En Plein Aire

People Watching and a lesson learned

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040216-exercise-ladyThis lady did her exercise routine near the tot lot, utterly unconcerned with anyone looking at her workout.

I loved watching her. She was doing some kind of movement exercise, slow and thoughtful, sort of dance-like. Not one bit of self consciousness at all. Neither was she concerned, evidently, what anyone thought of her fashion sense. I used to live freely like that, and like her experienced no particular judgement on my choice of hairstyle or clothing. Friends and colleagues just accepted me as me, and I did the same. Somewhere along the line I learned to worry about such things, and started dressing to silence the critical voice that surely lurks behind the lips of everyone who sees me.  No one’s said a word from then till now, but I assume it’s there all the same.

It’s kind of amazing what a powerful prison our own minds are. Watching her dance helped let me out of mine.

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Man and Beast

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040116-people-b The local park gets plenty of traffic for interesting sketching. Recently we saw a large group of costumed folks gathered for a photoshoot. Among the participants were black and white witches, women with ethereal flowing satin dresses in blue and violet, a young lady in a beautiful monarch butterfly dress (complete with wings!), and one guy as Robin Hood. (A passer-by remarked, “Oh, look at the Green Giant!”)

More usual park denizens include people walking (both for exercise and strolling), running meets, families with kids and of course all kinds of folks with dogs. Most of them move through too fast for more than gestural sketches. Once in a while someone sticks around: the gentleman on the left was soaking up some sun for a while by the pond.

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Courtyard People – March 21, 2016

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032116-Courtyard-People-Ink032116-Courtyard-People-ColorHere’s some folks enjoying the early spring sun that was trying to break through the marine layer. I forgot my brush – roll to ink! Added color at home.

The ladies were deep in conversation for a good 20 minutes, enough for a nice detailed sketch. They were both dressed in silvery grays but I decided later to brighten them up a bit.

After they left, the gent with the phone arrived and sat in their place. He was head-to-toe in black except for one mad streak of blue provided by his collar.

I’m very happy with how these turned out – starting to like pen and ink more and more.

Courtyard People

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031616-Courtyard-PeopleA nice day to kick off your shoes! That’s exactly what the second lady had done, enjoying some fine almost-spring weather. The corporate landscaping around here looks like giant kid’s blocks spilled everywhere. Most people sit on them and mess with their phones; amazingly I found two people to paint that were looking at something else. The upper woman had an old fashioned paper notebook and the lower was just staring into the clear blue sky. Saw another lady with an analog book. Banner day!

People are very much my weak point, especially proportions.

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Beach House

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121315-Sunset-Bch-HouseHad a rare opportunity to really put some time into a plein aire painting today. I spent most of the day working on this, from a very careful base sketch to laying in all the paint. The house really is shaped like a paralellogram! It’s old, it’s built right on the beach and it has obviously settled over the decades. To be honest, I’d love to live in it. That third floor has a window looking over the sea – guess which room would be my studio?

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Sunset Evening

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120515-Sunset-TankersAh, the tankers at sunset. Spent a lovely hour or two sketching while the sun went down. We were there late enough for the tankers’ lights to come on, so I dabbed those in with a bit of Bleedproof White. Otherwise, that’s cobalt, PO62, and a dash of PO73.

Tankers were not the only thing in view this evening – in addition to the usual birds and porpoises, I made friends with a beetle.
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A Pocket Sketch Kit

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Pocket-paletteI spontaneously decided to pick up a pizza one night and found myself with 20 minutes to kill and nothing to paint with. Curses! So I made good use of that time thinking through initial designs for this.

The plan was to create a unified thing that would hold paint, water, brush, something to sketch on, and a bit of paper towel to wipe the brush. It had to be 100% self contained – not that it’s bad to put a brush in a pocket, but in this case I wanted something that was entire and complete by itself, with no extra parts to forget. The palette could be limited but had to be adequate for general painting. Ideally all the parts would remain attached, so there’s nothing to drop while using it. Finally, I wanted it to fit in a back pocket, so it would be easy to grab-n-go without having to think about it.

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Making the Starry Sketch Kit

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My sketching tools go nearly everywhere with me – what it’s stored in has to be ready for any situation. I wanted something with a little class, very “me,” and just the right size. It had to hold the requisite art stuff, possibly a phone, and some ID. Any number of purses would have done the job, actually, but I’m not really into carrying purses! Some messenger bags looked good as well, but they were too big. Oh, and I didn’t have a huge budget for this either. Nothing out there really was just exactly right. What to do?

Why, make something of course!  Read more