Playing ketchup

A running joke with my students is our MUSTARD DAYS. Not Catch up days, but Mustard. Get it?! So this post will be me play catch-up. Things get a little nutty around the holidays, so posting to an art blog isn't too high on the priority list. 

1. I have been following and reading about "vintage flexible nib pens" on instagram and the interwebs. I was determined to find a pen that was cheap, old, and had some super-flex to it. It just so happens that there is an antique mall about 2 miles from my house that houses, no joke, 1,000 different dealers! There are aisles and aisles of cases containing just about everything, including vintage pens! I picked up this guy, which is a 1930s (maybe) Gold Bond, 14K nib pen for $40!!! It's too cool! The flex is a amazing and I am dying to take it for a spin. 

2. We had a "last-day-before-break-holiday-sing-a-long-assembly" and of course I had my sketchbook. The kids were all wearing some sort of holiday hat which made for some fun sketches! I wish the songs were a little longer so I could have captured them better. 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, red Inktense watercolor pencil, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

3. Same day as #2, but this was kindergarten playing with the blocks. The colors and movement were fun to see but hard to capture! 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a Pilot Brush pen, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, Inktense watercolor pencils, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

4. Since I have gotten into sketching one of the best things is waiting. Waiting in the doctor's office, waiting for a friend in a coffee shop, waiting in a mall, waiting in an airport (which is sketching gold) or just waiting. I can whip out my sketchbook and capture something. I was waiting for some friends at a new trendy, hipster restaurant, and sketched some of the glassware. They weren't necessarily in a neat line, but that is the beauty of sketching--do whatever you want! 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, a Pilot Brush pen, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

5. Some more waiting! This time for a delicious burger from 5 Guys. After this sketch I realized that we are a VERY unshapely group of people.  

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a waterbrush with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, Inktense watercolor pencils, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

6/7/8/9. Lamberton Conservatory! Rochester's best kept secret. I told myself that I wouldn't sketch the turtles because I do every time I am there. But I couldn't help myself--they make great models!  

[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, a Pilot Brush pen, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

10. A quick sketch of the dishes as dinner sautéed on the stove! My new favorite subject. 

[a Pilot Brush pen, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

11. "You should mount a M60 on a tripod--no one would come on to your land then!"--um yeah. Exactly what is wrong with our country. A sketch of some hillbillies at a local diner. 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a waterbrush with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

12. "Santa! I know him!" Right next to my abode, there is Santa's house! Seriously, Santa. The real deal. It was a balmy 60 degree December day so I sat and sketched the people in line to see Santa! I was trampled on by a family of 5 kids, saw a woman almost pass out for no reason and watched at least 4 kids cry about 4 different things--mostly not wanting to leave the presence of his almighty Santa.

[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

13. More waiting! 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a waterbrush with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

14. And more waiting! This time for delicious, overly and un-necessarily salty Chinese food! 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a waterbrush with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

15. Another assembly at school and I got stuck in the storage room running the AV system so I sketched the crowd! 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, a waterbrush with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

16. More waiting at the local diner. 

[Uni-ball vision ball point pen, in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

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Too many hats

Too many hats. I think I learned that from my father--he is like the Imelda Marcos of hats. 

[blue BIC ballpoint pen in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

FROGS!

The Rochester Museum and Science Center has a special exhibit called FROGS! Not surprising, they had frogs there! Lots of them in these cool mini-terrariums. My sketching buddy Genine and I hustled our way in for some sketching time complete with screaming kids, rude parents, and more screaming kids. It was a hoot.

[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

Workout, sketch

What a better way to nuke a good workout session than to stop by the local bakery for a danish and a coffee. The danish was only half the calories since I started the sketch, ate half, sketched some more, than ate the other half. Right? Right?

[a Derwent "GRAPHIK" line marker in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

Fuel 16

My sketching buddy Genine and I wanted a new place to explore and sketch. At the same time an old (as in time past, not age!) advertising friend invited me to an event where copywriters would be sharing stories. It was a launch event for Cohber Press and their FUEL idea. It was a nice night of being an art-geek and catching up with some old friends! 

[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink. Added at home: D+S watercolors, and a water pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape] 

archival prints as gifts

I recently purchased a super-duper printer that spits out archival prints of my work. I needed an awesome thank you gift for some folks so I fired off a print of their choice and framed it up! I can get used to these sketches getting framed! 

Holiday Concert

Sketching in the dark (sounds like a They Might be Giants song) during an Elementary School holiday concert! 

