Dump truck tail gate

Another one of those quickies done without even the courtesy of a signature; not even a set of initials.  Oh well, I could not pass it up, and it is a small thumbnail.  Done on the road as we were following this fella for a few minutes on the road to Florida.

5th & Maine

 Here is the sketch done 2 days before the painting.  I had a few minutes; so driving down this street, this is one scene I saw and one  of 3 ink drawings I did in about half an hour.  This is my favorite of the three, but not the only one of which I have done a watercolor.

Here is the full size pencil drawing in preparation for the watercolor.  It's on the 11" x 14" copy paper that is my standby. I buy it by the ream and use it for sketching and layouts as well as studies of many different things.

This painting was stretched out side to side if compared to the first sketch because it seemed to me that the ink drawing had been scrunched together too much, and I hoped this would add some volume to the hill.   Although that "scrunching" is often what gives a drawing a quaint interest- the fact that you can jam more information into a space than is really there.    From 8/22/16 if you can read the scribble on the ink drawing... done on 8/24 on 11" x 15" Canson 140# paper.

Columbus pick up

One more sketch from the sketchbook this one was in Columbus, Georgia.   We had driven in circles a bit to find this particular Walmart way off the beaten path that showed on the garmin. Interestingly, as we got back on the interstate to head nw we were soon to pass a Walmart right off the highway. We may have been better to follow "our own devices" rather than trust the electronic ones...

Bell tower

The Catholic church sits right across the small street from South Park, in downtown Lawrence. This was the 2nd attempt to make some sense of the church tower.  Only a sketch, but I do kind'a like the way it turned out.  Don't remember what happened to the other drawing.  Done a couple other drawings from South Park, and have others I would like to do...

East of the park

3/3/16 was the date on the sketch I posted on August 7th. It was 7 am and I was walking on the east sidewalk. That early in March is a little early for most migrating warblers, so I had time to do some dawn sketching.   Facing east you see the sun slowly climbing in the sky back lighting the houses bordering the park east of the lake.  This was inspired by a few sketches I have done of the area, but especially one sketch posted in August.
How do you like my run on sentences??
Done on a 11 inch by 14 inch Canson 140# paper.  The palette was limited to 3 main colors; Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Van Dyke Brown with a bit of Payne's Gray tossed in to deepen the contrast...

Coody's Bluff

Cannot tell you much about Coody's Bluff, not even how they pronounce it.  It was a major storm and blinding downpour that we had just passed through when we passed this scene.  We were scooting west on US 60 and had just crossed the Verdigris river in northern Oklahoma.    The original thumbnail for this painting included the 2 buildings and the hill in front with a bit of the road.  The rest came out of the imagination without any intermediate drawings to define the concept.  I wonder now if the sky ever cleared enough to see a bit of blue as in the painting, but the land was definitely dark and wet.   The sketch was dated 3/13, and the painting shortly after that: 3/26/16.   Done on a full sheet of Canson 140# 11x14
Actually you can find some interesting history about how the place got its name and other stuff. Use this link as a jumping off place.
http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=NO018

bridge geese

I was near the river downtown another day. You can sneak off 6th Street over the tracks and under the bridge if you care to without getting out of the truck.  This day there were some utility vehicles I had to manuever around on the dirt trail, but eventually ended up here.  It was hot, I had little time, and so I just rolled down the window with the truck running and did this sketch.  You have to be prepared for the trains.  They can give you a good scare when you are not expecting them and they are just a few feet away.  The geese were busy that day, and not the least worried about me- if they are ok with the trains, nothing else maters.  I was interested in the shadow running down the far bank then across the water toward me and up on the bank past the geese in the foreground.   Directly to the left of this view under the bridge is the Bowersock Mill of which I posted a sketch a few days ago.  That one was in ink; this is in pencil.  The ink sketches always reproduce better.

out east

Here is a watercolor done a few days ago. It was more inspired by the first sketch to follow than the on site drawing, as you will be able to tell. The comments below explain some of the process.  I have looked at this scene ever since the houses behind were built- but only recently compelled to draw it, if you can explain that!

