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...