Travel Sketching

"La Rambla, Barcelona," wc/ink 2017

Sketching has been one of my favorite activities when we've gone visiting nearly anywhere. Often I sketch on watercolor postcards and mail the paintings home. But I also use pocket sketchbooks of various sizes to keep a kind of visual journal of wherever we are. 

The watercolor above is a distillation of many visits to Barcelona's justifiably famous Rambla pedestrian park. Part street cafes and bars, part shopping, part tourist shops, it's one of the places we loved when we were in the city a few years ago.

Below are a few sketches from days gone by. The first two are a villa in France and medieval village not far away. The final is a street light at dusk in Vienna. All were done with a small travel kit of watercolor pans and a couple of waterbrushes. Everything else you can get as you go. 

"The Villa, France," wc/ink 2019

"Eze, France," wc/ink, 2019

"Nightfall, Vienna,". wc/ink, 2013

 

Nifty

Long ago, the denizens of an online art forum decided to exchange watercolors of postcard size. The idea was that groups of ten would each send an original watercolor to every other member. That is, you would do nine originals and receive nine in return. As is often the case with such ideas, it was only partially successful. The exchange was at least twenty years ago, and I retained only a few images of the works I sent others. The ones I received in return have disappeared. 

This particular little work was drawn in ink and then painted. 

 

the Painter

"The Painter (after Leyendecker)" oil on panel, private collection

This painting began as a copy of a work by JC Leyendecker but rapidly changed into its current form. In the Leyencecker a young painter is roasting a hot dog over his pot-bellied stove. But I wanted something more immediate so I made the old man who stares at us, holding his palette. In effect, making a painting in whoch the viewer is the subject's subject. 
 

Oktoberfest

Yes, of course it is not yet October, but the fall events here have already begun. The biergarten in  Waterworks Park (see my September 2 post), not far from my home studio, had a weekend Oktoberfest event with music, food trucks, exhibits, a pen full of baby goats for kids to pet, and a lot of beer (mugs too). My Saturday sketch group--well, some of us--decided to take a look. 

"Oktoberfest in the Biergarten," wc/ink on paper

There had been rain in the morning but the clouds were scudding away to the east and skies were beginning to clear. We got a mug and sat in the shade, watching the crowds build, now that the rain had stopped. It was cool and pleasant and not so crowded as it would doubtless be in a short time. 

I sketched and painted this small watercolor in a small sketchbook. 

The Blue Dome

"The Blue Dome (Arnie's), Tulsa," oil on panel 

A decade or so ago, after a visit to Tulsa, Oklahoma, my old home town, I painted a cityscape of the emerging arts district that was at the time reclaiming an old and decrepit area northeast of downtown. Anchored by a circular building with a blue done (and named The Blue Dome District) the area now has fine dining, clubs, art galleries, and shopping of course. 

The blue domed building was once a service station in the Art Moderne style, with numerous gas pumps, service bays, and a big office. Over the years it faded, closed, and went to ruin. Now it's been repurposed as a bar and grill named Arnie's Bar, that traces its own lineage to another part of town. Arnie's was once owned and hosted by it's namesake, a former big-band musician. The original Arnie's was a long, narrow room with a door to the sidewalk and one to the back alley. Any day, if you walked in, big band or jazz music would be playing on his reel to reel recorder. 

Age

"Age," graphite and chalk on paper, 8x10

This study of an elderly woman's face was a personal drawing exercise. It is graphite and chalk on toned paper, lighted and shaded using a method known as chiaroscuro (literally clear and dark). Many of my earlier charcoal and graphite works have not been digitized. This one is relatively recent. 

Nocturne

"Washington Square Nocturne," oil on panel, ca. 2003

One of the more interesting and difficult subjects for art is the night. When done effectively, nocturnes evoke the dark hours whether colors are true to life or not. 

Certain painters like Frederic Remington are known for their paintings of darkness and shadow. Although his work was as an illustrator of Western life, Remington's nocturnes transcend. Using his personal experiences in the West he evoked the dim lights of night, from pale green moonlight to the cold flicker of steel in darkness. 

Long ago Remington's example gave me reason to attempt similar ideas. In the end, only a few of those studies has survived, the others having gone into hiding somewhere.