This was the idea sketch done from memory one noc after getting home from playing dominos with Gramma Ruth.  You can see how jumbled things get on a pc of sketch paper; there is the sketch of the top of some car done before this sketch was done below.      

Things catch your eye.  Who knows why.  This is a drawing done on location one day sometime after the sketch done from memory. And in this case why does the drawing not emphasize more what it was that caught my eye?  Maybe it was my penchant for filling out a sketch, rather than just recording what originally inspired me.  In this case, it was the relationship of the angles created by the wires with the angles created by the roof and the power pole.

it.

Modo

One of many 5 x 9 sketchpads that I keep around. Never for sure what else may be in the one I am using at the time.  Here is a page of our daughter's old dog. Rescued some years back from the river, Moses (whom I call Modo) is a very peaceful animal. Nice to have around.  Good subject for sketching, which I should do more of.

Bowersock Mill

Another ink drawing of the riverfront.  This is again the Kansas River- the Kaw- from the north side.  I had walked over the levy and sat near the sunflower earthwork done on the side of the levy. You may see in the drawing a spot or two from the sprinkles from a threatening sky.  It is a nice view.  There are other drawings I have done some years ago, though the structures have changed some.  About the only things left that have not been replaced or repurposed are the power mill itself with the 2 sets of steps accessing the river level, and the tower used for working on the dam.  This was done in a 5 x 9 " pad.

The Gig Gun

Our first trip up US 63 though north-central Arkansas we came to Mamouth Spring State Park and turned in without knowing what a gem of a park it is.  This year we visited the fish hatchery there. Some very interesting exibits and historical info.   Before doing that I had time to get this sketch of a Civil War cannon in the park.  How this cannon ended up here, and what the connection of the park is to the Civil War, I cannot tell you.  But the gun is impressive for 148 year old technology. The notes on the sketch say:  "Fort Pitt Pensilvania   1862" which was the year it was commissioned I think.  The gun weighs 3569 pounds and the reproduction aluminum carriage another 2250 pounds. It would shoot a 30 pound shell 2 miles. No wonder it was considered a seige cannon- it could do some major damage to the walls of a fortification. Maybe on our next visit to the park we can take in the histoiric rail road depot-  I could probably draw there most of the day...

basil wasp traps

Most of these sketches are straight from the sketch pad. Here is one of the cans over the fence stakes that hold up the 2' tall wire fence that is an attemp to keep the dogs out of the herb garden.       A simple sketch of a simple method of marking garden stakes and preventing a fall injury. The title is tongue in cheek...  The cans work too well as a wasp nesting place.  Wasps keep down the flies and the mosquitoes, right??  Just don't lift one of the cans without being ready to run!

Back o' Lincoln

Pulled into the parking lot of the old school building in town that is now Midland, where Gramma Ruth goes one morning a week.  I had a few minutes to kill, and here was this little place I had thought would be good to sketch.  So here it is.   Done with a Sharpie in a small sketch pad.  I have tried other pens, but none lasts any better, and all cost more, so here we are back to this.  One sketch pad will outlast 4 or 5 Sharpies.

AO672

Do not believe the number at the bottom.  There is no 2778 "in our town" as one famous person once said.  The AO672(1) on the light pole may get you closer.  One day a couple weeks ago a utility truck pulled up to this pole in the rain and the single occupant in the truck ran his lift up to the top of the pole pulling the power line that had fallen on the ground along with him. He then reattached it to the pole by himself while it was still drizzling. Guess he knew the power was dead- no way he could'a kept anything dry up there...         Oh, actually the number 2778 was meant to be 27 TWENTY 8  --  So it is the view from our window.

AE's Chickin.

Kept thinking about doing this while playing with the grandkids in middle Georgia:  "should do a bunch of quick thumbnails of their black hen."  This is one of a couple pages that could'a gone on until the pen was dry. A hen cuts a classic figure. The hen came with the house when they moved; it also came with a black cat that turned into 2 black cats.  They were identical cats but until they both showed up at the same time nobody knew.  The hen, I think, got air lifted out by a "chicken hawk" and has since been replaced by a number of others and a roof over the chicken coop.
Done in a 5" x  9" scetch pad.  The notes remind me that the hen laid its first egg while we were there. It was green. The hen's head was dark red.  Also listed are some of the less common birds we saw while in the area. One, the Northern Harrier, was not, I am sure, the hawk that got "Blackie" the chicken.

