Sketchcrawl #43 - solo crawl finding signs of spring in my neighborhood

And the "sideways gremlin" strikes again!

While I was taking my walk this morning, I was thinking about where I could go to do a solo sketchcrawl.  I noticed a few little signs of spring, like some forsythia blooming, and Easter decorations, so when I finished, I went back out and retraced my route with my sketchbook, pens and small watercolor kit.  I did four small sketches.  After this past winter, (and snow on Monday), it felt so good to be warm and to see just the tiniest sign that spring was really going to make an appearance this year. 

Sketching in NYC

In NYC for the American Watercolor Society Show, I did two sketches in nearby Union Square - one before the show and one after.  The second one never got finished because by that time the vendors were packing up and Joan was waiting for me to finish up so we could catch our train  home.

I seem to be having problems with my images uploading sideways again. 

A Bit More Involved Than a Sketch

I'm participating in one of the Strathmore online workshops this month.  I did this sketch/drawing for Lesson 2 on tone and shape, with emphasis on shading and drawing ellipses.  I procrastinated a lot about starting, and ended up with a cloudy day with not too much light coming in my kitchen window.  And my stonewear is black, brown, and off white, which made using tone with a pencil a bit challenging, but I think I nailed it.  A couple of my ellipses are a little off - more noticeable in looking at the scan than when I was doing the actual drawing.  Here is my "Sugar and Creamer" done with #2B and #4B Derwent sketching pencils.

Barns and Silos near Goshen, NY

I did these from the car, after my sister and I picked up our paintings from the Northeast Watercolor Society members show in Orange County, NY.   The first scene was done as a quick watercolor vignette and then in ink.  Farm 2 was done across both pages in ink. 

Myrtle Beach Sketches

Last week I attended a collage workshop at Myrtle Beach with  my sister Joan.  We also did some sketching on our own, both before and after the workshop.  The first is a sketch of a palmetto behind Marlin's Restaurant and pier.  The second is a shrimp boat - I'm not too familiar with shrimp boats, and they have a lot of masts, arms, wires, ropes, chains, and assorted "stuff" that's hard to paint when you don't know what it is, and what it is for.  I sketched what I thought might be important.  The last one is a little watercolor of some palmettos and the marsh in Murrell's Inlet.

Amaryllis 2014 part 2

I saw a small crack yesterday, and today the bud opened up to this.  It's so exciting to watch an amaryllis bloom!  It should look really interesting tomorrow.

Watching the Winter Olympics

I wanted to try sketching some of the winter Olympics.  It's not as easy as I thought.  The athletes move with the speed of light, and the cameras keep changing angles and never going back to the same pose.  I tried first with the figure skating, and that was impossible.  Then I tried downhill skiing, same thing.  But I got the idea to do ski jumping when I realized that there were only a few angles that the cameras always went back to.  It worked!  The speed skating worked out reasonably well too.  The snowboarding was tricky.  I had to watch a lot of runs to get what I had in mind.   I only did a few, because it was sort of frustrating waiting for a good pose, and waiting for it to recur.