A tour of one of my USK Chicago Symposium Sketchbooks

Before I went to Chicago for this year's Urban Sketcher's Symposium, I made two coptic-bound sketchbooks (here is a great how to video if you want to learn how to make one) from my favorite watercolor paper - Fabriano Artistico in both 140 lb. soft- and cold-pressed finishes. While both were about 8" x 11" in dimension, I made one in landscape format and the other in portrait format. I think I generally prefer landscape format as this was the one I finished first after coming back home.

Here is a quick tour of the sketchbook with my sketches from the USK Symposium at the start - including sketches done on my own in Chicago, sketches from the group sketch crawls, and sketches from the workshops I took there with Marc Taro Holmes, LK Bing, Marion Rivolier, and Liz Steel.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Stay tuned for more posts on the individual workshops I took in Chicago as well as the demo from Stephanie Bower on Watery Reflections.

Travel Sketchbook from Washington DC and NYC Trip

I recently took my daughter (with her friend and friend's mom) on our own 8th grade Washington DC/New York City trip. We had a great time seeing the Washington monuments and going to a lot of the excellent (and free!) National museums. I tried to sketch as much as possible on site, but being on a trip without other sketchers doesn't allow for a lot of sketching time. I was able to convince the girls, however, to sketch with me in their own little books whenever we had a few minutes of downtime at restaurants, etc.

Here are my sketches done in my hand-made concertina sketchbook (made from a single sheet of Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. soft-press watercolor paper). I was forced to buy another sketchbook in NYC once I filled this one. Stay tuned for additional travel sketches in that sketchbook tour.

Tours of Sketchbook No. 34

It seems as if all my blog posts are tours of my completed sketchbooks - but I am planning a major redesign of my website with plans of more frequent blog posts.

I just finished my sketchbook no. 34 - which is a handmade sketchbook from a single sheet of Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. soft press watercolor paper folded into 7.5" x 5.5" pages. Here is a narrated tour of the sketchbook, with a quick one to follow if you don't have the 8 minutes to watch the narrated version.

Please let me know your thoughts! I would love to hear if you like the narrated version, or if you only have time to watch the quick one. Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the artwork as well. Thanks for watching!

Another completed sketchbook - No. 31

Here are some tours of my completed sketchbook no. 31. This was a handbound sketchbook about 7" x 7" using Fabriano Artistico watercolor papers in rough and soft press finishes (both 140 lb. weight).

A quick tour and a more leisurely one to follow.

Sketchbook No. 29 Tour

Yesterday, I completed my hand-bound sketchbook no. 29 - which is a 7" x 7" square sketchbook comprised of various watercolor papers: Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. soft-press paper; Saunders 140 lb. rough-press paper; and Strathmore 140 lb. cold-press paper.

Here is a quick tour of the sketchbook with a slower tour below.

Completed Toned Paper Sketchbook (No. 26)

Here is a tour of my completed hand-bound sketchbook no. 26 with 13" x 10" Canson Mi Teintes toned papers.

And a quicker tour, if you don't have the time for the first one.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Getting into Gouache

Recently, one of my fellow lawyer-turned-artist Instagrammers, Minjoo Yoon, noted in a post that she initially thought a set of gouache paints that she had bought were watercolors and could not understand why her paintings did not look transparent and luminous. Once she learned that her gouache paints are opaque and not watercolors, she switched to using watercolors. But, she recently got out her gouache paints and gave them a try with wonderful results, in my opinion.

I have been curious about gouache, but hesitant to purchase another set of art supplies that could be quite costly - given my expenses indulging in the wonderful set of Daniel Smith watercolors that I have amassed. But, Minjoo recommended that I check out Minnie Small's YouTube channel and her gouache paintings. Minnie largely uses a limited split primary palette of gouache paints consisting of about 8 Royal Talens colors. So, I researched some watercolor brands and was persuaded by Sade's of www.sadiesavestheday.com review of M. Graham gouache paints - and decided to purchase some hand-picked selections of a split primary palette consisting of these colors:

Cool Red - Alizarin Crimson
Warm Red - Pyrrol Red
Cool Yellow - Hansa Yellow
Warm Yellow - Gamboge
Cool Blue - Phthalocyanine Blue
Warm Blue - Ultramarine Blue
Titanium White
Yellow Ochre
Burnt Sienna

Here are the colors swatched out with my gouache palette set up.