6 ottoman

Breakfast is over. The day is ready to begin. The 6 peice ottoman/ coffee table in the waiting area caught my interest. This combination of 2 studies was done with a soft lead in a Pentel .9 pencil.

4th & Perry

There is never any shortage of stuff to draw when you go north of the Kaw River.  The place is almost quaint, in a mid-western river town sort of a way.  In the old days there were more tomatoes grown here than about anywhere east of, and maybe even including California. That's because they were canned locally.   Lots of newer homes now, but North Lawrence is still a haunt for images like this...  Done in pencil in a 9" x 12" Canson pad.

4th & Lincoln

Less than half a block north of the "4th & Perry" pencil sketch that I will post next, this drawing was done a couple weeks earlier.  I had been noticing the place for some time.  4th street stops right there, so I could just sit on the side of the street and do this ink drawing.

3-13-16

I have done a watercolor or two of this scene.   This sketch has actually inspired a couple. It was early in the day when the sun was creating good ambiance in the shadows on the back of the houses.

Indoor Plants

I had even taken pictues of this scene thinking I should draw it sometime.  This was the time.  Just a line drawing, cause I was feeling lazy and I liked the interelation of all the negative spaces.  For some reason negative spaces are not as intimidating as possitive ones.  Negative ideas, though, now that's another story.                   You can find some of these plants in drawings and paintings done before this one.  This was before most of these ended up back outside in the spring, where they suffer much more from the bugs and the heat. It was even before they had suffered through a long winter of not enough sunshine in the sw window of the guest room...

north out of Tahlequah

We were headed north out of Tahlequah after a great weekend.  This was about the last place to get gas before heading north on highway 82.  The scene was directly in front of me and took only a few seconds to sketch (I know you say it looks like it too!).  Well I may have not been too impressed at first, but as it sits a spell...   Yup, there's somehthing to be said for a line drawing in ink.

Jeep coming

Where or when or by who?  How do you know when the artist does not even bother to initial his work??  Yea, I know I should, but this was probably just a thumbnail done with a date and place noted somewhere close by.
I do know that it was done with a Sharpie.
Well it has been a couple months since posting something.
No skin off any one's nose I hope!
Decided I better get back with it.  It has not been for lack of drawings to post, so this will be the first of a number more I trust.
Also been working on getting set up to do some matting and framing of my stuff, which process I will show you some of as we get back going here...

Did this sketch one recent Saturday morning when I was waiting for Louis to finish Gramma Ruth's hair. I was planning on a short bird walk a the Lawrence Nature Trail off Folks Road, but had forgotten my binoculars, so I sat instead south of the Mercantile and did this sketch.  Later on last week I started the watercolor painting which took a bit, but is now done. And here is the watercolor below.

Broken Arrow

Here is the painting and the drawing that was the inspiration for the painting. Been meaning to do some power line studies just for the shapes and angles.  This particular day we were catching a burger at Hardees and headed to the park when Stephanie suggested to kill a little time I could draw while she read. The ink sketch was the result.  After it sat at home a day, then I transferred it to a 9 x 12" chunk of Arches 140# and started the watercolor.  This is the result.  After scratching my head about it this weekend I put some finishing touches on it today.  It is done now don't ya think?? Shannon thought that the photo missed some of the color...  That's the problem with my primitive system...

This is the stone shelter that we used to take the kids to in the day. Now, once in a great while we might take the grandkids.

flag ship

Not often that this is the view outside of the Senior Center, but this day the fire truck was sitting along the curb on 8th street.  It gave me a different subject for a change.

outa the park

"inspired while riding out of Prarire Park with Stephanie in the evening." This is the note on the edge of the painting.   We were on the tandem.  It was March 3rd.  The painting was  done on the 5th after it had stirred around in my head a little bit. Kinda like makin' good tapioca puddin' or so I'm told- some things need to just simmer for a time...The trees had only begun to fill out and it was nearly a month till the spring warbler migration would begin in earnest, but the weather had warmed and cleared and we were out for a short ride.  Inspirations come to the artist when they do...

