Sitting Buddha

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

Metro Red Line Riders

This week I worked as a volunteer at Pyramid Atlantic Studios in Silver Spring MD and rode the metro so I would have a better chance to sketch each day and get there without stress of driving the car. I only had three stops on the red line from mine to get something and managed to capture a few interesting quick sketches.

hounds tooth pattern on her coat with a black scarf

bumpy ride gave her a look of anger on the phone

I was pleased to capture his whole figure

checking emails

travelers on their way home for Thanksgiving 

all stretched out on the train

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

fountain pens

Ruling nib in my dip pen with sketch and bottle of ink.

The question, "what kind of pens and inks do you like to use?" Pen and ink is never more flexible in line quality than with an old fashioned pen that has to be dipped in a well of ink. The nibs vary for different uses, I like a flexible nib that holds lots of ink like the "ruling nib" seen here. Dipping it in the ink and varying the pressure which gives a bold line, a fine line, or move from one to the other in the same stroke. Still that isn't be best option for drawing around town on sketch crawls.
For sketching on the go, I have been using a pen made by a German company called Rotring since I first discovered it in a small office/art supply store in Cambridge MA on a visit in 1987. The Rotring artists pen was great for sketching, writing letters and journaling. Over the years I had and lost several. Eventually I found a converter cartridge that allowed me to use my own inks in the pen and it saved money instead of buying the disposable plastic cartridges that Rotring sells. I believe using a fountain pen is green; why use a disposable pen or a plastic ink cartridge that ends up in the trash? Any artist can use the same fountain pen for years and have a choice of various inks while reducing your carbon foot print!

1. Niji water brush
2. Pen & Ink sketch pen
3. Rotring artist sketch pen
4. converter cartridge

My new Pen & Ink sketch pen has a iridium tip and is a copy of the type of fountain pens used by artists and writers a couple generations back in the 1940's and 50's. I  have been using this pen to sketch now for a good a year and am pretty happy with it's fine tip which is flexible yet strong. Any pen nib can bend too far under pressure, rendering them useless but the iridium is very strong. The cartridge converter is a simple device, it has a screw plunger that turns to refill or empty the cartridge. I leave mine in the pen and draw the ink up through it's nib into the cartridge. The Japanese Niji "water brush" seen in this photo is a great tool for water and brush on the go. It holds water in the blue reservoir and with a simple squeeze on the barrel pushes water into the brush to use on cake water colors or to make  ink washes if you draw with water soluble inks.

Still life at home 

Sketching at NGA lecture

Missed sketch crawl #30

Still working on a daily sketch at home while sick and stuck in the house. Color brightens up the still life work during this gloomy time of year. Hope to see lots of sketches from the LOC trip soon!

Home for Christmas

White freesia were one gift to Mother

One big white lily with carnations and greens 

Nutcracker stands at attention

Christmas tree & gifts sit in the front bay window

Sister sent peppermint striped lilies to Mother

Morning Sketches a good habit to cultivate.

This past two months I have moved from outside in the garden drawing each morning to inside the house. The little sketch book I use gets a new sketch each morning after my journal pages are written. There is a great variation in my concentration and energies for drawing from one morning to the next but in the end it is always worth 5-30 minutes to do a sketch.

Early in this series, I gave up drawing after only two, out of three orchids.

Chartreuse and white lady slippers orchids in the studio. 

Drawing first thing in the morning makes me more aware of my state of mind each day. Eventually, by creating a new sketch each day, the books fill up faster than they used to do when it was only an impulse that made me sketch. It is very exciting to have a series to reflect on, which took only a little effort each morning.  In winter my subjects tend to be piles of things in the studio or living rooms. The best of all subjects are the cut flowers and bowls of fruits. 

Somedays one orchid was enough effort to draw.

This is a cut flower I haven't had before, the exotic chartreuse green and white lady slipper orchids (Cypripedioidea)  My partner brought them home Nov. 5th and still today, Dec. 4th they are looking good. Only one has turned from chartreuse green to a mellow lemon yellow but since these are cut flowers it's amazing how long they have lasted. Let me take this as a chance to give a sincere thank you to the man who brings me flowers and tends our garden!

Tryst Coffee House