And a color wheel and color chart I created with the gouache paints.

I have enjoyed using gouache to create the following pieces over the last few days. It's very refreshing to be able to continue to work a piece with these opaque paints and I now see why some people think that watercolors, my favorite medium, is so hard to use. You really need to work in a completely different way with watercolors by working light to dark and reserving the whites/highlights in a piece - as well as playing with the transparent and watery nature of the medium. With gouache, I think I need to more fully embrace the opaque nature of the medium and the ability to paint lights over darks. I'm beginning to explore gouache methods of working from a medium tone first, then adding lights and darks; the tiling method of laying shapes of colors together like pieces of a puzzle; and using a grisaille method of putting a dark underlayer down first.

My first gouache portrait - an American hero, Sally Yates

A piece originally done in watercolor that I was satisfied with - but "corrected" with my gouache paints.

A gouache piece with a background done in a gouache wash

A sphynx cat inspired by Sktchy in gouache

What do you think? Have you tried gouache? What are your thoughts on the medium? I would love to hear!

Sketchbook No. 28 Tours

My last hand-bound sketchbook was a fairly slim one that I finished in record time (for me)! Here is a tour of the sketchbook followed by a quick version of the tour. Thanks for watching!

Completed Sketchbook No. 27

Here is a tour of my most recently completed sketchbook (no. 27) with artwork completed from 12/11/16 to 01/13/17. I hope you enjoy! I would appreciate any comments.

A quick tour of Sketchbook no. 27

A tour of my completed Sketchbook no. 27 with artwork done from 12/11/16 to 01/13/17.

Lake Tahoe Sketches

It's an annual tradition for my family to spend Thanksgiving week at The Ridge in South Lake Tahoe. We usually hunker down and knit, watch tv, play board games, and just spend time together within two suites within the same building. This year, I spent a lot of time drawing and painting rather than knitting, with a little embroidery thrown in for good measure.

We were lucky enough to get a room on the 8th floor of The Plaza building with a light view of the lake. Instead of braving the snow and cold, I decided to sketch the view almost every day. Here are my sketches of our view of Lake Tahoe.

Colmpleted Sketchbook #23

Here is a sketchbook I made from a sheet of Arches 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper folded into an accordion sketchbook with 5.5" x 7.5" pages. The sketches were done between 10.20.16 and 10.31.16.

Here is a speedy look through the sketchbook with a slower one to follow.

Steep Ravine Sketchbook Tours

I combined the pages from our trip to Steep Ravine in September with the ones from our quick trip this week and bound the sketchbook with a slab stitch. Here is a quick tour:

Here is a more leisurely tour.

Quick trip to the coast

We love staying at Steep Ravine - a coastal area near Stinson Beach that is part of California's Mount Tamalpais State Park. Steep Ravine is so wonderful that you need to book either the campsites or the cabins six months prior to your stay and at exactly 8am PT on the first of the month.

We were lucky enough to reserve a cabin for Monday to Wednesday this week and pulled the kids out of school for the trip. Even though we left Tuesday night so the girls could go to school all day on Wednesday, I still got a lot of sketching in. Here are my finished sketches from the trip.

Chloe and Todd built this wooden shelter on the beach

The beach with sun rays peaking out from the clouds

Our view of the cabins in front of cabin #5

Jade reading in her bed in the main cabin room

A hermit crab with a beautiful iridescent shell

An Illustrated Nature Journal

A few days ago, I signed up for ANOTHER Craftsy class, Illustrated Nature Journalng with Gay Kraeger. I LOVED it. Gay starts out by having us tear a full sheet of watercolor paper into 16 5.5" x 7.5" sheets that we can later arrange and make into a finished journal. I usually work in handmade bound sketchbooks, but I know Marc Taro Holmes prefers using single sheets so that he can work on more than one at a time (especially useful while one has watercolor that needs drying before continuing).

Gay also stressed striving for imperfection and also using simple "machines" to create landscape elements like clouds, waves, rocks, grasses, and dirt. These "tricks" such as using salt, a cut flat brush, rolled up papery towel, and wax resist we're all things I had at the ready and were surprisingly effective.

