my every-four-years election results post

I have been doing this for some time now, mapping the election results in my sketchbook. See previous images here.

The view at about 7:15pm PST

This is what it looked like when I headed to bed. Electoral votes stand at 209 - Democratic; 238 - Repblican.

And this is where we are this morning. Vermont, Michigan and Arizona still not called one way or the other.

Regardless of how I feel about the outcome, I still find it cool to illustrate the results as they come in. Look for the next installment in 2020!

Some recent sketches and things

Not a sketch, but some photos I took of the garden bounty turned into salsa. :)

Also a photo. These are cukes I grew inside my own mailbox - I needed someplace to put them while I dealt with the dog.

Year end review...

And suddenly, it was the end of the year. Here are a handful of sketches to walk you out. See you next year!

other duties as assigned

My boss is off at a conference. She emailed me asking me to go into the museum proper, visit the gift stores and price all of the pens and pencils with the Academy logo on them. I'm a visual person, so instead of a list, I sent her this image from my sketchbook. :)

smacked by a fish (again)

I posted this gem earlier today over on the From the Stacks blog. This time  (as a tool to help my own self see the changes over time) I remembered to take some photos of the process.

These follow after the break below. :)

found the scanner

I draw something every day. Not everything is worth sharing. Some times even if it is, I've buried the scanner so deeply under half finished projects, I can't share easily even if I want to. I spent a chunk of today doing some cleaning in the studio and - surprise! - found the scanner. Here are a few images from the last month. :)

sheep reference thrills

Today I am thankful for a few slow moments at the reference desk. I've written seven letters, and drawn a big horn sheep - and I still have 2 hours to go! The New England Journal of Medicine has come up in five of my last seven searches for folks. I'm sure that means something.....

Election Night USA

I have worked Tuesday nights for at least the last four years. In 2008 I started what might well be a sketchbook tradition - Draw a map of the USA and spend the 4 hours on the reference desk (between questions, of course) filling in the "winning" colors. Due to time zones and all, the map does not get completely filled in for a day or more. However, there are updates below......

what baseball has done for me lately

It has been quite some time since someone offered me money for services in a bar.
While at a conference earlier this week, I wandered into the Mucky Duck with a colleague to watch game seven of the Giants/Cardinals series. I'm not a baseball fan, really, so I was doing what I always do in these situations. I pulled out my sketch book to draw. I was trying (and mostly failing) to draw the batter in his batter's helmet while he shifted, adjusted and the cameras kept switching to other angles. My sketches were a little pathetic, but I suppose when one is confident enough to draw in a bar, some skill is assumed by observers.
One of the waitresses came up on my blind side and said, "oh my god, you draw? Do you want to draw my daughter? I'll pay you."
Within moments of my half-mumbled, "sure" she was back with a stack of really nice photos of an adorable blonde ~2yo. I sifted through them as my companion alternated between yelling encouragement to the Giant at bat and gushing about the child's extreme cuteness.
I selected the photo that showed the child's happy personality and set the others off to the side. I started in pencil to be certain that I had proportions correct. Errors in drawing people are noticeable in a way that an error in drawing a spiny lobster is not. We as people look at other people all of the time. Whether we realize it or not, simply by interacting with other humans we have internalized the basic measurements between facial features and have an inatate sense of "rightness". We judge a portrait by how well the artist placed the nose, mouth, eyes in relation to each other.
Once I got the basics down, I came back in with ink, shading, tweaking. The light in the bar was not ideal, but I was able to shift along the bar toward the kitchen and borrow some illumination. 
Additional challenges: happy baseball fans pounding the bar. The waitress bringing people over to look at the drawing in progress.
I took several bad photos with my Blackberry before signing the bottom. I carefully ripped the portrait out of my sketch book and handed  it & my card over. The waitress was thrilled.
At the end of the night, Giants world series bound, we fled the odd live music. Our tab for 4 drinks and food came to less than $20. All for a sketch. Works for me.

greetings from Monterey!

On day two of my recent conference, I played hooky and spent the morning walking to and from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The public biking/walking path runs along the water front. I saw many harbor seals on the rocks, sea lions, sea otters, brown pelicans, canada geese, hermeen gulls, CA gulls, western grebes, pied-bill grebes...and other shore birds I couldn't readily identify. I had a relaxing morning collecting fish faces and talking to kids about drawing as I painted the horn shark. Have sketchbook, will travel!

Homework Helper

Years ago I helped write a rubric for science education on the use of the sketchbook as a science tool. Well, last night I used my sketchbook as a tool of mathematical instruction. Making bar graphs (now called histograms in today's sixth grade) is like coloring with math. Maybe that's why I like them so much. All those different levels and hazards in boxy formation made me think of V's favorite video game of the moment, and the drawing continued. :^)

Leaf it all to me

Had a lovely art day this week that included some art viewing and nature time, as well as drawing. And too, I got more cleaning done in my studio in preparation for East Bay Open Studios in June. My studio will be open both weekends. I'll have copies of The Field Guide available and hopefully some other goodies. I hope you'll be able to come check it out!

stepping forward

So the latest sketchbook came to me as a gift. It is small for what I usually carry, made at some mission in Nepal. The cover is hand embroidered and the paper is made from scrap cotton. Not surprisingly then, the paper sucks up water like nobody's business. It will be fun to experiment on.

Aren't salamander feet cool looking?