Mid point

I wanted to practice using the midpoint to make sure the sketch fits on the page (Bert Dodson chapter 3). I did not have anything inspiring around, so I looked for inspiration in the fridge and found two salad dressing bottles. Such a simple concept and oh how helpful ...can't wait to try it at a life drawing session.

Room without a view

I spent few days in the hospital and these are the sketches I did. The room I was in had no windows - they were covered a while back and nobody seems to be planing to do anything about it. Pretty creapy if one has to spend more time in that room. On the bright side, that is the short surgery wing so I am assuming that patients there are not supposed to spend more than few days in the hospital. 

Anyway ...I had very good care, but I sure was happy to get out of there ...

Bits and bobs

To get past the move-blues, I went for a short walk around Atwater market and stopped to sketch the Church of the Korean Martyrs. I took with me only a thick carbon pencil, the idea being that I will be forced to simplify the structure instead of fidgeting over every stone curlicue. That was the plan.. but we all know what happens to best laid plans.

In this case, the results was this:

One.Single.Orphan.Dome.Waiting.To.Topple.Over...

I tried to sketch the top part of the church, but of course I sized it all wrong, the sketchbook page is 5x8 and I run out of space ...I figured I will try again home from a pic from the net - but there doesn't seem to be one decent photo of this place in the cyberspace.

I then tried some people sketches - same idea: thick lines, only the essential. Every time I picked somebody, 10 sec later they moved....

Leaves

I picked up a couple of branches with dried leaves and sketched them multiple times. It is a relatively new habit - to sketch the same subject more than once. I don;t do it often enough and mostly it ie because lack of time. I am happy to find time to do something, anything on a given day...

 I bought a set of cheap guache - Reeves. I wanted to try them without spending a fortune. I was under the impression that they would be more matte. I guess they are, but the coverage is not uniform and that might be because of their quality.

Watercolor and water-soluble graphite in the other two. The sketchbook is Canson multimedia. Not a great paper I must say, good for dry media only. I bought it for the dynamic drawing class and it is a bigger size than i would normally use - 9x12. Turns out that so far I like the size.

Coffee in the rain

Few days ago I went out to sketch at the Loyola campus. There are some older buildings with a lot of character and I wanted to practice the use of the proportional divider. As soon as I sat down to sketch, it started raining...oh well... I ws not about to cut my morning short because of that, but instead of architecture, I drew coffee and muffin - in pencil. It was the only thing I had. I added some gouache later.