[uni pin 0.3 pen, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink and (added at home) D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

more toned tan

[pilot V5 pen, ball point pen, PITT warm gray markers, and a white gel pen in a toned tan Strathmore sketchbook]

Sketchbook #17 (catchup--including deer heads)

Okay, you caught me, I haven't been updating my blog as of late. For some reason the blogger site was blocked at school (even though we are a google campus) so my updates that usually took place at lunch were put on hold. Now I have to do the updates at home, and, well, there are other distractions here (namely Black Ops 3). 

Enough of that. Here is the art.

1-An open mic night with the sketching group at Boulber Coffee. I challenged myself to fit them all on one page, and draw smaller. It worked!!
[blue pumpkin nib on a wooden dip pen with DeArtementis Document ink, D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

2-A sneak peak performance of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe". For a high school play the sets and costumes were AMAZING! I wish I had popped in sooner to sketch some of the rehearsals! All I had with me was one pen and a VERY dark theater.
[Lamy Safary EF nib with Lexington Gray ink, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape] 

3-A fun sketch of my girlfriend's art box. Well, my art box, she just happens to be using it.
[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, a Pilot Brush pen, and a water pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape] 

4-What else do you need to pay attention at an Art teacher conference? 
[Lamy Safary EF nib with Lexington Gray ink, a brush pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

5-We had a nice lunch break at our conference and I sketched the bottles behind the bar as I inhaled a mac and cheese-burger. Yeah, you read that right. (No, I did not drink tequila at lunch). 
[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, a Pilot Brush pen, and a water pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape] 

6-This was my view at Longhorn steakhouse waiting for my guests to arrive. 
[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, a Pilot Brush pen, and a water pen with water and J. Herbin Pearl Noire ink in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape] 

7-So my family is a bunch of rednecks. I grew up around until hunting, deer hides, deer heads, venison in my chili and general dead deer stuff. So my uncle asked if I wanted to help process a deer and I could take home some of the meat--including home made jerky! I wanted to document the process a little better, but he is a machine and has his ways for doing everything. So I had to sneak in what I could. 
[Pilot Brush pen and D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook-landscape]

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Last pages of sketchbook (lucky) #13

Here are the last few pages of sketchbook #13. I started this book on 8-16-15 and wrapped it up on 11-8-15. Not a bad run for a 64 page book! 

If you had seen the last post I sketched some dishes drying with some minimal tools--pentel brush pen, brush pen with some grayed out black ink. It was fun to think with minimal distractions, and I had to concentrate on translating the view I was looking at with only a few marks. That weekend I was in a coffee shop and they had a pile of dirty dishes and I used the same tools and got to work. The best part was that they kept on adding on to the pile and I kept on sketching! I could have been there for weeks if I wanted to! 

I got tired of doing the dishes, so I moved onto some folks sitting starring at their laptops or phones. I tried out some new "Graphtone" water-soluble colored pencils from Derwent.























My last page of sketchbook #13 was a very quick attempt at capturing a cool sunset on some buildings in town. Once I got the outline done the sun had set and I had to paint like Superman trying to reverse the earth's rotation. I cheated and added some details at home where there was light and warmth. 

Creepin' at Open mic night

Last night we had a sketch group meetup at Boulder Coffee's Open mic night. It's always a good time grabbing the good table in the back, setting up shop, getting the caffeine flowing and sketching musicians 2 songs at a time. Especially when Dimitri gets up and wails away in Ukranian. 

[blue pumpkin nib dip pen with DeArtementis document black ink, D+S watercolors in a fresh, brand new, Stillman & Birn Alpha landscape sketchbook]

Watching dishes dry.

While waiting for the chicken to cook in batches I sketched the drying dishes. Much better time waster than surfing Facebook.

Figure Drawing

For some reason when I transferred schools in my college career, a lot of my art credits magically took care of certain requirements and I never had the chance to take a figure drawing class. So a sketching friend recommended the Steve Carpenter Art Center. They have an open figure-drawing night every monday. You pay 4$ an hour and plop down and draw. 

I bought an insanely large Stillman & Birn sketchbook (11x14) so I could record my progress as I went about the winter. I've included a pencil in my photos so you can see just how mammoth this thing is! 

For my first time out I didn't know what tools to use so like any artist, I just brought them all. I stuck with:

-a Blackwing pencil

-Pentel brush pen with black ink

-waterbrush filled with J. Herbin pearle noire black ink and diluted with water

-INKTENSE watercolor pencils

(since my students bounce to my site here and there, I will be limiting the posts of my figure drawing class. I will attempt to "edit" as best as I can)

last pose of the night

one pose and then a 2nd one I had a bad view so I sketched the other artists. 

my first dip! (edited)

Apples and sketching!

Our local meetup group got together at the Apple Farm for a nice afternoon of sketching and eating apples and doughnuts. 

[namiki falcon with DeArtementis Document ink, D+S watercolors in a S+B Epsilon Series sketchbook]