Requiem For A Dead Junco

Poor thing thought my studio window was another, more inviting world.  But I couldn't waste the opportunity, so I immortalized her.  

The Reject

This one was problematic and I didn't think it looked so much like Tommy, but today I reworked it a little, and it's okay.  Water color and Inktense Pencil.  

He Claims He Is A Maniac

Though the first Sketchbook Skool semester is now over, a great many of the students are still enjoying sharing on our communal Sketchbook Skool private Facebook page.  Our final teacher was Tommy Kane, a whacky illustrator, author and long-time advertising art director, as well as a producer of some pretty entertaining videos of his travels and his sketch journals.  It was a very enjoyable klass (not a misspelling), so much so I purchased his new book!  He had us all drawing our kitchens, the results of which I will post maybe tomorrow.  At any rate, during this "summer skool" break, several of the students were trying their hand at doing Tommy's portrait in whatever their favorite medium was.  It became contagious, and soon the FB page was filled with amazing postings of student's creative and wonderful drawings of Tommy.  He loved them, started collecting them, and says he will publish them in his next book.  That would be a hoot!  Today I finally got some time to finish my version of Tommy from a photo he'd sent each of us.  I couldn't make up my mind which medium to use, so the sketch is in graphite, watercolor and Derwent Inktense Pencil wash.  

The Street You Should've Grown Up On

Linda, another new sketching buddy, met me for lunch in Port Townsend today. She had a friend with a historic home near Chetzemoka Park, so we drove up there and wandered the street near the friend's house.  I dropped my pack, opened up my new REI campstool, and began sketching yet another heartbreakingly sweet neighborhood in PT.  It was a perfect day for it.  Wait....do you see faces in the tree branches?

Leisurely Progress

Today the cat was not in the mood to hold still much, and laid around in lumpy, boring poses, and the squirrels and deer weren't showing their faces. I thought I'd take a break from fast-moving subjects, and work with a very slow-moving critter for once. 

Tiger Stripes

Jim and I had a rambunctious three hours with grandkids today while their mom was at a show, selling her handmade jewelry. Of course, as they have cats, too, I was happy to bring in my sketchpack. I'm still enjoying the online Sketchbook Skool klasses, and the current one has us drawing animals. Little Shyloh, the almost-five-year-old, was immediately thrilled for me to pull out the Moleskines, as she's been instrumental at choosing my colors for Inktense sketches in the past, and she so loves my sketches. She has an amazing color sense! She squints and reads the colors on the side of the pencil before handing them over to me. I enlisted her help as I tried to figure out the complex colors on the back of Trixie, their sort-of-tabby-female-that-brings-home-whole-rabbits. Before long, my pencil box was between Shyoh and her brother, each snatching colors out of the tin to wash the rich, intense jewel-tones onto their drawings! They won't find those pencils at Walmart!

Circle of Life

This week's teacher on Sketchbook Skool has assigned that we do grids.  Grids and vegetables, and many of the students have been struggling with that task, and others do really well with it.  I've been one of the struggling ones, I'm afraid.  After days of getting distracted with...well, you saw the previous posting...other sorts of drawings, this morning I realized I DO grids.  Just grids my own way.  And the vegetables in the fridge look sad, as do the lackluster fruit in the bowl.  However, this large clamshell a dear friend picked up and handed to me from the beach on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia has been lying around the house for years, with other shells and beach pebbles nestled inside.  For me, it's like a little sumptuous snack for the soul, always tempting me to pick it up and fondle it.  

So this morning I snipped a young branch off of the garnet Japanese Maple by the porch, and sat down to do a "quick" sketch of those together, using a sheet of stationery Jim had lying around from when he and his previous wife would make greeting cards from them, with their photos on them.  They make lovely toned paper for monochromatic drawings.  Well, three hours later, this was the result.  I'm pretty pleased with it.  *Note later...  I guess I'm a little less pleased, knowing that I misspelled "Spring".  My daughter caught me on it! Sigh, back to the drawing board.  Literally.