Inner Cathedral City

This is some quick afternoon sketching, throwing a few ideas around.

Portrait Sketching

A portrait study from the other day, It's a copy from a John Bradshaw Crandall painting.

Tom Lovell Studies

I've been making my way through my new (incredible) Tom Lovell book. I'm amazed at how simple he keeps his compositions. Everything seems to be kept within 4 simple tones: Black, dark grey, light grey, and white. So, I've been going through the book and every time I see a really stunning composition, I do a quick little marker study. Here's one:

Halloween Still Life

A little still life I did of some Halloween decorations. Painted in gouache in my watercolor sketchbook. I tried a random pre-painted background of acrylic red, Then black, white, yellow ochre and I think burnt sienna. I tried to only use warm colors and let the black and white fill in for the cooler colors. I remember looking at the purple fabric underneath everything and having no idea how I would paint it. Its a little red (burnt sienna) mixed with the black and white. I think it looks purple. I was very happy about that, it felt like magic.

Pumpkin Cabin Cutaway

Here's a cutaway view of a Pumpkin Cabin. I did a few small sketches of this a few years ago, and decided to see if I could do a finished painting out of it.

Pumpkin Cabin

detail

detail

Here are some of the initial sketches.

pumpkin seed chair

Reading Lamp

This is where I usually read my art books at night. I was reading through my Dean Cornwell book before I did this little black and white watercolor sketch. Then I went to sleep.

Where I usually read at night.

Bruster's

Bruster's

I had about 25 minutes before I had to be back at work, so I tried sketching some people at Brusters. According to the car it was 107 degrees, it made me really want Ice Cream. I didn't get any though, kind of regret that now.

City Entrance

I've slowly been etching away at creating a new world and/or discovering an old one. So currently my sketchbook is getting filled with drawings of this sort, showing places that I've been thinking and daydreaming about.

One of the many abandoned entrances to Cathedral City.

Christmas Still Life

Still Lifes always seem a little like homework at first so you have to force yourself to do them. Then, when you get a little ways into it them they get really frustrating and you question why you even do art at all and you kind of just hate everything. After awhile it's a lot of fun, and once it's over you wish you did them more often.

Here's one I did the other night in gouache

Other Worlds, A Sea Creature

I keep thinking about other worlds. One's where maybe things could have evolved slightly differently, or in some super alien way.  It makes me a little sad that I'll never get to see any distant worlds with strange animals. And I'll be long gone before they ever find out about any other life-hosting worlds.  So that's kind of sad. 

But I've found that writing about, drawing, and painting them is really the next best thing I can do to actually seeing them in person.  In some ways it feels a lot like exploring. 

So here's a little oil painting I did of a sea creature I imagine is out there swimming around somewhere, in the deep, ancient waters of some strange alien planet. 

Walker

I imagine a few of these guys walking the perimeter of a controversial construction site, taking care of anyone trying to interfere with the construction (or destruction).

Hands

Just working my way through the Famous Artist Course. Today I had to draw some hands. So here are some sketchy homework hands.

Sketchbook

Tonight I brought my sketchbook with me and tried drawing whatever I could. A guy at the bar, some half empty beer glasses, and a crooked lamp with some random clutter around it. 

Dumpster Monster

Another watercolor from a short break at work... 

I ended up parking behind the mall and sketching a dumpster. An old lady looked into the dumpster  and then kept walking. There was a guy on a bike with a striped shirt who kept staring at me, and a few middle aged women who were really angry at someone, but I couldn't figure out why. It started thundering and lightning and pouring down rain so I went back to work.

a Dumpster Monster behind the mall