Sketch of the Day

A very fast sketch today, loose and made with whatever was at hand. This is my dear tree, right next to the house. I wanted to capture the colors as they were so beautiful and so transitory. 

Third Thursday Sketches

Last Thursday, the biannual young artists' show opened at the Rectangle Gallery in Centralia. Gallery owner, Jan Nontell, integrated the kids’ art beautifully into the gallery's regular collection. Many of the art pieces sold within two hours. What an amazing opportunity for the youngsters! Their smiles and the smiles of family and friends told the story.

Here are a series of pencil sketches I made during the event. They’re VERY fast, drawn in only a moment or two, as people were in constant motion, especially the kids.

Fast sketches are a great way to nail down gesture and shape. They also require little in the way of art supplies, just sketch paper, soft pencils, erasers, and paper stomps for blending. Easy peasy.

Sketch of the day

"Paddocks with Buster" graphite, Sara Light-Waller, 2014

I took advantage of the break in the weather (after ten days of down-pouring rain!!) by doing some outdoor sketching this afternoon. This is one of the paddocks at Chez Jacroux, the farm where I keep my horse. The horse in the paddock is named Buster and he posed for me briefly before heading into the shelter.

Next time, I might sketch some of the farm's chickens, who were quite ready to act as artist models today.  

All about the hair

A "Gibson" Girl by Charles Dana Gibson.

Charles Dana Gibson (September 14, 1867 – December 23, 1944) was an American graphic artist, best known for his creation of the Gibson Girl, an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century (from Wikipedia).

Primarily, Gibson was a pen & ink artist and boy was he good! His drawings (of "Gibson" girls and everything else) were wonderful and his lines sharp. The illustration I'm working on at the moment requires one of the characters to have some pretty righteous hair and I referred to Gibson when thinking about how to draw it. For my money, Gibson is the best choice to study if you want to understand how hair moves in ink.

As I contemplated Gibson at breakfast yesterday, I took a look Matt's curly hair. Fascinated, I picked up a pen and a napkin and did a very fast sketch of him working on his laptop. Here's the sketch. Although very rough, I think I successfully captured the movement of his (at that moment) very messy hair with just a few pen strokes.

Matt working on his laptop.

Sketching at Blackman's Lake

Sketching at the boat launch

Yesterday was such a lovely day that I went to the boat launch at Blackman's Lake to do some sketching. Much to my surprise a tree near the shore had been nearly chewed through by beavers. It made a great subject.

The quick waterfowl sketches (left) are in watercolor pencil and the tree (right), pen & ink.

Visiting Obstruction Island

I was fortunate to visit the home of premier watercolorist, Caroline Buchanan, last weekend on the San Juan Islands. It turns out that Caroline was a very dear friend of my recently deceased mother-in-law, Kim Waller. I remember Kim telling me many times that I should take some classes from Caroline, but in typical “child” fashion I didn’t take the suggestion too seriously. After all,  Kim never even told me Caroline’s whole name!

Caroline was a gracious hostess and we had a wonderful visit. Besides talking poetry (Kim had been a published poet) we spoke a lot about art. It was really amazing looking at her artwork and gleaning wisdom about painting at every turn.

Although there wasn’t much time to draw in the short time we were there I did do a few quick sketches. Funny to think of such fast sketches as representative of time spent with a watercolorist like Caroline, but they will always remind me of the details. Matt worked the camera on this trip and me the pencil. And that worked out just fine!

So will I take a workshop with Caroline in the future if I get the chance? Yes, absolutely! Thanks Kim for the suggestion. ;-)

Knick nacks on high shelf

Cabin panorama

Window view

Ferry moments

Falling In Love All Over Again

My new Noodler's piston fill fountain pen
Did I mention that I got it in turquoise? I love turquoise!

