Sitting Buddha

Sitting Buddha, 14th century Tibetan, at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in DC.

A Concert in Upperville

This weekend I went to see the Winchester Arts Chorale perform at Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville, about an hour west of D.C. They performed Christmas-themed music from the Renaissance up through more modern pieces by Rutter and Rachmaninoff. My father is one of the singers, which made it especially interesting to me.



The church itself is a beautiful stone church I'd driven by many times on my way to the Shenandoah valley. I'd wanted to stop by there for a long time, but hadn't had a good reason until now.

Sketchcrawl at Union Station

Today was the 32nd World Wide Sketchcrawl, and the D.C. sketchers met indoors at Union Station to stay out of the heat. I spent most of the morning focusing on the architecture, which I really enjoyed. But in the afternoon, I switched to drawing innocent bystanders:

National Sketch Draw Month

This is Day one of the month long July challenge presented by artist & poet Dan Vera to the Urban Sketchers of Washington DC and the world at large to draw a drawing and share it with the world each day of this month. He was inspired by the National Poet's daily poem challenge to invite us sketchers to do with sketches what so many poets do with poems in April. Make a new one every day for a month. We discussed this a little on the Sketch Crawl Washington DC facebook group page where many artists seemed interested and willing to post shared photos of their efforts. We don't have another big International Sketch Crawl until later this month but this is a great way to help everyone create a niche in their daily routine for some meditative drawing to prepare.

I have been doing the daily sketch since about May of 2010 and I find that it is a great routine to begin each day. At first I started out small just line drawings in a very small book I made to fit in the hip pocket of my jeans. I quickly bored with still life drawing around the house early in the morning but I found that flowers in my garden were a great subject to attack early in the day and study closely. Soon I had a routine and found that public responses were much stronger if I added a little watercolor to the sketches. Over the winter season stuck inside I turned to cut flowers and colorful vases.  I had plenty more botanical subjects to report with my pen, ink and water colors.

I found that drawing every day showed me that some days the drawing skills are great and some days they are less great... it seems to give me a measure of how I am feeling by doing the drawing and judging the results. I see if it is early in the day and you are a little off center or tired or just not liking the weather it shows in the lines and the care you use to compose the sketch but even a poorly result is worth the effort. The 10-30 minutes of sketching helps me know where I am in the world and how well balanced I am feeling.

 I am truely looking forward to seeing all the sketches from the other members of this group. I am very glad Dan Vera came up with the idea and presented it for July.  I hope lots of artists will share their work and the news about this national drawing sketching challenge with all their artist friends to give it a try. If you aren't ready to draw this year  you can follow the results and enjoy the sketches at our facebook group page. Urban Sketchers of Washington DC on facebook. 

My first sketch for the challenge Friday July 1, 2011

Greenberry's Coffee

Coffee drinkers at Greenberry's in Reston. Coming here reminds of my grad school days in Charlottesville, which is where Greenberry's got started. And every once in a while I'll bump into an old friend from U.Va. while I'm there.

bike

Red road bike

hotel art - the secret lives of drawer bottoms

so... this is a little bit of a different type of location sketching, if ever there was one. for the last 15 odd years, whenever i stay somewhere, i try to leave my mark... on the bottoms of the drawers in the room i'm staying in. sometimes i have more time than others, which is why some of the designs are detailed and others look rushed. i do not harm the drawer in any way, and most times no one ever knows this artwork exists. but anyway, this is what i do!

some of the designs are from my imagination, but sometimes i am actually drawing something that i see in life. it could be something in my room, or something i see in the view out my window.  back in the day i used to use more paint, but since 2001 carrying paint onto an airplane is not as easy as it once was. so these days i generally stick to crayons, colored pencils, and sharpies.

the ones i've posted here are all drawn from life.  to see the entire collection of drawer drawings that i have online, you can visit my flickr album HERE.