Back to School Night

It's that time of year again. School has begun for my urchins and I got to spend most of yesterday evening in an over-crowded, unventilated auditorium listening to a lot of things I already know (and some I didn't). This, of course, was the perfect opportunity....

Today's memory sketch

As my family will tell you, I'm pretty good at sketching just about anywhere. Today, I unpacked my folding bike from the trunk and rode for a couple of miles along the path beside The Great Highway, across from Ocean Beach. The weather was perfect, the path was not crowded, and my sketchbook remained in the trunk. Even I have my sketching limits, and being behind the steering wheel (or column) is my biggest. I've been thinking about the ride ever since as the above image will attest.

From the Smackdown!

Paniluris japonica (c) Diane T Sands

I posted the above image earlier today on the From the Stacks blog. I used carbon dust on Canson Illustration Board. My carbon dust kit once belonged to Elaine R.S. Hodges, co-founder of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators. While I am not certain my piece quite lives up to her legacy, I felt better knowing she was looking over my shoulder on this one. Thanks, Elaine. 

Vacation sketches

It doesn't seem to matter how much I want to use my vacation time to draw the new surroundings, or bring back a sense of place. I am the only driver of the rental car. I spent a good deal of time talking and catching up with folks. Which left time on the plane, or when waiting for food at restaurants for me to crack open the sketchbook. The following...

Staff meetings are like that

Just once I want to be the mouse on the top of the pile, rather than the one on the bottom. If only to get a different view.

Urban sketching of a sort

I had some time to fill before meeting my crew for lunch. I wandered down Valencia Street looking for possible lunch spots and thinking about the Urban Sketch movement. I feel intimidated by folks who can fit an entire city skyline behind the cafe they are sitting at complete with people onto a tiny page. The only way to get over it is to go out and practice drawing until I can do something similar (or just more satisfactory from my own point of view). So I set out to capture some of my adventure. Two of my favorite places to wander into on Valencia are Paxton Gate and 826 (alternatively known as the home of McSweeney's and the Pirate Supply Store). Being Sunday, both places were full of folks. Rather than sketch one fully existing tableau, I shifted from spot to spot, putting together my own display of things that caught my eye. Then I bought a bottle of dark green, Italian ink for my dip pens and a six-sided die with words instead of numbers. Each side offers one of the following: who, what, where, when, why or how.  

Sneezes with Goats

I have never been able to do things the easy way. If left to my own devices, I will come up with the most complicated way possible (and then beat myself up about it when it fails to work).

Today I am trying to slap-together an illustration using a “lost” technique that looks best on a board that hasn’t been manufactured since 1971 - but first the board must be smoothed with the skin of a goat native to the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. Really.

Smooth, continuous-tone illustrations made with a pencil were