Okay, okay I'm a pen snob. I admit it. I have many drawing pens and am constantly searching for “just the right one.” Recently I got so disgusted while working on salable clip art that I went back to using nib pens for my studio work. Thus far they're the only pens that have given me the line quality that I've been looking for. Of course, while they're wonderful for studio use, a nib pen is not a good choice for outdoor sketching. Not practical and extremely messy if your ink bottle finds a way to leak. So what to do?

I have a Parker fountain pen that I just love for writing and drawing too, although it has a bit of a heavy line. Recently I have been reading about the Noodler’s Flex pen and was interested in trying it out. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one reading the good reviews (including Nina Johansson’s, thank you Nina for the great review!) and the pen has been sold out all over the Internet. And though I have inquired in no less than four states at pen shops, no one has it stock.

A fan of Noodler’s ink, but with no previous knowledge of their pens, I went to the University bookstore in Seattle (a great store by the way, in case you ever are close by) and tried out another Noodler’s pen, the piston-fill fountain pen. It was love at first line! The nib is medium-fine and creates a wonderful line. The pen is lightweight and Matt says that it looks very good in my hand. (He’s even more of a pen snob than I am!). It’s true that it’s a single line width, but it’s such a nice pen that with a Pitt brush pen along for adding thicker lines, I’m all set. The barrel twists to fill with ink and it seems to hold much more ink than many pens with ink converters. The windows in the barrel let you know when your ink supply is getting low. After a weekend of drawing with it, I’m totally hooked. Kudos to Noodler’s for making a great pen!

Here's another sketch I made with my new pen and watercolor pencils. It's a canid skull from the "Wolves" exhibit at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

Canid Skull, pen & ink with watercolor pencil

PS. I did manage to order a Noodler’s Flex pen this morning from Goulet pens. What nice people! They also sell ink samples so I’ve got a few colored ink samples coming along to try out in the new Flex pen. After I’ve had a chance to try it out, I’ll let you all know how it stacks up against to my new favorite turquoise Noodler’s piston-fill pen. My hope is that together, they'll be an unbeatable pair.

Beautiful day to sketch!

Finally a sunny warm day! Ah Spring can it be you? :-)

I simply couldn't resist doing some sketching in the sunshine today while the horses ate lunch. It was so nice to see everyone with their blankets off - at long last. These sketches were done in my Moleskin with water-soluable ink and touches of watercolor. :-)

More fast sketching

For the past few weeks, I have been working on my fast sketching techniques as often as I can. Improving these skills has helped me make my sketching time much more fun and rewarding. How different from trying to capture a subject quickly as a detailed rendering! That was just so frustrating and I could never figure out why! Now I know. David Rankin is right, the process for sketching fast is very different from the creation of a careful rendering. Fast sketches aren’t meant to be detailed, they’re just meant to be visual “notes.” Now I don't get bogged down in feeling rushed while I sketch, I just get the basics down, maybe take a photo for later, and I'm done. Really cool!

Here are some of my recent fast sketches. These horses live at one of the farms where I do massage regularly. They were all good sports about being artistic subjects. ;-) Each one of these sketches took an average of three minutes to draw. All are soft pencil shaded with a stump.

Puka Dog

While on Kauai we were recommended to a gourmet hot dog joint near where we were staying in Poipu. It’s called “Puka Dog” and is something of a local institution.
Normally, I’m not one for hot dogs but this place was special. If you can believe it, my tropical hot dog was a polish sausage (they have meatless too) served with spicy jalapeño garlic lemon sauce, mango relish, and Lillikoi (passion fruit) mustard on a bun. As my Dad would say, it was delish! In fact, we liked the place so much that we ate there twice during our five-day stay. :-)
Here’s my on-site sketch of Puka Dog and the marker drawing I did after I got back. I had to do this sketch in markers as the actual place was so bright and tropical.

Fast sketch of Puka Dog Hawaiian Hot Dogs

Marker drawing from pencil sketch

 A big thanks to Haley and Amy for being such great company during our visit! Also to Amy for her great snorkeling recommendations. Mahalo Amy! 

Mahalo Amy!