The forgotten Arch

          Yesterday's drawing and todays are about as opposite in style as ink drawings can get. One precisely drawn with a gel pen, the other scribbled with a half defunct Sharpie.  Both are about the same size.
          After walking late one evening earlier this week, I came to this scene. The view of the north side of the Haskell Memorial arch in the street light.  

         

         You may have seen other drawings and even paintings of this arch on Harvinks before...

         

          Haskell campus is always interesting. Architecture and also activities that inspire an artist.   At the west end of the stadium stands this arch. A memorial arch for the Haskell as well as LHS had football games there for years. I suppose that HINU now uses the stadium during track season. But seems to me that the arch is mostly forgotten; although maybe not, according to the links below...


http://www2.ljworld.com/news/1992/nov/24/haskell_stadium/

http://www2.ljworld.com/photos/galleries/2016/sep/16/images-haskell-memorial-stadiums-90th-anniversary-/

stool by window

It is March Madness time, so we spend way more time than normal watching TV.
Basketball is about all we watch all year.    This year we watched more than most, as someone wanted to see every possible game that might have an effect on the outcome of KU's season.

All that to say that I was sitting watching a game with the ladies with sketch pad in hand.
Nobody cared if I was paying close attention, after all it was not actually KU playing.

Most stuff at Shannon's I have already drawn, but maybe not this stool. It was such a perfect setup.
Even though I moved the stool around a bit to improve the composition.  To me it was the perfect
setup for ink. Strong darks against solid white with enough midtone to help suggest the diffused interior lighting of a cloudy day.    Though looking into the room through the wide arch from the living room I was inspired to eliminate the door frame and some other stuff that would complicate the scene and make the drawing less focused on the center of interest.

The center of intrest which is what? The stool back, which first caught my  intrest, or the seat of the stool which asks to be occupied, or is it the shinning surface of the table top, reflecting only one or 2 images from the room?
What do you think...?

Waiting Jeep

Sitting behind the tire shop, waiting for SR to show up, this was the view. Was a nice combination of lines and shapes for a small drawing in ink. Later we went over to Starbucks where I did the drawings posted earlier.

Canton Kansas

We made a quick stop in the howling wind along highway 56. We were headed to McPherson, KS for a basket ball tournament that our granddaughter was playing. They won the tournament by the way! The Canton Grocery store is just a blip in the road at the corner where you turrn north into the town.  You can see in the drawing over the building the grain elevators that are in town.   They do not even sell gas at the grocery, but I found a nice ice scraper cheap that we could use. This is Kansas oil country. so there were some large peices of oil field equipement sitting beside the parking. Though it was a nice addition to a drawing, I did it in such a hurry- mostly because of the wind- that I don't think I did it justice.

Levy walk

It had been years since I had been along this part of the Kaw river levy, so it was time. And such a nice day. I walked out on the bike trails through the woods right next to the river and returned along the levy. This is one of 3 or 4 sketches done on the way back in- it was maybe one & a half miles one way??  I had drawn this scene from the roads east of N. Lawrence before, but not this view from the levy.    All ink, with no preliminary pencil sketching.

Here is another ink sketch, from almost the same point on the levy..

Snow patern

I have done this scene before, but it catches my attnetion from time to time. I recently ran across a watercolor also done a couple years ago. But this is the first attempt just in ink. It was good to help divide the tonal shapes into just 3 or 4.  White above and center. Dark vertical trees; medium horizontal shingles, lighter horixontal frosty grass below.
You can see a couple patches of snow on the roofs. We had so little snow the last couple years that I needed to catch an image while I could...

Posted No Trespassing

Two small sketches on one sheet of 5" x 9" paper. The post title comes from the sign you can see in the lower drawing- though I did not get it into the drawing.

This is the view down N1300 road from a post of a couple weeks ago (2/17/18). The upper drawing is the 2nd one I drew; it is the view just of the left of the lower drawing. After finishing the first one I moved along the road just enough to get a better view over the hill of the road receding to the east.

Both were done with a gel pen of one kind or another.

High Chaparelle Mail Boxes

 I do not know why the idea had never hit me before.
Well for one, someone else may need to drive. And so as Stephanie was driving this time I recorded a few of the different mailboxes in our '60s neighborhood. Newer neighborhoods don't have the "rural" boxes on the curb; after all, you cannot mess up the curb appeal. That and the fact that these boxes cost the mail man a lot of time.
But I like the variety of boxes.
The box on the bottom of the page is a new "post" built of 4 x 4 and covered with cedar 1 x.

Here is another couple of boxes done from memory when I got home from a walk recently.

Blue Green

More from our recent trip to Branson.  That's Missouri, USA!
A sketch through the window as we took it easy one day. Oh, I guess we did that every day!  Well, it was either before or after our exploits of the day.
There was a small deck, but it was a bit too chilly to use it most days. There were always cardinals in the trees though, and water running over the rocks in the creek below.
The notion I had was to catch the highlight and reflections on the table top.
Blue Green was the name of the vacation hotel complex we were staying in.