Gay also taught us a bit about designing a page using borders, lettering, and color unity. She really opened up my eyes for subjects and pleasing pages! I highly recommend this class!! Especially during one of Craftsy's many sales - like its Labor Day half off all classes sale.

Here are my pages from my illustrated nature journal from my 3 day camping trip to Steep Ravine, one of my favorite places in the world. I posted a quick video of the sketchbook that I bound with a stab stitch at the end.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the artwork, the sketchbook, or the Craftsy class. Thanks!!

Sketching People in Motion

I've been enjoying Marc Taro Holmes's Craftsy class, Sketching People in Motion, but I don't often get a chance to practice his techniques. I do, however, love to play tennis and watch A LOT of professional tennis players on tv and in tournaments in person, when I get the chance.

Today, I was watching the Citi Open on Tennis Channel and decided to get out my scribbler (3 x 5" homemade sketchbook) and test out my new water soluble Lamy black ink (in my Lamy Joy fountain pen) and my newest watercolor brushes from Rosemary & Co. and Escoda. Here are my attempts.

Monfils serving with Zverev hitting a 2 handed backhand behind him

Davis & Pegula hitting serves in watercolor

Pegula hitting a forehand in watercolor; Davis lining up a forehand in watersoluble ink

I find that what is key to drawing people in motion is to develop my visual short term memory as the pose I want to capture lasts for only a split second and is repeated every 30 seconds or so per game. I will need to keep practicing - but, lucky for me, it's the U.S. summer hard court season with lots of tournaments culminating in the U.S. Open AND including the Olympics this year!

How do you practice sketching people in motion?

Urban Sketching on the Richmond Shoreline

Today, I decided to go through that inviting tunnel I sketched last week in Point Richmond to get to the Richmond shoreline. There was so much to sketch there!

I just started taking Shari Blaukopf's Sketching Landscapes in Pen, Ink & Watercolor Craftsy class and wanted to try out some of her excellent techniques -- especially painting skies and drawing the horizon line.

Here are the sketches I did while my daughter was at ATDP this morning.

Shari advises us to take photos as you never know what can happen. The sky and clouds changed a lot during my sketches - so it was a good idea.

Do you enjoy drawing/painting landscapes?

Travel Sketches

I just got back from a family vacation to Paris, London, and Barcelona. I tried to do some urban sketching while on the trip and made a sketchbook just for my travel,sketches. It was pretty fpdifficult to find time to sketch while on the move with my family, so I ended up taking a ton of reference photos for sketches that I will do in my studio on my return. The artwork below were done on the trip. As well as portraits for my 100 day portrait project, but I will post those separately.

The view from our apartment terrace in the Latin Quarter.

The view from the terrace in the bedroom of our Latin Quarter apartment.

Our dinner the first night in Creperie Oroyana on Rue Mouffetard

On the metro to catch the Eurostar to London from Gare du Nord

A quick sketch done on a cruise on the Thames

A sketch of the Louvre with just a brush pen on toned watercolor paper

On our food tour in El Born in Barcelona

On the food tour in Santa Caterina market

The view from a terrace of our apartment in Barcelona

The sketch was started in SFO and I finished it in the Barcelona airport

Our last breakfast in Paris on Boulevard Saint Michel

I drew this on the airplane home - it was one of our favorite dishes - octopus in black truffle

Urban sketching on Vacation

We are on vacation in Paris, London, and Barcelona this week. Here are some of my sketches so far.

More to follow . . .

Completed Sketchbook #19

Today, I completed another handmade sketchbook. Yay! This one was 11" x 7.5" and made with watercolor paper. Here is the quick tour:

And the full sketchbook tour at a more leisurely pace here:

To ink or not with watercolors?

This weekend, I talked this portrait of my friend's nephew.

In tackling this portrait, I decided to start with my pencil and then use watercolor. I didn't start with my normal fountain pen with Platinum carbon black ink.

This was a departure from my normal style, but I kind of liked it. So, I posted it on Sktchy and asked for feedback. The majority of the feedback was that I should leave the portrait as is - and the hardest thing with watercolor is knowing when to stop!

So, I thought I would tackle this next portrait of Kiana - in my usual style with fountain pen and ink first and watercolor next.

What do you think? Which do you prefer - watercolor & pencil or ink & watercolor?