3 October 06
Embarking on Copperplate
I’ve enrolled in a copperplate calligraphy correspondence course. The first lesson arrived today.
This had had always fascinated me, but I’ll also admit to being a bit put off by its fussiness. No matter. Now I’m going to be spending my evenings working at a 70° 55° slant, perfecting the art of allowing spreading tines to make a perfect square top.
I’ll let you know how I get on.
23 September 06
Sketchcrawl XI
Today we finally joined the source, the San Francisco sketchcrawl outing to Sausalito. This effort was started by Enrico Casarosa two years ago; it’s grown into a worldwide movement.
I was trying out the Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils today. I’ll post some scans tomorrow, but I like them the pencils very much: they are, indeed, intense.
We were joined by Erin, Emma, and Gretel. A great way to escape the Sacramento Valley smoke and north wind…
I’ll post some sketches tomorrow.
[now uploaded; too bad the bull terrier came out looking like a cross between a pig and a wolf…]
19 September 06
Pulling up Freeway Daisies
I’ve been clearing the area in front of the house for a herb garden, suggested a while ago by Nicole and seconded by many. The Arboretum plant sale is on October 7; I have time to plan and ponder.
Meanwhile, the first of a series of scans from the Europe sketchbook have been posted here.
18 September 06
Sunflowers In Decline
Fall is almost here, and the sunflowers in the garden have run their course.
This upcoming Saturday is the 11th worldwide SketchCrawl. We’re going to be headed to Sausalito with the San Francisco contingent of sketchcrawlers.
17 September 06
Could You Spare a Colorado Quarter?
But only minted in Denver, you understand, not Philadelphia. You’ll know by the small “D” not the small “P.” (You need the OED magnifying glass for this one, folks, at least if you’re over 35.)
This was a request from the guard at the Alcázar in Segovia, who must pose the same question to all American tourists.
Muy Señor nuestro:
Adjunto le envío una moneda de 25 centavos americanos del estado de Colorado sacada en Denver y no en Filadelfia, tal y como nos la pedió hace dos o tres semanas en la entrada al Alcázar, y que por casualidad tenía en el monedero un compañero ayer.
No dude en pedirnos otras monedas estadounidenses, pues casi no nos damos cuenta de lo que se nos escurre por las manos.
Monedas, guerras, mundo. A su servicio.
[More sketchbook scans will follow by popular request]
16 September 06
Farmers Market Wander
We met Ron and Joe today for sharing notes on Gertrude Jekyll, a visit to the Davis Farmers Market, and lunch at Pluto’s followed by sharing of our sketchbooks from our trip. The Farmers Market is an excellent place for sketching so I drew a typical produce stand at left.
15 September 06
A Fortnight-long Sketchcrawl
Going to Europe—including a wedding—with no camera raised a few eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic. But sketching our way around Madrid, Segovia, from trains, from benches in three countries allowed both of us to connect with our surroundings in a different way than a digital camera would have.
For a start, anything’s fair game, subjects that would not have been “worth” photographing. My new shoes. The top of the head of the balding man in the seat in front of me on the plane. The half-drunk glass of sangria on a table, an old wooden door, Jennifer and Harald’s boots. Sure, we did sketch the grandiose—I did two sketches of the aqueduct in Segovia, for instance—but there is much pleasure to be had in tracing lines that outline the simple, the mundane.
Blogging for us grew out of our log book, a journal with pen and a few sketches about our dwelling-place. Sketching for me at least has in turn been influenced by blogging, in that I chose where to go in, say, London, in part by what sketching opportunities might be had.
(I should probably fess up at this point that I did shell out an enormous sum to go up the London Eye precisely for this reason, only to succumb to vertigo and possibly regret, but then I made up for it in far more prosaic settings along the South Bank, such as the kid who was bungee-trampolining with a grin on his face almost the size of the pods revolving slowly above and to his right.)
We had different trajectories, Numenius and I. We mostly sketched independently. And, at night, we’d look at each other’s books and get peeks into each other’s days and glimpse alternate universes and our courtship from years ago, a slowly unfolding narrative conducted at a slight remove of time and a considerable remove of space…
Try it, I urged a Canadian tourist whose brother-in-law had invited me over to their table across from the Museum of Garden History, having caught a glimpse of the fish-lampost I’d just rendered quickly in pen and ink. Your life will be changed.
She did, right away. She drew a sketch of me. It was rudimentary and she was embarrassed but I urged her on, because this is important.
I really do believe that.
[Postscript: Doc Rock’s comment reminds me that I should add a link to Danny Gregory’s site and urge readers who’d like to find out more about this kind of thing to see his books, Everyday Matters and Creative License. I certainly did end up telling quite a few people about Danny’s books while I was away.]
26 August 06
Hope's the Thing
A submission for the Illustrated Poem Marathon (thanks, Crack Skull Bob).
I did this one a few years back by freehand-tearing some construction paper which I then exposed, along with the calligraphy, on photo-emulsion for silkscreening.
The poem is Emily Dickinson’s.
19 August 06
Blank Books
I’m pretty close to settling on the art supplies to take on our trip to Europe (the main thing left to decide is just what pencils and pens). One thing of course to bring is an artist’s journal, always a challenge. This year I’ve been doing my journal in these great Pentalic drawing books and will be taking one of these along. The paper in these is 90 lb. weight which is thick enough to take a good wash. These Pentalic blank books are hard to find though; the art section of the UC Davis bookstore started carrying them last year but I’ve never seen them in any other art store.
The solution to having the perfect journal is bind one’s own. I’m thinking of taking bookbinding this fall at the San Francisco Center for the Book so I can do just that.
17 August 06
City Notebook
I have yet to become a member of the cult of Moleskine, but Pica has been looking into these notebooks as a possibility for a journal. On their site today she noticed an upcoming product of theirs that will be very neat. This is their line of City Notebooks. They describe this as “the guidebook you write yourself.” Each of these notebooks has an overview map and a set of street maps together with many blank pages, tabs, and overlays to allow you to write out your own notes about a city. Their line of European city notebooks will be out in the fall, with the United States ones to follow in Spring of 2007.