Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts

Friday, June 9, 2017

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...

Saturday, October 15, 2016

A Daily Practice...

I've tried to make sketching a daily practice for some time now...why?  Well, sketching is a bit addictive...I enjoy putting marks on paper whenever possible, but also just like recording something of where I am every day.  Sometimes I go to a place with the intention to draw it, but more often than not, the subject of my drawing is just where I happen to be that day, and what's going on around me.
I like to think that drawing every day makes me more observant, and keeps the connection between eye, heart and hand stronger and more immediate.  
More often than not, these daily sketches include people...

Drawing in a clinic waiting room, or at the Social Security office (a place that seemed designed for human discomfort)

One of my favorite places in Los Angeles is the Grand Central Market downtown...yes, it's changing all the time, with less of the old vendors and atmosphere and more upscale eateries, but still a fun and fascinating place to visit and draw...



Madcapra for falafel, the view on Broadway, G&B coffee bar with a view of Hill Street, and midweek view inside...

At Exposition Park, I sketch the whale skeleton at the Natural History Museum, and the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center, but it's important to me to include the human presence, the human scale here...




A five-minute wait in line is enough for me to pull out the sketchbook!  I like drawing people at work...

At our newly opened local Sprouts Market....











I love the classic red and yellow
of In and Out Burger...









Testing colors at Image nail salon in Pasadena...




My yellow car treated to the occasional car wash...















People at the Rose Cafe in Venice...




















More every-day stuff...


Breakfast on Father's Day...and an ordinary day at Jones Coffee in Pasadena...


Waiting for coffee, or waiting at the bank, I think of waiting as an opportunity...



Monday, October 10, 2016

San Juan Capistrano

...is an easy train ride away from Los Angeles...but such a different world!  I've visited there several times lately, to sketch not just the beautiful, graceful Mission, but also the area around the train station, which feels like a quiet, unhurried small town...

These are the ruins of the "Great Stone Church" on a bright August day...built in Roman style, and only lasted a few years before tumbling in a major earthquake...I was transported to Italy that morning...



 One of the long corridors that line the central courtyard...






















A last quick sketch before leaving Mission San Juan Capistrano that afternoon...


Some quick vignettes at the Mission, and over lunch...


A last view of the the train station before leaving...

















Sketching on the train..









And, then a return trip in September with my sketching friends Shiho Nakaza, John Banh and Chris Ruiz-Velasco...














Some thumbnails at the Mission mixing water-soluble chalk and gouache...
























...and watercolor...


A final sketch at the Mission...the mystery of the entrance...feeling a bit like a time portal somehow.  I was struck by the words of the doorway, "RESURGAM".  I had to look it up to discover it means "I shall rise again"...















Some last sketches that day, over lunch and waiting for the train to take us back to Los Angeles...