Saturday was SketchCrawl 19 day. I couldn’t join the San Francisco group this time around, but did manage a quickie Crawl in my backyard before the sun set.
It was unseasonably warm: a real summer day. A giant bee kept following me around and blocking my view of the best flowers. I felt like I had a sketching companion after all! (And he didn’t even sting me…)
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A quick couple of sketches here. I made the first sketch while sitting in my parked car listening to Danny Gregory’s excellent podcast on sketching and sketchbooks. And then later in the day I sketched the fading white rose in my backyard.
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Sketching in restaurants can be a real challenge: people move around a lot, and food and dining companions expect some attention as well. I usually end up sketching quickly, and always add the watercolor later on.
Here are three sketches done recently in local restaurants. The first two are in the bars, César and T. Rex.
The last sketch is at Venezia, an Italian restaurant with a unique decor. The walls are painted to make the space look like an outdoor cafe in Venice, and terraces, pigeons (fake, not real!), a fountain and a real laundry line complete the look.
The laundry is changed regularly to match the season: Santa suits, bathing suits, long johns, for example, and even lingerie at Valentines Day. I always get a kick out of that.
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In February Lisa and I did a mini-sketchcrawl around Berkeley and I never posted those sketches. Well, here they are!
The first sketch is the view across Shattuck Avenue here in North Berkeley from Bar Cesar where we had lunch. Although you wouldn’t know it, this is very close to the same view I sketched last month at twilight: same two trees there on the median strip.
After a quick North Berkeley tour we headed over to the UC Berkeley campus where we sketched the base of the Campanile Tower. I love the London Plane Trees on that plaza. They are wonderfully sculptural and go though dramatic changes throughout the year.
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The view from my car, parked on Shattuck Avenue, in North Berkeley at twilight.
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I recently attended the Berkeley Symphony and sketched the musicians during the performance. As I’ve done in the past when sketching in a theater, I did the ink work in the dark and added the watercolor later on.
Initially when the lights came up these sketches looked like a bunch of squiggles. But as I began to paint what I could recognize, more and more hidden shapes – arms, bows, violins – revealed themselves.
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On Wednesday there was a full lunar eclipse here in the Bay Area. I really wanted to draw it, but cloud cover obscured most of the event. We did catch the end though, at about 9:45pm from our front yard.
I did this little (2 x 3 inches) sketch in about 15 minutes. It was a cold and wet night so I went indoors and started by painting the sky and moon. I let the sky dry with it’s hard edge then painted the shadow, softened that edge. I went back outside and inked the tree. Inside once again I finished up with some additional watercolor on the tree.
One benefit of high quality watercolor paper is that it is easy to create a variety of edges. Hot press (HP) paper, which I favor, tends towards distinct hard edges which is a look I like, especially for quick sketches.
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At SketchCrawl #17 I met fellow sketchblogger Lee-Roy for the first time. He drove up from Los Angeles for the event and to spend a few days in the Bay Area. The day after the Crawl he came over to Berkeley to have a look. We met up in the North Berkeley neighborhood, aka Gourmet Ghetto, and took a little walking tour. It was cold though, and we’d already gotten frozen the day before, so we decided to seek refuge in Bar César. There we passed a lovely afternoon, talking and eating and drinking and sketching.
It was great fun to get to know another avid sketcher. Lee-Roy is quite talented indeed and did a wonderful sketch of the bar, right down to the many bottles and blue tiles. I love it!
And speaking of SketchCrawl, the date for SketchCrawl #18 has been announced: March 29, 2008!
See also: Other Sketches at César
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As the weather gets colder I find myself sketching indoors a lot. Last weekend I took my sketchbook to the Espresso Roma Cafe on Hopkins Street in Berkeley and made this sketch. /2008/01/06/cafe-sketching/
The perspective was a little quirky because I was sitting close to the subject and had to turn my head a bit to see the whole thing. It couldn’t be helped, there was a wall right behind me, but I’ll keep that in mind when choosing indoor subjects.
What have you been sketching indoors?
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And a happy one it is for me, as I have been honored with Katherine Tyrrell’s, “Travels with a Sketchbook Shield” award for 2007!
It is indeed an honor to be recognized by Katherine, and especially in the company of the other finalists, all of whom have been great inspirations to me:
Katherine’s award is extra meaningful to me because it was her "Blogging Art in 2006" posts, Part 1 and Part 2 which really inspired me to get serious about sketchblogging. Her blog is chock full of useful art information and links, her sketching and artwork is wonderful, and I have learned so much from her about blogging as well. She is a pro indeed!
Thank you Katherine for your very kind regard, and thank you to all the sketchbloggers out there who inspire me every day.
Happy New Year Everyone!
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This year for our holiday cards I made a sketch of my favorite fountain all decked out for the holidays. Arlington Fountain sits in the center of the Marin traffic circle, here in Berkeley, and is a reproduction of the fountain that stood there from 1911 through the 1950’s.
The sketch seemed a bit stark to me though (maybe needs a bit of background?), so decided to try an extremely cropped version of it for some of the cards. I like the result! I had the cards made at Shutterfly, who did a fine job just like they did on my cards last year and on my foodie note cards.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Related:
Other Projects
Arlington Fountain SketchCrawl
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I found myself on the U.C. Berkeley campus recently and decided to sketch Wurster Hall: the Architecture Department and my alma mater. This “neo-brutalist” building is widely regarded as an ugly monstrosity, especially it’s prison-like tower. Having spent a LOT of time there I can tell you it’s just as unpleasant to be inside of as it is look at.
Of course I am biased. Although I loved my overall experience at Berkeley I did not enjoy the architecture program in the least. The explanatory rant is a long one which I will spare you. Here is one oddity though: at the time I liked engineering but detested freehand drawing, which we had to be very good at but which was never taught.
Now I love sketching and often draw buildings, no less. Life can be so ironic sometimes, can’t it?
Related Post: SketchCrawl on the Berkeley Campus
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