A Little Plein Air

Some entries from my watercolor Moleskin sketchbooks. Watercolors are some of the most portable art supplies, so I take my sketchbook on most hikes and outdoor trips. Here's a few from some of my recent trips.

This one is from a Joshua Tree camping trip last year in August. The moon was too full to really see the Perseides meteor shower. Painting the sunrise from on top of a rock at the Sheep's Pass camp site.

This one is from the Joshua Tree camping trip this year. With a sickle moon, the Perseides viewing was amazing! We camped out at the same campsite as last year. This sketch was also done at sunrise, but at a higher elevation. That mass near the foreground is the rock that I did the sunrise sketch from last year.

Another camping trip that I repeated from last year was to visit the Channel Islands off the state of California. Last year, we went to Anacapa Island and I sat down to do a longer sketch from a rocky outcropping about 1/2 mile from our campground.

This year, we went to Santa Cruz Island where I went on an 8 mile hike up to the radio tower. We wanted to get back before it got dark, so this is a much quicker sketch up on the Montañon Ridge of the cloud cover.

Hot Off the Press!

This past week I went to go visit friends and family over in Washington D.C. and New York. It was a museum/ memorial walk fest! This time, I remembered to scan in the sketches early on, so here's a few sketches from my journey through D.C. and New York.

A sketch of the Lincoln Memorial done in a cheap Japanese brush pen, a water-soluble Pilot pen, a waterbrush, and a pencil.

Very cute elephant shrews at the National Zoo. Ink pens and pencil.

The only full color image I did on my trip. Watercolor and pencil of Passenger Pigeons from the "Birds of D.C." display at the Smithsonian Natural History Musuem. The female is a little rougher since my arm was getting numb by then.

A giant sloth skeleton at the Smithsonian Natural History Musuem. Pens and pencil.

An Allosaurus skeleton at the Smithsonian Natural History Musuem. Pens, pencil, and a little watercolor.

A Sakhmet statue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pens and pencil. Her waist got a little truncated.

A quick sketch of the Greek mythology statue called "Andromeda and the Sea Monster" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with pencil and colored pencil. The hand is a little rough.

Ballpoint pen sketches of NY subway commuters. The lower lady got a little compressed, probably because of the way I was holding the sketchbook.

And the conclusion of the trip! Rough mountain sketches with the brush pen on the plane returning home.

Thanks for coming along!

Respectfully Dead, Happily Living

A few weeks ago I went to Artist's Night at the Body Worlds III exhibit, live models posing next to the plastinated bodies. It's taken me a while, but I'm finally putting up the sketches I did. Now, bear with me here, most of these are pretty rough, and I can't say I'm happy with some of them, but I was glad to have the opportunity to work out my rusty figure drawing skills. Many of the people that went sketching that night had skills that I envied. So, onto the sketches. I find that I really only like the first one, and that my skills were kind of sporadic after that. Forgive the quality of the reproductions. I took the photos hastily in the evening. WARNING: Artistic Nudes ahead.

Dead things don't move as much

K and I went to the World Museum of Natural History in Riverside this past weekend. Unlike drawing from life, all the animals there kindly sat in the same position for hours on end (not that I have a thing against sketching from life; this was just a different take on things). K is a much faster artist and therefore got a ton done, in the two hours we spent there.

On the other hand, I concentrated on one kingfisher specimen with some beautifully colored plumage. As far as I can tell, it's a White-throated Kingfisher, Halcyon smyrnensis from Asia, but since that's only a guess from googling, I can't tell you for sure. Not many of the animals there had labels, and I don't have a bird guide to Asia. Some well done taxidermied animals there. Will have to revisit. Some minor post work done afterwards.
Colors changed from the scan.