Saturday, September 26, 2015

Cafe Sketching...

...the perfect thing to do on hot summer days around Los Angeles!
From August and September...


Quick sketching with ink and watercolor on a Saturday morning at a bakery in La Canada, in the hills above Los Angeles...the bicyclists have already had their ride and the shoppers are just getting started...

...afternoon coffee at Lamill, an elegant little bistro in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles...

More leisurely sketching with pencil, watercolor and gouache on tan paper...Blue Bottle Coffee had just opened, but was already attracting a crowd in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park...
A morning sketch over breakfast at the Highland Cafe in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park.  The lady on the phone stopped briefly in front of me as I sketched...
...and back at Lamill, this time enjoying the street-side view of Silver Lake...the business of the week is discussed on a Saturday afternoon...

Friday, September 25, 2015

Sketching back in Los Angeles...

August brings our hot weather, and I found some relaxing places to sketch, and visited some museum shows too...

At LACMA, I love sketching from a shady bench in the Rodin sculpture garden...really a throughway from the older part of the museum to the new.  Occasionally someone stops to have a picture taken with one of Rodin's heroic figures or the dramatic giant heads while mimicking the gesture.  There's just something I love about the heroic stoicism of these figures with visitors breezing by.  Sketching here in pencil, watercolor and gouache.


While there I saw the recent "50 for 50" show--featuring highlights from their collection acquired since the museum opened 50 years ago...the highlight for me was the room of 19th-early 20th c. French art with these sculptures by Carpeaux and Degas...lovely still models!











At the Getty Center, a favorite view looks out on the Sculpture Terrace from the cafe...with bronze sculptures by Aristide Maillol, Rene Magritte and Henry Moore.  I had come to see the exhibition of Renaissance artist Andrea del Sarto, and his beautiful red chalk drawings inspired the Getty in red (pencil and watercolor)...


I couldn't get enough of this great exhibition, and made some little studies on site with pencil, marker and ink on tan paper.  Why?  Well, I do this sometimes in an attempt to get perhaps a glimpse of what the Renaissance master was seeing...










As  I left at closing time in late afternoon, I paused on the steps to sketch the 8 foot "Boy with Frog" by  Charles Ray and Maillol's "Air" balancing below...



















And on a warm Sunday at the South Pasadena Public Library, I sketched my old friend--the lovely Moreton Bay Fig tree with long late afternoon shadows...in pencil first (trying to train myself to take more photos of work in progress), then watercolor with a limited palette...