Finishing out 2016 with no discernible theme...

But, these are sketches around town, and seem to usually include people...

Sketching in Pasadena's theater district during the annual ARTWalk...streets closed to traffic made a great sketching opportunity!

More people-sketching...at Gordon Biersch in Burbank before the lunch rush...







A guy I had to sketch just because he was there...I wanted to say, "hey, look out that window!"

The crowd at the Los Angeles County Museum waiting in line to see the wonderful Guillermo del Toro show...

Sketching at one of my favorite Los Angeles locations...in the Plaza at Olvera Street, with a view towards La Luz de Dia, where they make their own tortillas...

And inside La Luz de Dia over lunch...

Just a page of people...

 And sometimes I like to sketch something that just has the presence of a person...a gardener's little maintenance cart at Descanso Gardens...

Sketching in the Garden...

It's been great to teach two workshop series this year at Descanso Gardens.  The first, in February, "Sketching on Location" focused on the basics of drawing...seeing and drawing in line and shape, and the second in June (when the Gardens are most colorful!), "Sketching with Color".  I do a lot of sketching in advance to show students examples, and I love working my way through the basics...Descanso Gardens becomes a wonderful sort of outdoor "laboratory" to break down methods...and I always love learning from that process myself!

 I start with making lots of little thumbnails with fountain pen...composing and massing shapes

Always fun to add the visitors in the landscape...

Adding some color to ink thumbnails...

A little demo to show approaches to quick sketching with a limited palette (and limited time!)...

Some "notan" sketches in the Rose Garden with brush pen...

Experimenting with Inktense pencils--the gardeners at work making Descanso the beauty that it is...

Conversations in the cafe...

I love sketching at Descanso in any season...these are from the Rose Garden in February, when things are just beginning to bud...

And a shameless exercise in color in the Rose Garden at the height of summer color...

Sketching in the garden

...at Descanso Gardens, in La Canada...where I recently had the great pleasure of teaching a "Sketching on Location" workshop series.  One of the things I enjoy most is the preparation.  I try out ways to do things with simple means--just with line, just with values, and move on from there...as I plan, I hope everyone who comes will discover something, and have a great time!

Japanese Garden Festival

...is an annual fall event at Descanso Gardens in La Canada...I went to a beautiful kimono show put on by the Los Angeles Kimono Club, and learned a few things about kimono dressing.  Sensei Fumi Akutagawa, a master of many traditional Japanese arts introduced the show by saying "kimono dressing is a learned art".  I sketched some of her students of all ages...boys and girls, Japanese and non-Japanese as they paraded across an outdoor stage under the oak trees, wishing I could capture more  of the detail!

I returned the next day to see the Kishin Daiko Japanese Drumming Group performing under the oaks...

 I was really struck by the joyous expressions of the performers, especially Paige, the leader at left...

Kids were invited out of the audience to get a quick lesson in drumming...

Some quick sketching at Descanso Gardens

...thinking again about the meat and potatoes of sketching...some quick studies in line and tone...

...before moving on to some color...the range between a warm yellow and deep Indranthene blue...

...and then more recently a large study of light and shade in a favorite spot, the Japanese Garden...

...and a few more studies in black and white...on the road to Santa Barbara...

 ...and from a cafe window in Pasadena...