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...

Sketching on a Friday Night...

...at the Norton Simon Museum!  Over the summer I started joining the LA sketching Meetup group at the Pasadena museum's monthly Free Friday nights--what a great sketching opportunity, drawing the museum's collection and the lovely gardens on a warm summer evening.  Here are a few sketches...

A favorite gallery...with paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas...and the lovely "Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer" by Degas.  The interplay between live, moving bodies and sculpture is always so interesting to me.  Sketching here with pencil and brush marker--no liquid media in the Norton Simon!

A sketcher with Maillol's "Three Nymphes"...


















On another night, the garden is irresistible...visitors around the pond with Maillol's "Air"...









And "Mountain" by Maillol seems to command the garden with her presence...

 Sketchers with "Mountain" in August...

I'd been wanting to sketch this view of "Air"--protesting the invasion of 21st century freeway noise and signage into her garden paradise...


















In September, the days getting shorter means hurrying a bit to catch the fading light in the garden...here are some quick thumbnails...

Experimenting here with a new material (always fun!!)--a chunky water-soluble slab of "colored graphite" in ochre, pencil, and a bit of white gouache...

"Inside Artists' Sketchbooks"

I was very excited to be a contributor to the Summer 2016 issue of Drawing Magazine--which was devoted to sketching and sketchbooks!  I am in some fantastic company here--a great variety of styles and approaches among the sketchbook artists.  This issue also features articles on travel sketching, 5-minute sketching and more--including a review of a new book about one of my heroes, "Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed".

Here's an article on with a sample of each of the featured artists' work, along with their sketching tips...Artist's Network

Traveling to Tacoma...

...for a gathering in August of urban sketchers--and the 4th Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketch Crawl!    The local sketchers lead by Francis Buckmaster did a fantastic job of organizing the event, and it was a really fun weekend--no workshops, just everyone getting together to sketch the beautiful mix of old and new in downtown Tacoma.

Waiting at LAX for my plane is of course, always a sketching opportunity...playing here with shadow and light...





The plane and the bus from the airport into town...more sketching...

Our first gathering on Friday night with nearly 150 sketchers, with some quick portraits...

Tacoma on Saturday morning was warm and brightly sunny, it felt like LA weather to me!  The sketch crawl centered around the beautiful Bridge of Glass and the work of Tacoma Artist Dale Chihuly.  The view here includes the "Crystal Towers", and the new Washington State History Museum echoing the arches of the old Union Station building...

 More sketching from the Bridge of Glass--the tilting glass cone that tops the "Hot Shop" of the Museum of Glass...












A view inside the fascinating Hot Shop, with a team of master glass artists working--and theater seating above for visitors...we all sweat together here!

And a view of the train looking down from the Bridge...

Sunday morning wrapped up the sketch crawl, and it was great to see Gabi Campanario arrive with his family, and we made a dash over to the historic Theater District.  There were lots of interesting buildings here, but this wedge-shaped gem really caught our eye...I discovered it was originally built as the Hotel Bostwick in 1889, now has Tully's Coffee on the ground floor...

Way too soon, it was time to head to the airport to fly back to Los Angeles...and finally I got a sketch-able little glimpse of Mt. Rainier!  I can hardly wait until next year's West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketch Crawl...in Vancouver!

Sketching at the Museum...

Some wonderful shows have visited the Getty Center this summer, and with every visit I do some sketching.  The Richard Meier building always has dramatic light and shadows, and the 360 views of Los Angeles are fantastic!

 From an evening at the Getty Center, which coincided with a large brush fire some miles north--the sky looked bruised with red-violet clouds as the sun was going down...

Later, a fun gathering of artists!





The summer brought "Unruly Nature:  The Landscapes of Theodore Rousseau"--drawings and paintings of the great 19th c. French landscape artist.  I found his work so inspiring--I made several visits and lots of little studies.  I learned a new and very useful word: "ebauche"--a word used by critics to mean unfinished--but precisely the quality that makes his work feel very fresh, even raw at times.  Here are some little thumbnails studies in pencil, ink wash and markers...

Inspired by Rousseau's work, a view from the Getty of Los Angeles, looking southwest towards Santa Monica in watercolor and gouache on top of a pencil drawing...

 More Getty visitors...lunch next to the Sculpture Terrace...

More sketching inspired by Rousseau...first a pencil sketch of the hillside looking east...

I returned soon after to add watercolor and gouache to this view...

Summer evenings at the Getty--are lovely!  

Waiting for the tram to leave the Getty Center...a quick sketch of "That Profile" by Martin Puryear...

Currently on view until November 13 at the Getty Center is a spectacular painting show, "London Calling" with the works of Bacon, Kossoff, Andrews, Auerbach, Kitaj--and the absolutely stunning work of Lucian Freud.  If you're in Los Angeles--not to be missed!

Road Trip: San Diego

Catching up here with a summer's worth of sketching, and a road trip in July to San Diego!

I was again fortunate to be riding "shotgun", which means I get to passenger-sketch my way from Los Angeles, except for occasional navigation duties...

Lovely to see a turquoise ocean as we passed through San Onofre...where you also see the decommissioned nuclear power plant peeking around some trees...

Balboa Park was our destination...which I loved visiting as a child, and it's every bit as beautiful and gracious as I remember it.  The San Diego Zoo is vast--with far more habitat than animal "exhibits"--just as it should be.  Some quick sketches here of the pandas, and the gerenuks...

Sketching a view here of the "Skyfari" and the lovely Museum of Man over lunch at the zoo--in the flight path of the airport,  so Southwest airplanes passed by frequently...

Balboa Park takes many more than a few days to explore...gardens, theaters and something like 16 museums.   The architecture goes back to the 1916 Panama-California Exposition--and the grand buildings along El Prado promenade are referred to as "Spanish Colonial Revival" style--with wonderfully over-the-top ornamentation...I want to go back and spend more time sketching the way they catch the light!  

My last sketching stop at Balboa Park was the lovely Botanical Building, next to a long reflecting pool.  It seemed to me that people were more caught up with their phones than usual...and discovered later that this was the day Pokemon Go was released--apparently the Park is full of them!

Leaving San Diego, just had to visit historic Old Town, as restaurants and shops gear up for lunchtime visitors...

And the road trip continues--home to Los Angeles...