2 May 26
The Palette Expansion Challenge
A while back I discovered the credit card-sized paint palette boxes that are available from Art Toolkit which is a small art supply company in Port Townsend, Washington. I have been using their Pocket Palette for several years now as it fits nicely into my field art supply pouch. As can be seen in the lefthand side of the photo, I have loaded it up with 14 different watercolors. I’m wishing for more colors in my palette, so some weeks ago I ordered the largest palette Art Toolkit sells, the Folio Palette (in the middle in the photograph), and together with additional minipans (as seen at right in the photo) I figure I can get up to 30 different colors in the palette. But what do I choose? My bigger Schmincke paint box is giving me ideas. Raw umber, certainly. Perylene green, most likely. Purple magenta? It comes handy when painting the lamb’s ears flowers in our yard. Figuring out the tube watercolors I’m going to order is a good challenge.
1 May 26
Worm Comics
During a walk this morning I saw a worm, struggling on the sidewalk. I couldn’t stop myself; I picked it up and threw it into the grass. I’ve done this for years (during the big El Niño year in 1997-98 I had an article published in the Santa Barbara News Press about being a worm rescuer).
This evening during the SAW Friday Night Comics Workshop Sarah Maloney had us making dialog between two worms; the above is my effort.
30 April 26
Neighborhood Iris
There is an alleyway east of our house that runs for a block and has lots of good plants growing on its edges. Today I sketched this iris using Derwent drawing pencils, watercolor wash, and black ink linework.
28 April 26
Yellow Onion
This onion is from our grocery run this morning, and is sketched with Derwent drawing pencils, watercolor wash, and a bit of extremely fine black ink linework.
27 April 26
Colored Pencil Afternoon
I’ve been wanting to do a long colored pencil drawing for a while. I got back from Europe a week ago and the pomegranate tree is now in full bloom. It’s a tricky color to replicate: a very warm red which is almost off-gamut.
I did this drawing in two stages: first, with Caran d’Ache watercolor pencils, which I wet after several layers; second, additional multiple layers of Prismacolor. I’m not sure I know what I’m doing — but it’s a very meditative process and I’m glad I had a go.
26 April 26
By The Railroad Tracks
For my urban sketch today I went over towards the Davis Food Coop and admired the railroad cars along the tracks just east of the coop. I think railroad cars are interesting both to photograph and to draw. This was sketched with Derwent drawing pencils, fineliner black pens, and watercolor wash.
18 April 26
Picnic Day Parade
Today was Picnic Day, which is the annual student-run open house event here at UC Davis that draws tens of thousands of visitors to the campus and town. Events range from fashion shows to weather balloon launches to dachshund races. In recent years I’ve avoided the huge crowds on campus but have gone to see the parade which kicks off at 10:15 in the morning and does a loop downtown several blocks from our house.
I decided I’d try to sketch the parade and here is the result. When I was watching the parade I sketched only with a sanguine drawing pencil but took some reference photos too. Back at home I added color with more Derwent drawing pencils and watercolor wash.
16 April 26
Delphiniums Arrive
The planter box in our backyard has been taken over by delphiniums, which are starting to bloom now. This is sketched with Derwent drawing pencil, a 0.1mm fineliner, and watercolor wash.
15 April 26
Beethoventown
Bonn isn’t about to let any visitor leave without knowing that its most famous son, the composer Ludwig von Beethoven, was born here. There is obviously the Beethovenhaus which I visited today. There is a Beethovenstrasse, a Beethovenhalle, a Beethoven Gymnasium, a Beethoven Park. Shop windows of everything from Apothecaries and Antiquarians to Restaurants and Tobacconists feature his bust, his statue, or the modified smirking one at right, complete with falling-down trousers; a copy of this sits opposite me in the garden of the basement flat where I’m typing.
What impressed me about the museum visit was just how many images had been made of this composer, in an early nineteenth-century masterclass in image curation. Multiple busts, drawings, paintings, but also his correspondence with adoring literary admirers, who stoked the fire of his burgeoning fame.
I was especially entranced by Beethoven’s “last quill” — as you see below, there are no annoying feathers that seem de rigueur in period films but which get in your nose and are quite impractical, as well as being irresistible to moths. Beethoven’s quill was able to hold a fine line and live up to multiple parings, and his working and re-working of pieces was displayed in a pentimento-style buildup. (It reminded me of how Numenius and I first met online over 30 years ago now, a conversation about goose quill knives for calligraphic purposes.) Beethoven’s goose was almost certainly a greylag, which are ubiquitous along the Rhine. Of special interest to me is the length of the central slit, much longer than I was taught to cut, but if might also be damage from a later time; 200 years is an astonishing length of time for a quill to survive, assuming they’re not fibbing about it.
I leave this lovely cherry-blossomed city tomorrow for the UK and friends and relatives. I’m not sure if I’ve been able to do as much chatting with strangers as I’d hoped, but with bronchitis having walloped me, I think it’s okay.
14 April 26
Red Potato
Sketched with Derwent drawing pencils, Derwent Graphitint pan colors, and a bit of black ink. I’m going to be making lentil soup tomorrow, so I picked up a couple of red potatoes in today’s early morning shop.