I had a good drawing… but pretty much ruined it. Paper (Canso: Sketch Esquisse Croquis) is not good for water color or wash, unless applied fairly dry for details. Stick with pencil for this sketch book. Get something better for more finished work. But it was a lovely day to spend a couple of hours in the warm spring sun!
Across the street from A-Space. Ink, water color.
My mother’s pen & ink of the Bass Lake Outlet dam, and where she lies…
Summit Township Cemetery, Mason County, Michigan.
A quickie from my porch in West Philly. 5″ x 6″ Pen & ink, water color wash. The blue sky was wishful thinking… 10th day overcast and cold.
View GALLERY HERE.
If it wasn’t a challenge, wouldn’t be much fun. Not very good at this yet… a lot to learn. Every day, out on the street. I think it’s because I’m a life long obsessive journalist that I’m drawn to this. I would describe what I see on the pages of my journal… this kind of sketch is like a journal entry without words.
52nd Street fruit stand, looking toward Pine. Pen & ink, watercolor wash.
What’ll I draw? What’ll I draw? Sometime, you just go with what’s in front of you… anything works to get one started. My youngest son, who’s not a kid anymore, had a menagerie ‘friends’ when he was a child, most of them, like this little Gorilla, stuffed, some– creatures of the imagination (Red Rhino and the Blue Gnu)… It was like a running repertory theater. Destined from the beginning to be an actor/director.
O-1 liner pen & Neocolor. A rough sketch for practice.
To a few, “Gibson Girl” might ring a bell… but mostly, this artist has been lost to memory. (though if you search down in these images, you’ll see New Yorker Cover… 75 years in embryo)… I mean, the 4 women on the subway: the nun, the religious prude, etc… ) and a brilliant illustration of Mansplaining. Though the Gibson Girl was a commercial pin-up, she was a woman not to be messed with.
And Gibson’s ink drawings are brilliant… crow quill pen and India ink. Think: Walt Kelly (Pogo), Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes)…
My mother, who was a wonderful artist with pen and ink, had a book of Gibson drawings. I wish I knew what happened to it.
Gibson, as an artist, may have vanished from memory… but he was brilliant. I love his work. Check them out. There is nothing like the “Gibson Girl” in pop marketing now… she was fucking not to be messed with!
And his penmanship… excuse me, penship… was exquisite!
.01 Staedtler pen … also did some courtroom drawing this morning, cop dragged a women from her home, wrongful arrest– Acquittal! Michael Coard is a warrior for justice.
This is what I do to train my eye. Drawing is how one learns to see.
I’ve started taking my folding chair out and spending a couple hours each day drawing… doing buildings, street scenes–something of a change for me. I ordered Pete Scully’s Creative Sketching Workshop–looking forward to working at urban sketching every day till the weather turns cold again.
View GALLERY HERE.
Drawing demands attention. I like to draw because it teaches me how to see. I know I’ve said that before, but I can’t emphasize enough how important that is to me.
I want art to be, not about making pretty things, but about vision. How to see, actively, creatively. I look for what most people wouldn’t see, and if they did, see without attention. Seeing–without opening the heart to wonder, without catching what we see in the webs of memory. Here are some of the things I like to draw. (I encourage you to click and zoom in on these for detail.)
Asphalt pavement & peeling billboard
Tree root.
Utility poles.
Jacob Russell's Magic Names 