Sketching Around Town...

...and some from out of town too...from a trip to old town Orange with sketching friends on the train from Union Station...
























Sketching with the LA Worldwide Sketchcrawl group in January at the La Brea Tarpits...

...and in April at the Venice Canals...

Happening upon a wonderful orange truck in Glendale...

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And some neighborhood sketching at train crossing in South Pasadena, and on Los Angeles streets...

...and on a gray day with balloons...

A Month of Drawing in LA...

October was a month of many drawing events going on all over Los Angeles.  I sketched The Big Draw event at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles hosted by Ryman Arts (all the turquoise t-shirts!).  I learned a lot more about this great program.  Ryman Arts offers free studio classes to talented high school students from all over Los Angeles, where many of the public schools unfortunately offer little access to art.

At Grand Park, long scrolls of paper are rolled out to create giant murals...

The Gallery Girls modeled in costume for some young artists...

Rolling up at the end...

















The following week, The Big Draw met the Worldwide Sketchcrawl as the LA Sketchcrawl group met at City Hall in Pasadena...

 I always wanted to draw the Robinson Memorial that sits across
from City Hall, and the Sketchcrawl was the perfect opportunity! Jackie and Mack Robinson were outstanding high school athletes in Pasadena, and both went on to stellar careers.  Mack won the silver medal for the 200-meter dash in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Jackie Robinson famously broke the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Both of the brothers went on to be leaders in their communities.  The positioning of the heads is interesting--Mack stayed in Pasadena, and his portrait faces City Hall, while Jackie faces east, towards Brooklyn, NY.  The artists were Ralph Helmick, John Outterbridge and Stuart Schechter.

Sketchcrawls...

Every few months or so, there's a Worldwide Sketchcrawl, and groups from all over the world venture out into their cities to sketch.  As a generally lone sketcher, I know I probably won't sketch in the same single-minded way I do on my own, but I so enjoy the camaraderie!

In January, we visited downtown Los Angeles--some favorite locations of mine, and some new surprises...like the annual temporary ice rink in Pershing Square!  And this is one of the great things about a Sketchcrawl...discovering (or rediscovering) something in your own home town...

 The ice rink surrounded by downtown buildings and palms...


and sketching over a Salvadoran lunch at an eating area next to the Grand Central Market...























I was so taken with the ice rink, that I had to come back the next day (last day "Downtown on Ice" for the season) to do a little more sketching...

For the 39th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, our usual leader and organizer, my fellow Urban Sketchers correspondent Shiho Nakaza planned a great day at the Downtown Burbank Arts Festival which featured the Creative Talent Network--since many of the group are in animation.  I admit to doing more chatting and perusing art and books than actual sketching...some quick sketches here...

...the stone horses that guard the entrance to P.F. Chang's China Bistro...

 ...a jazz band playing in front of a shopping center...

Cowboy John...a great character model posing for anyone who wanted to sketch...seated in front of the Bank of the West...

Sketching at L.A.'s museums...

Some sketchbook sketches from some recent museum visits...

at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art during a recent Worldwide Sketchcrawl with the L.A. group...sketching in the courtyard, and the new installation--Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass--looking west and east...

 ...and across the street, "The Wall Project"--10 original Berlin Wall segments brought to Los Angeles by the Wende Museum to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.  Several artists were invited to paint 5 of the segments:  Kent Twitchell, Thierry Noir, Farrah Karapetian and Marie Astrid Gonzalez.  I was very moved to realize I was seeing a portion of that Wall here in my home town.

Sketching the La Brea Tar Pits
in Hancock Park, next to the George C. Page Museum...

sketching art and life at the Getty Center...Rene Magritte's "Delusions of Grandeur" in 2 views...

 the huge floating maze that sits

at the center of the wonderfully eccentric garden designed by artist Robert Irwin...the fountain in the courtyard, and some earlier views of people eating and relaxing next to the marble-clad block walls...

More downtown views...

...at some favorite places to visit and draw in downtown Los Angeles...

I always love returning to the Grand Central Market to shop (and sketch, of course!)...

 

Valeria's is the greatest place to buy chiles...and other interesting things...

...and another sketch at Olvera Street, the oldest street in Los Angeles, and the center of El Pueblo De Los Angeles...these last two made during a Worldwide Sketchcrawl with the Los Angeles group...

...across the street at Union Station...