3/15/18

The older you get, the  more time you may spend in the Dr.'s office.

But it gives you a good chance to hone some of your drawing skills.  Most of the reading material in those places is not that great, and what is good you have probably already read.

But you can almost always sketch.  This was the only half decent drawing from Thursday's trip...

Done in pencil in the 9 x 12 inch pad.

23rd & Louisianna Streets

Here is another drawing of the same corner mall, with the lights of the stadium at Lawrence High in the background over the buildings. This is looking across the intersection from the south, from the parking lot at Checkers...
Drawn on the bottom half of the 9" x 12" pad I have been carrying around. Ink from the get go...

the Hearth

 The dark ink gives a good impression of what the scene was actually like, with the stove in the middle.     This is the hearth that MGH was working on last year when we were there. Now we were able to warm our feet by the fire every morning and evening. Even in middle Georgia it feels very nice when there is a cold snap to have a warm stove in the living room..

This was a pencil sketch done as a study before the ink. I think I just flipped the page over and started the ink that day, or maybe the next. No dates to help my memory...

the THAI Diner

I was shopping a bit, so made this stop in the parking lot of the Wendy's where we often eat. We sit and look across the street to the shopping center where the Thia Diner is located.  This view is from the south parking, past the Wendys service drop and the main entrance, across 23rd street north to the corner mall, with the lights of the LHS stadium in the background. This is the 2nd recent drawing with those lights in the background.
I have taken to hauling around a larger sketch pad again - 9" x 12".  Maybe that will inspire me to do some larger format drawings.  Maybe, but it did not help on this one, as I used less than half the page, doing the sketch no larger than any other recent drawings.
The pen I used was a Paper Mate Profile 1.4 B which I had never tried before. Not as messy as the last pen.

"Barium Colada"

I was one of the first in the wiating room, but this fella beat me. I thought maybe he brought something along to drink.  But after a bit here comes a lady to ask if he had finished the mixture and was ready for his scan.  Not good news- now I knew what was in store for me!
Turns out it was neither barium or a colada -  but was fairly palatable!
This pencil drawing was in one of the 5 x 9 pads I have been carrying around ever since Stephanie bought me my first one 3 or 4 years ago. Although it does not fit in a pocket, it is fairly inconspicuous under your arm...

Browns Chapel, Macon County, Georgia

Three ink drawings of Browns Chapel, that were all done within an hour on a walk at MGH's. It was a sunny Georgia day...

I have posted another drawing or two in years past from the same churchyard, with the cemetery behind.

Here is the 2nd of two done while walking up the drive.

Imagine the stories hidden in the shadow of this steeple. To a Midwestern white boy like me it is almost incomprehensible. 

This is a bit farther back on the road than the previous drawing.  And this first attempt of the day helped give me a visual impression of the front area of the original building.

And now the 3rd drawing I did on that morning walk.  Another study of some of the shadow cast by the steeple and shadow on the north addition.

By this time I had made it up the road to the parking area. I never made it past this point so there are no new drawings of the cemetery.    There was a 4th quick sketch from the county road that some how never got photographed.

pages of chickens

Draw more "Chikin". 

That's a good way to get some good practice seeing and defining shapes quickly. They don't move fast, but they always seem to keep moving.

These are the chickens at 1980 Brown's Chapel Road.

A page from the sketch book on the 30th of January. This was our last day at MGH's before heading back north...

The dog, Enkidu, was taking a break from keeping the cats in line.

out from Branson

We were on our trip last week with Scotts to Branson. On this day we headed south to Eureka Springs to see what we could find there in the off season, when the weather was a bit drippy.  We went on to see if we could find the one lane bridges over by Beaver, Arkansas, and this is one scene we came upon at the upper reaches of Table Rock lake. The Rogues Castle on the bluff can be reached easily from the road behind. The fantastic mansion seems to ramble on and on, and be in a constant state of flux.  Below the mansion is this abandoned trestle across the White river. Just a few yards back through the rail road cut in the rocks on the left  you find Leatherwood creek; the lake on that creek was another stop on our day, just as it had been 25 years ago.   

This drawing was actually started and finished with a Zebra 301  .7mm ballpoint pen. It was fine and light but needed plenty of finishing up after we got home.

The last day of our trip we stopped by the courthouse in Springfield, Missouri as we were heading home from Branson. Fred had receipts to drop off with the county treasurer.  While he took care of business, the 3 of us explored the place. It is full of history. That includes a hand carved stone cornucopia and other detailing from the exterior of the building that now sits on the ground in front of the building. It ended up there after an extensive refurbishing in the 1970's.  You can see the back of the chunk of the cornucopia as well as the accompanying sign on the right of this sketch.
There is plenty of Civil War History in the area, as Grandma Ruth would have been quick to tell you...
This small drawing was done with a peen a bit bolder than the above drawing- the Pilot G-2  1.0 mm.

