I went to a presentation at work about mailing lists, and I just had to do a quick sketch while sat at the back. I had my blue Cachet watercolour sketchbook with me (which I’ve never really used, but am now using to draw fire hydrants in). Now I know some new things. One is that this rougher watercolour paper is a bugger on your pens.
I went out last night to my local pub Little Prague (I’ve sketched there once or twice before) with fellow Davis sketcher Steve Wright, to draw a German band who were playing (I’ll scan that in later) and do some more bar drawing. I decided to do some more paint-splattering on the paper first, since that effect would look good on a theme such as this. I splattered fairly subtle tones, and this made it feel like I was drawing on craft paper rather than in the moleskine, which was a nice feeling. Steve drew into his regular moleskine, and produced some amazing work using both micron pen and watercolours, both of which I had never been able to use in the regular moley – but he made it work really well! Pleasure to sketch with him. I stuck to a sepia wash, still trying to draw bottles (I seem to have some problem with sketching bottles, hence my recent practising). This is a particularly interesting bar area to sketch though, and the bar staff were very friendly and checked up on our sketching progress from time to time.
That beer in the foreground is a Krusovice dark, a very nice beer. You can spot me in the background there.
Unusually on a Sketchcrawl, I stopped and had lunch. Most of the group ate at Cafe Mediterranee on D Street (far less crowded than the eateries around Central Park), and sketched, and talked about sketching. And then, after lunch, I realised that I had never drawn this building, and now was good time to tick that off my ‘to-draw’ list. Very interesting to see everyone’s different interpretations of it!
When I was done (and I found that after going on and on about how wonderful the waterbrush is, I found myself missing my regular brushes – next time I won’t leave them behind!), I got back to practising my people sketching, quickly drawing Steve, Cynthia and Laura. Cynthia (who drove over from Napa; I met her at the USk Symposium in Portland) was talking about ‘ten thousand hours’ I think it was, she hadn’t just dropped her sketchbook…
While eating lunch I sketched on the menu, this was a quick drawing I did of Sandra Torguson, who is a fellow art-blogger from Sacramento. Check out her website, Sandra’s Mixed Bag.
As the Sketchcrawl drew to a close (that pun got old decades ago, by the way) we returned to Central Park, now quiet after the Farmer’s Market had departed, and I sketched the Smooth as silk day spa building (I’d been in there last week for an exhibit in the Davis Art About). I drew small. Very green.
After everyone had gone, I stopped off for a rest in Burgers’n’Brew, and was amazed to discover they had Kwak! My second favourite Belgian beer. After all this time, it’s now in Davis. I have one of those glasses at home, and so it was a nice treat at the end of the day. (Well, even nicer was watching the Giants win in the evening, having already had my beloved Tottenham win in the morning).
petescully 