Don't Mind the Arrow

Walking the Dog

I wasn't sure I was going to get around to working on this month's Virtual Paintout location early enough to complete anything. The location was Gdansk, Poland. I'd spent a fair amount of time earlier in the month scouting out possible scenes, but hadn't come to any conclusions about what I wanted to actually draw. So with the end-of-the-month deadline looming, I picked one and got started.

Actually, I picked a different one and got started, but then I abandoned that one (ships - Gdansk always means "Gdansk shipyards" in my mind because of hearing it on the news when I was a kid and Lech Walesa was protesting there). After deciding that drawing just wasn't working, I picked this one of a man walking along a street carrying his small dog and a shopping bag. I was going to do more of a long view, showing the curved road he was on, but in the end I decided to just focus on the man and his dog.

I used my Copic Multiliner and mostly Copic markers with some Prismacolors. The two brands don't play together that well, so I'm going to have to eventually go with just one (it'll be the Copics). It's definitely a different style than I usually do, and one that I'm not entirely comfortable with, but I enjoy the end result.

Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba

It's not very creative as a title, I know, but the location for the Virtual Paintout this month is the Italian island of Elba. I haven't participated in the project for a few months, in spite of missing some great locations - last month was Summit County, Colorado, and before that was Eureka, California.

But I managed to get one done for this month. And as always, I had a lot of fun touring around the location scoping out potential places to draw. It made me think a lot about the practicalities of island living. In some ways, it seems great, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't hack it for very long.

Maybe I don't see myself living there, but hanging out under one of those umbrellas for a while doesn't seem so bad!

Jersey

First of all, I want to thank everyone who left lovely comments on my last post, with the watercolor painting. Your remarks are very encouraging, and I'm sure I will be trying my hand at watercolor again in the future.

It's been hectic around here with the kids visiting for a week, and I've gotten a little behind in posting. I just realized that I'd never posted my drawing for this month's Virtual Paintout here. You've probably already seen it if you follow that community, or if you're friends with me on Google+, but I want to put it up here too for completeness' sake.

This month's location was the island of Jersey, about which I knew pretty much nothing. This made it interesting to virtually wander the roads and take in the bucolic landscapes. I nearly ended up choosing a scene featuring the wide open fields and trees, but in the end my attention was grabbed by a narrow road with houses lining it.

From 2011-07-18

It was a bit more challenging to draw than I'd considered. The many shades of brown and gray and the texture of the stones complicated things. Overall, though, I'm quite pleased with it. Drawn with my trusty Prismacolors.

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.

Virtual Paintout - Cote d'Azur

This month's location for the Virtual Paintout is the Cote d'Azur, aka the French Riviera. I found a location that piqued my interest pretty quickly, and have already completed one drawing -  Pigma Micron 005 pen on layout paper. I've been drawn to using pens lately for some reason. I guess I just go through cycles as far as what medium calls to me.

This scene was on the Rue Partouneaux in Menton. I would be surprised if it was my last drawing for the month, though. I've had such a great time walking around the towns in street view, and there are endless possibilities for interesting things to draw. I especially want to go back and explore Monaco some more.

First Virtual Paintout

Someone on the Everday Matters list linked to the Virtual Paintout project (I'm sorry that I can't for the life of me remember who it was). In a nutshell, every month a different location is given, and you use Google Street View to find a scene to draw or paint.

This month's location was Romania. I spent far too much time wandering up and down the streets looking at everything. And I mean, that's the point - to "walk" around the location as if you're visiting it. But perhaps I shouldn't have undertaken this two short weeks before my wedding. In any event, after a lot of wandering around, I compiled a short list of links to places I was considering drawing. 

One interesting thing about looking for scenes was finding out that my expectations of what a place would look like didn't always hold true. For example, I plopped the little Street View man down in a place that looked to me like it would probably have views and big houses. It was a small almost-island in the river, and in the US, a location like that would probably be a planned and gated community.

Well, that wasn't at all what I found. Instead, I saw stray dogs and people sitting in plastic chairs in the middle of the dirt roads. I was intrigued, and in fact, this little neighborhood was where I found my inspiration.

My submission was found on Strada Folclorului (the link will take you to the street view - opens in another window). I couldn't even tell you exactly what attracted me to it so much. The colors, of course, and the shadows, but there was just something about it that really spoke to me. Here's my rendition in colored pencils.

And here are the pencils I used to create it. It felt like a lot every time I reached for a different color, but seeing them laid out like this, I realize it's not that many after all. I'm making full use of all those grays, though!