Chairs new & old

This pencil drawing was one of my favorite from last week's trip. (Yes, I know, we have been doing a lot of traveling!) The drawing, I hope, gives some insight into the relation between this table and the chairs around it- at least at this vantage point.

Here is a closer look at the heavy dining chairs that sat around the table. This was the first study I did of these chairs, which was done while we sat watching TV in the late evening. These pencil drawings were done in a 9" x 12" format. I was out of anything smaller...

I found this 9 x 12 ink drawing from September of 2016 just a couple months ago, and thought I should post it along with some of these recent chair drawings.
There is no pencil on this drawing, it was done directly in ink. But I have been drawing this chair since the late 70's. It is one we picked up at a sale, and then refinished- the polyurethane has lasted very well all these years.
The function of these chairs is the same. But the woods, the styles, the manufacturing process, as well as the weight are shall we say, decades apart...

How about an ink drawing or two...

Well, if we call it "Harvinks", then maybe its ok to post a couple ink drawings together.

We had driven a few hours already this day. It was time for another break. Although it was short, it gave me time to stretch and get a few minutes sketching in without the vibrations of the car under me. I am not sure that we have ever stopped at this stop before. We were in the last hours of our nearly three week trip to Georgia and points south...

Booneville MO is about as far west as Daniel Boone ever made it...

It is simple, but that may be what's nice about it.

For some reason, it seems pretty balanced.

It was a quick ink drawing done just before walking into the grocery;

Checkers on 23rd St., Lawrence, KS, USA

Waitin'

Here is the drawing done just now showing the inactivity in the waiting room...
Actually lots of people going in & out- just not my wife!

eastern Florida

Her are two completely different styles of drawing, both done with ballpoint, but one with added black marker.

Can't say I was too happy with this ink drawing of the kid's magnolia tree. But because it is ink, the shading tended to the dark side.   That is true, even though I used a finer pen for some of the lighter passages...

In a quiet moment one afternoon there was time for this study of the back of the chair. I like the dark backgrounds; the stark delineation between the lights and darks. And I was trying to note how interesting the rolling shape of the bow could be if observed from an odd angle.

Three scribbles in Kansas

There is no connection between these three drawings, except that they may be done with the same pen in the same pad. And the attached text was written at separate times as well, so it may not connect very well either. But each has a specific quality that seems to me to be attractive. I hope you like them...

The guy got a bit self conscious after a bit. As you can see, it was a pretty quick drawing. And he shifted positions so I was not seeing exactly the same image. That's a good test of your memory and experience.

The weather had not changed yet; it was warm and I was trying to get some walking before it did. This is the "trail" on the south of Baker Wetlands that borders the Wakarusa River woods. Even before the early freezes, these guys were looking a bit haggard; now their leathery leaves dry and beaten by the wind provide a light gray contrast to the darker brown of the stems. The stems are sometimes over an inch across and they are perfectly square. The remainder of the dry leaves wrap completely around all 4 corners of the stems.

This is the only full page drawing of these three.

Amos is a big dog. He used to "woof woof woof" at us about 3 octaves below middle C-whenever we came to see the kids. He is all bone and black fur.

The spell check on my computer has been so polluted by my poor spelling that it has given up. I have to wait until I actually copy the text to the blog before I can see all the spelling errors.  And sometimes then I still miss some.

And sometimes I repost stuff by accident.

HyVee from the west

Parked west of the grocery this is the scene you may find. I was looking for a chance to draw, as I had a few minutes to wait before heading on. This ink drawing was the result.

Cedar posts

Or I should say posted cedar.
     -in the fence line
but not part of the fence;
and not likely ever to become cedar posts.

These beat up cedars sit by themselves on the north along the road that runs east & west through the old part of the wetlands. They have been spared the ax I suppose because they are causing no harm in the ditch where they sit, or because they provide some cover and a vantage point for birds in a tree-less stretch of the road. Without fire, they will take over a grassland in most cases. They are a forlorn pair that beg to be drawn... or maybe I should say, scribbled down on paper. It is actually the N 1250 alignment, not the 1350 as the note says.

This is a patch of cedar along the old east canal through the wetlands. Not really in a fence line at all.

The canal is grown up with trees along the edge and therefore mostly protected from peeping eyes of people like me. The wood ducks are there all summer but cannot be seen much except from the ends of the canal. I am sure they nest there as well.

I have done this scene before. It is along the same trail as the one just above.  You can see the small shelter house up at the end of the road.

Most of the time while down there I am chasing birds. Great Horned owls, Red-tailed hawks, sparrows,  Harriers, wood peckers, Gnatcatchers, flycatchers, and Coo coo's, to name a few... but some of the sunflower drawings on previous posts have been done along this trail.