Looking Back on May

Iris bed at PSU, Walk of Heroines

Ladd's Addition with a messy sky.

I think most of the above sketches are self-explanatory. This next one, the grid, is my attempt at sketching a very large and extremely colorful set of paintings by David Hockney on display at the Portland Art Museum. Matching up the lines from rectangle to rectangle was something like doing a jigsaw puzzle. My brain got a workout.

October//November 2018

Storytelling

I've enjoyed making little books and stories...

so when I heard about an online class with some artists I've followed for a long time, I decided to sign up for the storytelling class in Sketchbook "Skool".  The classes are six weeks long with six different teachers. 

In the first class, one of the assignments was to illustrate a recipe. I used a recipe that we make every Christmas morning.

The next week, we drew people in action and I posted most of those last time. Here are a couple more, from the PSU Farmers Market....

One of the assignments for the third week was to draw a memory from the  first day of school.  I had memories from kindergarden, but there really wasn't anything I was interested in drawing. Then I remembered our bus driver when I was a first grader. I was very shy and didn't like to leave home to go to school. The bus stop seemed dangerous with kids giving "Indian Burns" and pelting each other with acorns. When I got on the bus though, we were in the safe care of our ex-military bus driver who taught us some raucous songs. I loved that and can still remember the verses to my favorite, 'My Gal's a Corker.'

This week, we had an assignment to draw people from photos quickly in pencil and then in ink. I'm not used to drawing from photos and always feel that it's cheating (it is for and Urban Sketcher), but I really had a good time. I drew from books in an accordion book.

Then I went to The Big Draw at PNCA and tried to draw people in action, on the spot. That was harder to do nicely, so it resulted in unfinished people and the need to cover up a mess-up with some origami paper.

It's really been an inspiring class and it makes me want to keep telling more stories!

Pettygrove Park

On Saturday, I joined other Urban Sketchers and sketched 'The Dreamer' sculpture, tucked into a tiny park with towering trees and little round hills. I wanted to take it slowly at first, so I started by crosshatching (2nd sketch). The lines of the sculpture intrigued me, so I did a line drawing next (top).

After the toned paper, I wanted some color, so I switched sketchbooks and drew in watercolor and threw on some watercolor pencil. Then the rain started--with a vengeance.  I wish I had moved closer to Manual Izquierdo's sculpture and listened to it. Apparently, it is filled with foam so when the rain hits it, it sounds like a kettledrum. A missed opportunity!

After a tasty lunch with about a dozen sketchers, a few of us weren't ready to quit.  We headed over to the PSU Farmers Market, where I did some quick people sketches, adding the color later.

It was a fun day of sketching and chatting, sharing sketchbooks, catching up with sketching friends and meeting new sketchers.  It was pretty much a delightful Saturday, even with the rain.