"Key West, Florida Keys, 2009"



One of Hemingway's haunts in Key West, "Cap't Tony's." 

When the rent on this place went up in 1937, about 25 cents worth, Capt. Tony decided to move to another place, "Sloppy Joe's Tavern," just up the street.  Hemingway helped him move and both places thrive still today.  My favorite was "Sloppy Joe's" with all the open air doors and the loud music, and the loud crowd, and the clinking of the glasses, and the rum and cokes, and, and, and.....  Wish I were there now. 

"Little League Fans Watch the Championship Games"

Parents as Fans, a photo by jimbmgarner on Flickr.

We had a great time yesterday at the opening series of the Little League Champsionship Series here in Kennewick. The kids were great and my grandson's team whupped up on the other guys, 16-10.

One Last Sketch

So here is the last sketch I did before leaving France.  This was a little drawing in my sketchbook of the yard at the chateau where we stayed for 2 weeks.  I has this lovely grove of trees, a horse barn and of course, the quintessential tower.  It was sunny and warm the last 3 days we were there and the colors were brilliant!  Goodbye to a great trip.

"Future Scheduled Local Sketchcrawls"

Anyone interested in meeting up for any future scheduled local sketchcrawls will have to check the blog for dates, times, events.  The notices will be posted in "What's Coming Up," in the right margin.  There will be no further email notifications.  

Announcement: "Sketching for Scavengers"

We see a couple of things happening in the USk blog community that catch our eye. 

1.  The USk'ers in Singapore are collecting sketches for a series of books which will showcase the various neighborhoods in the city. That would be fun to do here in the Tri-Cities, maybe on a smaller scale, but fun. 

2.  In Portland, OR, they are having a Scavenger Hunt.  The person with the greatest numbers of entries on their blog by September wins a prize.  They don't say what the prize is, but something tells us it doesn't matter. 

We got to thinking about a Scavenger Hunt that would include the following items, some scammed directly off Portland's list, some not: 

bus 
statue
unbrella
inside a coffee shop
coffee shop exterior
grapes
wine bottle(s)
a winery
food cart
food truck
lamp posts
a fountain (any) fire hydrant
musician
artist
dog and owner
someone wearing stripes
bicycle(s)
any Tri-City scene
bridge
downtwon Kennewick
alleyway
flower
our hills
coffee
beer
something with a bird on it
a storefront
the Franklin county Courthouse
a train
the river
a fish
people in groups
a Farmers Market
vegetables
an old house
cars

The finishing date as October 1st, then we will have a big celebration somewhere where we will award the big prize.

"Clover Island Boathouses & Marina"

These are the houseboats at Clover Island in Kennewick.  If you've seen the real ones you can see some liberties were taken with colors on the sketch.  This sketch was done in '08, and everytime I look at it I think I could do better with another attempt; the perspective is too wonky in this one.  Now that the weather has gotten nice, maybe one day next week? 

pigma micron pen, watercolor, 6x9 Super Aquabee Sketchbook

A shy Emilie.  

Games on. 

"Featuring: James Richards - Urban Sketcher"

James Richards is an urban designer, sketchbook artist, writer and educator in Fort Worth, Texas. He is a co-founder of the urban design firm TOWNSCAPE, Inc, and a member of the Board of Directors of the global non-profit Urban Sketchers.  He is putting together a book about how to create interesting sketches, especially urban sketches. 

This image of the Paris Opera House links to a short demonstration on his blog about how he put it together.  It is fascinating to see how he accomplished this amazing sketch, and there are a few tricks there that may help some of us.

Click the link, check out this blog post, "Music for the Eyes," click back to this page and drop a comment below and share something about how you might use something he had to share.

OIL PAINTING

OToday the weather was till cloudy but it didn't rain and it was much warmer.  These 2 paintings reflect that (especially the bottom one) but I added some brilliant color to the top one just for kicks.  I painted a third one but it needs some work and a little drying time before I keep going so I'll post it later.

INTERIOR DRAWING

It was really cold and drizzly here yesterday, so I staid inside and did an 'interior drawing'.  This chateau is really beautiful - about 500 years old - but the owners, Yves and Yvette are the BEST!!!

Richland Players Theater

Today I had lunch with several friends in the Parkway area in Richland. I went there about 20 minutes earlier and hoped that I'd sketch something.

This is what I sketched. It started drizzling soon after I started, therefore I sketched fast to get the essence first, then finished up in the car.

"News"

The next scheduled local sketchcrawl is June 2nd.  If you have a place, person, thing, event, etc., you would like to promote, drop a comment on this post and let us know what you're thinking.  One person can't come up with all the ideas.

You can get automatic updates when someone posts on the blog.  Just scroll down the right hand margin and find "Follow."  Feed your email address in the window and then follow whatever instructions pop up.  It's easy and it gives you instant access to the goings on here.

Have you checked out the USK Whidbey Island yet?  They have some gorgeous work on their blog.  Left hand margin, scroll down to their link.

We received 2,300 hits on the blog last month.

Only one member at the sketchcrawl this morning.  Where is everyone?

"Wayne's Shop"

This old building has somehow captured my attention.  I have sketched it 3 or 4 times and posted at least once before.  This is a side view. Maybe I should go back and try to capture the entire thing; but this end of it is the most interesting.
 
On the second cut, Wayne completely butchered my hair.  So now the building has my attention, but Wayne, not so much.

"Little Leaguers and Aidan"

Not too sure about how this one will look on the blog, but I'm rather happy with the way the figures are beginning to eek out of my pen onto the page.  These guys are not easy to draw because speaking about being all over the place, they are!  Each of the batters here is a composite of quite a few of the kids who came to the plate, some of them my grandson, Aidan:  all right handed too. 

The two smaller figures are not composited. These two boys were at first base: one is playing first base, the one with his mitt on his hip; and the other was a base runner.  The base runner made it to second. 

These are among the most challenging of any of the sketches I've done, well, actually they are ALL challenging.  These are maybe the most difficult. 

"Pair of Readers at Howard Amon Park"

This morning at 10am I drove over to meet any of the sketchers who might show up for another of our scheduled local sketchcrawls, but they must have all had more important things to do on this beautiful, warm, sun-drenched day.  I parked at the end of the street near the boat dock and noticed this man and woman right in front of my truck, so I simply sat behind the wheel of my truck and sketched them.  He was a great model as he hardly moved at all during the 40 mins I was there.  She was all over the place, but that's the challenge when you draw people, they move.  I'm not particularly crazy about the background.  I started to leave it all white, but it was too stark, something needed to be there to ground the figures.