Winter fence line.

This scene is presented to me every day from the kitchen window.  I should do a sketch or something from there every day. It changes from the passing of the sun (or moon) and its movement north to south over the seasons. This was done from a drawing- barely a sketch- that I cannot even find now. None of the paintings from this window have been as spontaneous as this one. Or I should say, none show the qualities of the water color medium as clearly as this painting does.

Clear & cool

This painting is dated the 26th of February. 2 days after "59 South".  Although the note on the margin says to Norman, I guess we were actually on the return trip when I sketched the thumbnail.  I thought I had some of the prelims as well as the final painting, but do not see the sketches now, so...  This painting has some qualities of spontaneity that I like, though they are not always easy to reproduce. Done on Canson 140#  WC  paper  7"x10"

East end of 11th

The note on this sketch from the east side of town is Dec 15 - the number I think indicates the year, not the day. Done on a small piece of Canson 140# paper maybe 5" x 9".  I like this one for its freshness and for me some experimental color. It took a very short time to do in the studio with sketches done from memory after driving around this corner earlier in the day.

Between Blue Mound and the tower...

Here is a scene I went looking for one weekend on the roads east of here near the construction zone. I have done drawings here in the last few years before this overpass and before you could see the farm house so easily from this spot.  You can see the notes on this painting done on location.  they tell what the conditions were.  Just about perfect... Mid afternoon, 60 degrees and clear with little breeze- not bad for the 10th of December...
This is actually E 1750 road looking south.
I was using a makeshift easel that I had put together for doing watercolor from the back of the bike, but it really does not get small enough, so back to the drawing board. I will have to post a pic of it one of these times.

the little gate

This painting was done from sketches after returning from a trip on July 19th.  The painting has the date of December 2, 2015.  We were all headed to ElDorado in Dorothy's car for Emma's baptizm at the local pool with a swim afterwards.   This road trip was one week after the trip in which we were stopped on the KTA just after torrential rains flooded the highway.  I have told myself before that it would be better to wait in Emporia than risk trying to get though.       I pieced this painting together from the thumbnail of the gate and one of the barn.  I put them together because I know of at least one such place near here- with the vintage man gate and an old farmstead in the background.  So a bit of creative cutspugh and olah...   I was dealing with a more specific grassy foreground than what I have done recently, so this was a bit experimental.  But it may be good to keep a work on the verge of failure so the mind and senses are at full attention.  As usual, the photograph leaves something to be desired...
Below are some of the preliminary things I did in the process of doing this painting. The finished painting is 11 by 15 inches on Canson 140# paper.

Here are the studies for the completed painting as well as the sketch of the gate done on the road while Stephanie was driving.  I do not always do drawings in such detail as this, but there were many questions about layout I wanted to clarify.  The gate was a new problem for me so I wanted to see how it would work with the foreground grass and the barn, before actually jumping into the painting.  I had some idea in my head before even these sketches.  There are always surprises with watercolor, but I was trying to make sure they were positive ones...  Its like babysitting grand kids-  you know they will surprise you somehow- but it is nice when they are possitive ones!

This is a very fun stage, when you begin to see how things are going together.  I did a full size sketch of the fence and barn just to get the juxtaposition of lights and darks to where it made sense, using thin white tape to delineate the wire by laying it over the top of the sketch in the dark spots. Strange approach I know, but it helped me....

Weatherhead

1/18/16 is the day I started this.   It was done from a drawing, but with a good amount of thumbnails, etc. to evaluate the layout possibilities.  If I find some of the sketches here maybe I can get them posted as well...

desk chair

This old desk chair in the office with its wooden seat and no cover makes a perfect spot for the laptop to sit when it happens to land in there.  But this day for some reason the chair was in the living room and catching the light from the big window so the lights and darks were pretty interesting.  This was a larger than the usual sketch format of about 9" x 12" -all pencil.

