I’ve been looking for a group that meets to do figure drawing and recently saw on Art Factory 417 ‘s facebook page that they were having a Life Drawing Spring Kickoff. Then I read further and saw it was going to be an Alternative Life Drawing session.

I wasn’t quite sure what alternative life drawing meant, but I’ve been wanting to see inside the building — it’s a big chunky building at the end of the College Street mural. And I like their mission statement…

“Art Factory 417 fosters the growth of creative culture by providing necessary accommodations for the success of visual and performing artists. It is our goal to empower the community through education, inspiration and opportunity.”

When I got there, I wasn’t sure about drawing people in costumes and masks, mostly because I enjoy drawing faces. So I started drawing the room and the other people who were drawing.

Then a comedy team called Mike and Gary showed up and did some silly skits with a tin-foil robot. More people wandered in. Some drew from the models, some just drew. There was music, a casual friendly atmosphere, and in between poses I nosed around a bit looking at some of the artwork on exhibit, posters, and shared creative spaces.

The last pose — sort of a ‘Bunny Goddess victorious over the Feeble Tiger Man’ was inspiring and fun. I’m enjoying using the big open format of the 8″x11″ moleskine, but it took me three tries get something that would fit on the page.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next at Art Factory 417. Here’s their new Tumblr page.

The other evening at a birthday party, I was experimenting with taking photos of people with my phone. But editing photos on your phone eats ups the battery, and before I knew it, it was dead. So I grabbed a sketchbook and pen.

Here’s what they looked like before I added some watercolor washes. Which is better, black and white or color?

Since coming back from Mexico, I’ve had bit of color withdrawal. This one little spot yellow has been waiting to greet me each morning when I walk out the front door – tiny yellow crocus just beginning to peep through the pine needles in the garden.

I did this quick sketch for @wardomatic ‘s “I need to sketch more” creative group on Flickr, and am trying to post this from my phone. Here goes…

(a bit later)

Couldn’t get the iPhone app to work, so now I’m trying this on the iPad. I know I could do this easily from a computer, but I’m trying to learn some new skills.

I’ve had The Tao of Sketching for a couple of years, but packing it along on a recent trip to Mexico was a great opportunity to truly study the book. Chinese artist Qu Lei Lei covers using a wide of variety of media and subject matter. Here’s a good review of the book by artist and writer Katherine Tyrrell on Making a Mark blog. I especially like this quote she highlights:

Successful sketching depends on two distinct elements to be combined: the understanding of how each medium works and the ability to measure the amount of time you have available against the scene you want to record.
Qu Lei Lei – techniques

The samples of his own sketches drawn in many countries around the world are a delight to study, and the included demonstrations are not meant to copied, but to illustrate how the reader might approach their own subject matter and draw from the heart.

As I read his “Beijing Breakfast” chapter about drawing groups of people who are constantly in motion, it all seemed simple enough. Just draw one person, then another and another…then finally the background and furniture because that doesn’t move. But it really is a great challenge to do in real life.

Here are couple of my attempts during our trip. In “Lunch at Paco’s” I tried to capture the feeling of a group of people gathered around a table, listening to songs, and the colorful ceramic plates on the wall of Paco’s house. I sketched first in pencil, then watercolor washes, and last added the ink pen details. It probably took about 45 minutes.

I had less time for “Quinta Patio Evening” and so used pen first, then only suggested a few colors with watercolor wash. As Qu Lei Lei suggested, I wrote a few notes about the scene at the bottom of the page to remind myself of colors and mood at the bottom of the sketch.

My friend Stephanie inspired me to create a painting to donate to Hearts for the Arts — a silent gallery and on-line auction to raise money for arts education programs at the Creamery Arts Center.

The auction will end February 4th, so winners will have time to give a piece of original art to a loved one on Valentine’s Day. Which means of course, hearts are the theme.

Here’s some sketches I started doing by candlelight, not to get into the mood although I must admit it helped. Sometimes late at night or early in the morning, I try to sketch by low level light so my thinking brain isn’t too alert and my subconscious is more free to go rambling.

These drawings don’t really make much sense, I just started with the phrase “Love is a….” and went from there. I finished the final painting for the auction this week and dropped it off at the gallery. You can see “Love is a Circus” and all the other auction art on the Hearts for the Arts auction page. Click on a thumbnail below to see the sketches and titles.

It started snowing last night about five and accumulated to only a couple of inches over night. This morning it was 8 degrees outside and too cold to draw. So I went to several windows to find a scene I could draw from inside the house.

I’ve been trying to look at scenes and reduce them in my mind into a few simple lines, leaving some chunk of white space for room to scribble a few words about that moment.

As I looked at the snow covering the monkey grass that lines our driveway, I thought it looked like a fluffy white fur collar, so perfect for a few minutes before I back the car out the driveway and mess it all up.

Sometimes interesting things happen if you look back at old sketchbooks and follow a new tangent.

For those who have been wondering if I fell off the end of the earth, unfortunately for many weeks I was teleported to another dimension called Really Hard Work. Not just the brain-drain kind of hard work, but also the kind that completely wears you out by the end of the day.

I was able to sustain my energy by ingesting vast amounts of red licorice, coffee and diet coke. But at the end of each day, I didn’t feel like writing blogs or making art — all I wanted to do was come home and fall asleep playing Plants versus Zombies on the sofa. And since I sort of lost my sense of humor for a while, it’s probably better I didn’t write much.

Now that I’m getting back into the blogging mood, here are more pages from my sketchbook. While in Japan, we visited a high school, and I got a chance to draw the girls in music class. The school has a blue uniform that sort of looks like gym suits and looks very comfortable. I wouldn’t mind wearing a uniform — It would save having to decide what to wear every morning!

This is a rendering for larger project to be made in fabric. I’m pretty happy with the composition — it’s an interesting spin on a portrait of a single character as the center of interest with my typical busyness in the background.

It’s also the first time I’ve combined natural drawing media and computer drawings in a Photoshop collage. The high-wire walker was done with a Pigma brush pen and watercolors. I drew the monks in pen in my travel journal, then scanned and combined them with drawings of buildings I did in CorelDraw.

If you remember, a couple of years ago I did a drawing called Tip Toe Temple. Somehow that original idea has gotten tangled up with these photos of cell towers and electrical power lines from Japan. So now here’s some other more recent ink brush drawings of similar themes…

and

and this one:

Clouds have a lot of personality and are interesting characters to draw or paint. Speaking of clouds, here were some really wild ones as I left the studio tonight, just a little before sunset. The wind was whistling in an eerie way, and the clouds seemed over-dramatic over the paper cup factory across the street. I half expected an big UFO to break through at any moment.

Waterbrushes are plastic pens that you fill with water. Instead of a pen tip, they have bristles, and you squeeze the water out of the handle to fill the brush tip. Great for travel watercolor journaling and doing nice color washes without running out of liquid. I’ve acquired versions by Niji, Kuretake, and Sakura. Here’s a good article about waterbrushes, and if you’re in the States and want to order some, the Jet Pens website looks like a good source (better order some additional sizes for myself:)