Happy New Year! Somewhat late are my 2019 Christmas tags – 4 little drawings of some family dogs you can download in a trimmable (trimable?) tag format. This is one of them – “Ollie”, the newest addition, a mutt of no particular breed but quite charming, sketched in pen, scanned and painted using a watercolour brush in Photoshop.
Now, New Year’s Resolutions. I only have one, and that’s to draw stuff for the sake of drawing stuff. I have this “purpose” idea – a drawing should be for a purpose. But I was watching an old movie recently (“When You’re in Love”, Cary Grant and Grace Moore, 1937) and there’s this scene when Cary Grant encourages Grace Moore (the opera singer) to sing just for the heck of it. Actually, for the joy of it. A bit like when you’re a kid, I think. So, in that spirit I drew Venus (Botticelli’s, that is) wearing an Edwardian gown. Fun, right?
When asked to do a few quick flower drawings for a craft project, the assumption was (by a family member) I could just “whip them off”, no problem. But – Problem!! I just don’t “practice” enough. It took me ages to do anything I liked. And maybe that’s the problem. I’m pretty sure I could actually “whip something up”, but would I like it? And would I want it to be used in a craft project? Of course not. So, after having produced some unsatisfactory little paintings/drawings, here are the ones that made the cut. (OK, one is actually a photo enhanced in photoshop, but I did like it…)
Just FYI, these will ultimately become little fridge magnets.
The Powell Street Festival – on Powell Street and surrounding area, naturally – provided some great urban sketching opportunities. I parked myself on the side of an alley and sketched away. I never posted the sketch though because I was disappointed, thinking that my spacing of the telephone poles across the street wasn’t quite right. Why do I worry about “accuracy” anyway? It’s just a sketch and the point is to get an impression, a feeling, a sense of place. I tell myself. Over and over again.
So, last week my nephew drove us down to the Belgard Kitchen (what a fantastic place!) to join his lovely fiance for a brew and we happened to drive by my sketching spot. Guess what! The telephone poles ARE actually abnormally far apart! Here’s the sketch:
Actually, I’m still not that happy with it. Anyway, here’s a link to the day’s work by other Urban Sketchers.
If it wasn’t for the Urban Sketchers I’m not sure what I’d end up posting. I’ve sketched in the area before but this time took a bit of a different view. Here’s Sunday’s sketch:
The Museum of Anthropology has an exhibit called “Shadows, Strings and Other Things” and I saw it today. It’s full of traditional puppets from around the world including a few from Myanmar. I did a quick sketch of one called “Magician”. It was the expression on his face that was so appealing; a sort of wide eyed wonder. Perhaps he is amazed by his magical abilities. Plus his mustache looked like a very whiskery cat’s.
The whole exhibit is dimly lit, so detail-wise, this little sketch is a bit weak, which is probably a good thing as I get a little detail obsessed drawing-wise.
