteen baptisms. 

It was a fabulous day:  All this history that until today, for us Northwesterners, lay deep only within the covers of history books.

And of course, lunch was high on the list of importance as well.  Here we see a couple of ladies at an adjoining table to ours.  We enjoyed everything here from a catfish sandwich to a vegetable/fruit/cheese plate and soup of the day.  Even "she-crab" soup: google it.

Minneapolis/St Paul Airport

Our first stop on the way to Williamsburg was in the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport where we had about half an hour to kill before heading on to Detroit, then Richmond.  This is a compositie of more than the number of people in the sketch.  We're in Williamsburg until May 1st when head back home.

Erica and Michael

I painted this off of the small sketch I made a week or so ago.  "Erica and Michael"

35th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

Thses are my sketches of a cemetery scene and a fire hydrant.

"35th World Wide Sketchcrawl"

As part of the WORLD WIDE SKETCHCRAWL, we met at 10 and started in earnest on the nearest fire hydrant.  After that, we headed to a nearby cemetery and spent the rest of a very pleasant, sunny, warm day there.  I sat down at the end of this row of markers thinking I'd paint here and looked directly to my left and saw this great dandelion.  The granite marker was TOUGH and it took a lot longer than I thought but things were great in the graveyard today!

"35th World Wide Sketchcrawl - Today"

Today, Jean, Yichien, Nancy and Jim joined together to participate in this global sketchcrawl.  We started out with a warm-up by drawing a simple fire-hydrant, then we went to the public cemetery up on Olympia and Tenth where we recorded all the activity there (wink).

These are my contributions:



This fire hydrant was our warm-up this morning.



Nancy's big broad brim was a strong magnet for this sketch.



My styelized view of the cemetery. 

 

"Wayne's Barber Shop"

It's been a long time since I sat in an old barber's chair and got my hair cut in an old barber shop by an old barber with old guys sitting around talking about hunting and fishing. What a trip back in time! The haircut was relatively inexpensive, $10, and I like it.  Maybe I'll go back.

GRACE & NOAH

These are 2 of Erica's other kids - Noah and Grace. They were excited to pose for me because they really wanted me to paint their picture. I'm not sure they will be too excited when they see this but I thought it was an interesting study. I will do it again and make them both look more like themselves - a whole lot more darling!

ERICA & MICHAEL

While my kids were here this past week I took a lot of photos thinking I could draw at my leisure when they left. My little grandson, Michael, is handicapped and even though my daughter doesn't realize I drew her as well, I'm really pleased with this drawing. I think it shows her unbelievable love and comforting ability towards him. She sits with him this way a lot!

Hobby Lobby Carnival

this is my 2nd try at the carnival

"The Hobby Lobby Carnival"

Jean and Jim met in the windy Hobby Lobby parking lot for a couple of hours of sketching and, for Jim, freezing.  They agreed they didn't come up with much.  If you've ever tried sketching a carnival, you know it isn't easy!  Anyway, Jim came up with this one. 

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Marsha's Cabin

A friend of mine has a cabin at Langdon Lake in Washington where we like to go to escape the heat of the Tri-Cities and bike through the giant pines. This is a scene just outside her cabin, sitting on her deck, overlooking the lake. It was incredibly quiet, peaceful and lovely! There was a LOT to draw and it took a lot of patience to really stop and see everything and draw it with this very fine tip pen.

"35th International Sketchcrawl - April 21st"

We came across a quote from Robert Kaupelis from his book, "Learning to Draw" which seems appropriate:

“I suggest that you wed yourself so thoroughly to your sketchbook that it almost becomes a physical extension of yourself. And now what you must do is draw and draw and look at the drawings and draw and draw and draw and look at the drawings and draw …”

Sketching in your own backyard isn't always easy. We pass the same things day after day on our way to work, or the grocery store, or the coffee drive-through, and we end up zoning out on those things as well as the people, cars, trees, and buildings along the way. For an artist to take his/her art further into the journey, these everyday things must inspire therefore we must look more deeply, search more carefully, and see more clearly because it is only when we do that our art grows, evolves and develops into something more closely approximating what we want it to look like.

My former college room mate and friend, Rod Cary, was an art major. Before passing away a few years ago, Rod became the window designer for the national chain of mall stores known as Casual Corner. Once just after college, almost 50 years ago, he came to visit us. We went for a picnic up on the side of the hills just south of Prosser, WA., and while watching him sketch the landscape jutting before us he shared two things I have never forgotten: one, there are far more colors there than any casual observer will ever see; and two, there is more beauty in simple things that the casual observer will ever see. "My job as an artist is to capture them," he said.

Let's go drawing together on April 21st, on the occasion of the "35th International Sketchcrawl" where people from around the globe go out together in groups to draw the world.

We will gather in the parking lot of the "509 Artspace" just behind the KNDU studios on Kennewick Avenue at 10am. From there we will head out into the community for a marathon sketch session that will last until about 3pm.