wagonized

Diane's classroom

I did some sketching in my colleague Diane's art classroom today at school.  I had to borrow a brush to add color because my Pentel Aquash hasn't arrived in the mail yet.  

Pigma Micron 05 and watercolor in sketchbook.

 

Sketching in Brooklyn

It took a little less than a week for the group to form, from the moment I heard from Lapin.  I was not going to pass up an opportunity to sketch with him, and that seemed like a great excuse to round up some other major talents that I have admired for the past few years: Amanda Kavanagh and Stephen Gardner.  Drawing by their side on the sidewalks of Ditmas Park in Brooklyn was a dream come true, no less.  This was our last stop: a barber shop on Cortelyou Rd. The barber himself came out to offer us chairs so we could sketch comfortably.  

Here is what Amanda recounts.  

A not-so-messy desk

Compared to what it can sometimes be.  

It is starting to feel like the end of the school year.  My AP students are finishing their journals, and I drew in one of them.  I can't believe another batch of them are graduating soon, leaving me with the hope that they have learned at least as much as I have taught them.  

Pigma Micron 05 and watercolor in yellow-ish journal.

 

Our backyard

Our backyard this afternoon.  It's about time I have drawn it -- as it sat in a state of renovation for the past couple of summers.  Tom built us a garage, a pergola and a back porch -- and now there is talk of an outdoor fireplace.  

Pigma Micron 05 + watercolor in sketchbook.

 

Paul

Tonight I tried to draw the disgustingly talented Paul Heaston, whose drawings I have been drooling over for a while.  

2B pencil and some of that really neat white pencil that I had bought in Belgium.  

My first farm

I have been driving home from work through farm country for the past five years and have wanted to draw some landscape.  Not quite, though, because landscapes bore me to tears -- so rather, some farms.  I drive by horse farms that I wish I could do justice.  Here is the first one I did.  It's a little busy, so I have to learn to refrain from overdoing the drawing.  

Pigma Micron 05 in sketchbook.

A legendary Russian lady

The Lada Niva, y'all.  I might have taken a bit of artistic liberty by coloring it orange, since this model came (at least when my uncle bought one, in the early nineties) only in two colors: red or white.  I've always loved the design of that 4x4 and how unapologetically huge it looked on the roads in France when I was a kid.  Still love it.  Wonder if it comes with bluetooth now. 

Pigma Micron 08 (which kept leaking) and watercolor in my new watercolor Moleskine.  

 

Plu-fea-me-ther

Plume/feather, yes, we speak franglais at our house to the point of mixing our vowels.  As I was getting dinner ready, Nora was playing with two feathers she had found today.  We both sat down and drew a bit before I finished making dinner.  The little blood stains at the bottom right are from a little cut I had made on my hand while cooking.    

Pilot V5 pen and white pencil on construction paper.

 

Flûte

My daughter had a renewed interest in her cheap little recorder today, and when we sat down to do a little bit of drawing at the kitchen table, it was sitting next to us.  I had bought this Earthbound ® sketchbook about 6 years ago but only used a couple of pages.  

Lately, I have been looking at a lot of Dürer drawings.  Learning, always learning.

Pigma Micron 08 with Crayola markers and white crayon.

 

Old French lady

I have been drawing so much lately, but keeping everything under wraps until it gets published in a few months as part of the book I have been working on.  In the meantime, I am posting my iPad doodles and an occasional... lady: a Renault 12, probably mid-seventies, the kind I used to see in my childhood.  I used to think it was so damn ugly, and now I marvel at its coolness.

Pigma Micron 08 after a first draft in pencil + watercolor in watercolor Moleskine.  

Suburban high school footwear

It's time for our annual statewide testing at school. Fun times. Uggs are, despite their obscene prices, still going strong. Paper app for the iPad.

 

Her side of the office

Another few stolen minutes at the end of my prep at school to draw what was in front of me. Yvonne and I have been sharing this office since September and have turned it into a pretty comfortable work space, complete with a couch found on Craigslist.

Paper app for the iPad.

 

Faculty meeting in the auditorium

The auditorium of our school during today's faculty meeting.  Not much time to worry about the seats.  

Paper app for the iPad.  

They were all on the table

More stuff lying around, more doodling on the Paper app, which I seem to favor over Procreate these days. Not sure why.

 

Stolen minutes

This is the nth post about stealing a moment here and there to doodle in a corner. Today, it was five minutes in my office before the start of class and later on at the doctor's office. Looks like I am going to need to wear glasses to drive.

Paper app for the iPad.

 

 

Blogging with Blogsy

I've been doing a bunch of "just drawing what's right in front of me tonight" iPad scratchings. There might be another one coming up. On an unrelated note (though not so unrelated, because it is a direct consequence of not sitting in front of my computer), I have been blogging directly from the iPad, using Blogsy. Pretty neat little app.

 

Bedtime and school time

A quick sketch from my bed and some kids at school this afternoon, in an intro to physics class. At least that's what I believe it was called. Paper app for the iPad.

 

 

No time

No time to draw -- just a doodle here, stealing a minute or two and ending up with unfinished lines that only I can recognize.  Which is OK because I am the only one seeing them in the first place.

This looks finished compared to those.  Paper app for the iPad.

Eén ding is zeker, U maakt KUNST

One thing is for sure, you make art.  I have this card ("K_NST") that I have kept from my time in Brussels, Belgium, which reminds me of what art is.  It hangs on the wall in front of my desk, and I see it every day.  And since I was sitting at my desk tonight, I drew it -- as well as the random crap that lies on it.  

Meeting and exam doodles

Can't believe I am posting this kind of overlapping crap -- but that was my day yesterday: doodling during exams and a faculty meeting.  I guess I'd sooner draw crap than not draw at all in the course of the day.  

Dashboard

Sitting in the parking lot of the supermarket tonight, while Tom was running in to get last-minute groceries, I whipped out the iPad and tried to do an inside-the-car drawing.  I had not done that in years.  I had to be quick because I knew Tom was probably going to go through the "10 items or LESS" checkout -- only Whole Foods seem to get their grammar right by the way. 

Paper app for the iPad.

 

Michael Fowlin

For the sixth year, Dr. Michael Fowlin was giving a talk in front of the Freshman class at our school today.  It was a presentation full of laughs, punctuated by moments of deep silence.  Even though I had seen him a handful of times before, today was probably a tad more personal.

I have been trying to draw bigger spaces around me -- and this was my attempt to fit a portion of the auditorium in my Evernote Moleskine.  

Pigma Micron 05.  

This is one of those many, many sketches done near the end of the evening, before getting the last load of laundry, sitting in front of the TV without watching it, trying to capture the new layout of the living room with the pocket doors closed (and that's a towel underneath them, to keep the cold air out).  

Trying to draw fast, without laboring too much over details.  Paper app for the iPad.  

Stolen moments

Five minutes here and there, that's all I had to steal a couple of doodles in school.  The former at my colleague Diane's desk and the latter was in my little office.  

Paper app for the iPad.

Intentions

My original intention was to draw my husband tonight, but we watched Jon Stewart interviewing Roger Waters, which in turn made me think of David Gilmour.  Since he was looking fine in the early days of Pink Floyd, and despite my aversion toward drawings of celebrities (I drew my share of Keith Richards and Mick Jaggers in high school), I wanted to draw handsome Gimour.  A complete fiasco resemblance-wise, but it was great fun to toy with the pencil strokes in the ever amazing Procreate app for the iPad.