Hall dresser

I walk past this scene a gazillion times a day. Why then does it take so long to see the possibilities for a drawing?  One night in the reduced lighting it finally became clear to me... I like the result, although it is not as dark as the actual scene.  The notes on the drawing say only,"1/8/16    9:20 pm"   I guess I was concerned about resetting the scene on another night when I went to finish it.  I did not need to worry-  although most of it was done in greatly reduced lighting, once the main idea was on the paper, the rest did not need such careful reproduction of the scene.  Really, it did take me a few nights to finish it up, sometimes working on it only a few minutes for lack of time or motivation.

Bob's Windmill

Our neighbor, Bob, who has been a history buff much of his life, helped locate and install the windmill  on this private property.  The Civil War era Miller homestead miraculously survived Quantrill's raid in 1860's.  Lawrence was a hotbed of pre-civil war bickering.  Places like this are a great inspiration for a little bit of reflection about the days of "yester-year".             It has been a warm, wet winter. So what would usually be snow has mostly been rain. This day, near the end of the year, when it began to snow, I began to get antsy.  Soon I was in the pickup looking for a place to walk and draw.  This place has been waiting for just such a day I guess.  I could shield the small sketch pad with my body just enough to keep the extra fine sharpie working. They don't work well running in water!  Actually, I guess the snowfall was even less impressive than it appears in the painting. Some things are easy to exaggerate.  I did this watercolor directly from the ink drawing.   I think it worked ok.    Done on the 10th of January from the sketch of 12/28/15.   10" x 12" Canson 140# w/c paper.  Guess I should find the ink sketch to post as well, but as we are getting ready for a weeks trip, I do not have the time right now to look for it....

bug fence

The shadows were interesting.  So I had to do 'em.  The rest was kinda just where it went from there. It was in Warner Robins at the kids place.  There is always plenty to do when there is family around, so having time to sketch is not high on the priority list. More than once we sat out on this deck in the late evening with these things burning for protection from the few bugs, but we often were sitting out in cooler weather, when there really were no bugs.  Ink and graphite drawing in a 5" x 9" pad.

off season

This poor plant has been sitting on our cabinet all winter wishin' spring would come. It has a hole or 2 eaten in the leaves and a stub of a stem going nowhere. But the greens of the plant and the pot, and the white and black of the dish and handwork make for good contrast and subtle color variations.  Of course the stretch of the leaves to the side give the piece a sense of direction it might otherwise not have...
The plant is insignificant, but the handwork came from our parents
I think, and the octagonal bowl was given us by a neighbor.  The painting was done on the 23rd of January, or maybe finished that day.  It was done in a Canson Montval pad of a 9" x 12" format. This was the first use for me of this paper. I like the way it works, though the jury may be out on how quick it is, or how well it takes abuse.

Below are the preliminary studies which for some reason in this case I seem to have way overdone; I did some studies of the shape of the bowl, as well as of the overall layout and shading.

winter pots

Another quickie from Georgia.  These pots had been sitting all winter under a bench on the deck, waiting for the spring that had now arrived.  We did not get to stay long enough, though to see them put to use, but I am sure they were.  Now another Georgia trip is in the works. But the kids have moved from this place to one in the country with a little more room - and another kid I might add! This drawing is all ink, no pencil in a 5" x 9" pad.

Southbound

I have tagged this as "Rural Lawrence".  But what does that mean?  What was rural 30 years ago is town now.  This particular place sits surrounded by town, and waiting for development. All that still stands of the house is the fireplace. The rest went up in smoke...  I transferred the basics of the sketch to watercolor paper by hand then did this painting. That was a couple days after the sketch below.

Here is the sketch, done in a 9" x 5" pad. I did this on a Saturday I was remembering, but I see the notes say Monday.  I had been visiting the park across the road sometimes for some birding or sketching. This day I walked south near the road and got this sketch.  A good sketch has half a chance of turning into something.  You can see from the notes that I did not include them in the painting- nor use them in the name...  You can also see the paint splashes on the sketch from when I was doing the painting. When the sketch is close enough to the painting to refer to it is also close enough to get a bit of color added to it...    This was it. I did no other sketches or studies, before jumping right into the painting.