Don't Mind the Arrow

I Do All My Drawing in Coffee Shops

Not really, but sometimes it feels like it. Lately, we've been suffering through a weather pattern that includes violent thunderstorms every afternoon and evening, sometimes stretching far into the night. So there haven't been many opportunities to get out and draw. Enough complaining, though - we're supposedly going to get a break from the rain and temperatures up to 100 degrees in the next couple of days.

The last time it wasn't raining, Morgan and I went out to a cafe and soaked up some sun.

Generally, I like this, but I wish my uncertainty about how to tackle the overlapping chairs didn't show so much in my lines. I may go back and add some color later. 

I didn't get any work done on my Virtual Paintout drawing today, but I'm planning/hoping to finish it tomorrow. 

Germany, Jersey, and G+

The next page of my Germany sketch journal is here:

For a week of our time in Germany, Morgan and I were at a math conference in Irsee. Well, he was at a math conference. I hung out with the mathematicians at meals, snack times, and in the pubs. Anyhow, the conference was hosted at a converted cloister. In the evenings, dinner was in the cellar and that's where this suit of armor was. I drew it while Morgan mingled with the other mathematicians and then colored it while we were at the pub later that night.

Currently, I've been working on my drawing for this month's Virtual Paintout. The location this month is the island of Jersey. I just took a quick photograph of my drawing instead of scanning it, so the paper is less bright-white than it should be.

I'm hoping to finish it over the course of the next day or so. I'm working on it a little at a time, not rushing it.

Finally, I've joined Google+ and I'm excited about its possibilities for finding and sharing with different communities of people, including artists. If I add you to my circles, that's why - just a way to facilitate sharing things to an appropriate audience.

Marienplatz and Hofbraeuhaus

One morning, Morgan and I sat in Marienplatz having breakfast, and I started a sketch of the square. Trying to decide how and where to simplify, along with trying to eat breakfast, meant that I didn't get much done before we decided to leave and get on with our day. (We went to the Deutsches Museum that morning.) I intended to finish the sketch another day, and we did indeed eat at Marienplatz again, but it was rainy that morning and I didn't get out the sketchbook. Ah well, as it turns out I sort of like the unfinished look of it.

The same night, we headed to the famous Hofbräuhaus for beer. At first, we sat out in the courtyard area. Eventually though, it started raining, so we went into the beer hall and found a spot at a table with some other people (young German guys who, when we asked if we could share their table, looked us up and down for a long moment then sighed and said, "Ja ... okay."). It was a great scene inside there - a band playing, people singing and clanking their giant beer glasses together. I got out the sketchbook and made a quick drawing of it.

More of the Germany Sketchbook

Isartor is one of the four main gates into Munich from medieval times, and the only one that still has its main tower. It was apparently originally constructed in 1337 and restored in 1835. For the sketch, I didn't want to really focus entirely on the tower, but instead on it looming over ordinary buildings.

And this was the view out our hotel window in the Lehel part of Munich, very close to the city center. The city had so much amazing, complicated architecture that it was a task to capture the concept and yet simplify it in drawings.

Also, you should stop over at Vicki's blog if you'd like to see the postcard I drew and sent her from my trip!

I Have Returned

Morgan and I got back from Germany late Tuesday night. I've been sick pretty much ever since - sore throat, cough, congestion. It's kept me from doing much but laying around and staring at the computer or tv screen. 

Yesterday I managed to scan some of my sketch journal from Germany, though, so I figured I'd start posting it. 

This was the first drawing I did. In spite of the caption on it, it's actually a drawing from the Denver airport. There was no time to draw in the other airports on the way out (Minneapolis and Amsterdam). I think I must have finished coloring it on the Minneapolis-Amsterdam flight and mislabeled it then, but it's all sort of a blur.

After we missed our flight in Amsterdam, we had a couple of hours to hang out in Schiphol airport, but I was too tired at the time to draw. So the next drawing is from dinner in Munich that evening.

I stood on the corner across the street from our restaurant and sketched it a little. I only did a little of it because the area was very crowded and it wasn't that easy to stand and sketch without getting bumped by passersby. The logo was drawn off our beer glasses inside the restaurant.

Brick

On New Year's Eve, Morgan and I decided to stay in and watch a movie. That makes us sound so old, but we went out the previous year, so maybe all isn't lost. At least we stayed up until midnight.

The movie we watched was Brick. I'd heard people say positive things about it, but I didn't actually have any idea what it was about. I like when I can go into a movie like that, with pretty much a blank slate. With this one, it was a lot of fun to watch it without knowing ahead of time that it was a film noir set in a high school. Quirky and interesting, I thought it was a good choice for our evening.

I drew the cover image from the movie in my art journal entry for the day. Hands are challenging to draw, with the many odd-looking positions they can get into, and although it might seem like an easier task when you can't see all the fingers, I think that actually makes it more difficult a lot of times. I'm pretty happy with the end result, though.

Art Journal Pages

I've continued working in my art journal (not entirely consistently, but I'm not letting that stop me from moving forward).

I have mostly been trying to do relatively quick drawings like the one above just to get something down and the page done, but there are a few days I've gone back to and made more of a finished drawing. I'll post some of those soon.

 

I'm also working on a journal of the first 100 days of the year for a swap on Swap-Bot. It's not entirely a drawing journal; we can do pretty much anything we want to in it - write, draw, paint, collage, use bits of ephemera from the day.  It's been interesting keeping two journals, though. I'll scan all the pages of the one for the swap before I send it, but I don't know if I'll post any before it's actually done.

Journaling

I've tried starting an art journal before, but I am my own worst critic. I hate it when I have a sub-par piece of art in there messing up my beautiful book. And yes, when I write that out, I realize how pretentious it sounds. Therefore, I'm trying again.

I started yesterday, when I didn't have anything in particular to journal about. I figured it would be good practice since that's another problem I have - I don't think there's anything profound enough to journal. Well, profound or not, I need to learn to just put something in there and move on.

Day 1, done. Hopefully I'll manage to silence the inner critic and follow through this time.