Virtual sketchcrawl #5- Change your process

I haven't really done work on toned paper since charcoal drawing in art school but I have admired the work of some of our Portland sketchers who have used it in their drawings.
For this challenge I painted a couple of pages in watercolor sketchbooks with a medium gray that I mixed up in Gouache.
Each of these sketches has used various mediums foe mark making and I have identified them in the captions below each.

It was fun to experiment and I found a couple of tools that I will be using again!

Various graphite, General's Carbon Sketch 595, and Stablio Aquarelle White

Various graphite, General's Carbon Sketch 595, Multi colored pencil, and Stablio Aquarelle White

Various graphite, General's Carbon Sketch 595, Stablio Aquarelle White, and Multi colored pencil

Pentel Pocket Brush, Uni-POSCA White marker, and General's Carbon Sketch 595

Brrrr! Adventures at Mount Scott Park

I was a little less social at the sketchcrawl today than normal; my friend Katy and I had established a rambunctious toddler kingdom in the corner with all the books and toys and had our hands full with steamed milk, cookies, and Fox in Socks. So my apologies for not chiming in on the formal introductions! The sketching I did manage to do in the cafe included the assistance of a very dedicated 2-year-old colorist.

When we moved outside to the park, it was crazy cold but also there were a lot of things for the littles to do in the playground, so some unassisted sketches managed to sneak onto the page. Nothing very fancy, but a nice reminder of how beautiful fall is, how decadent it can be to erase lines drawn in pencil, and how warm gloves are totally crucial part of the sketching kit this time of year.

A very happy Thanksgiving to you all! I am so thankful to be a part of this group, even when life gets nutty and I don't always attend.

Urban Sketching, Alaska Style

On a recent trip to Fairbanks, Alaska, I went out for dinner at the Silver Gulch Brewery, which is the furthest north of all the breweries in North America. * La mes pasada, viajé a Fairbanks, Alaska y cené en Silver Gulch Brewery, lo que es la cervecería más al norte de toda America del norte.

Colored pencil on toned paper * Lápices de color en papel color café

The shot-glass sized sample of fancy-flavored beer made a nice splash of color in the composition. 
Here's to staying warm this winter, and plenty of fun sketching adventures in the year to come!  * El vasito de chupito, con una muestra de cerveza de sabor especial, añade un poquito de color al bosquejo. Les deseo un invierno cómodo y contento, ¡con muchas aventuras artísticas en el año nuevo!

Across the street from the Lumberyard...

The meetup at the Lumberyard was super cool--loved seeing the little kiddos riding their bikes all around the ramps (especially the ~4 year old girl in the red tutu!) But little Magpie was impatient to go outside and take advantage of the sunshine, so we ended up across the street at Glenhaven Park where--who knew?--there is a little skate park full of kids riding trick bikes, skateboards, and razor scooters.

It was a nice day for bright highlights and crisp shadows. We sat in the sun and ate crackers and applesauce, and my pencils got dipped into the applesauce more than once, but hey--that's all part of the joy of autumn.

Walk of the Heroines

What a great turnout for the sketchcrawl on Oct 18! Loved meeting all the new folks, including travelers from afar, as well as seeing old sketching buddies. Plus breakfast tamales, wow.

I mostly drew at the Walk of the Heroines at the PSU campus. Was glad for (mostly) dry weather and also very glad that there were puddles of rainwater in one of the carved stone monument thingies for the kiddo to splash in!

I was once again blown away by the sketchbook sharing at the end--such beautiful, creative, and unique ways of capturing the world around us. Thanks to everyone for being so fun and inspiring!

Sketches from Apple Fest

I had never been to the big apple tasting festival at Portland Nursery before. What a great community party! Steady flow of families pouring in for apples, pears, pumpkins, cider, streudel, music, all of the fun.

Giant apple balloon over the festival tent

Once the baby finally tuckered herself out (thumping on hay bales, chasing puppies, and trying to climb onto all the garden carts), I joined the little trio of urban sketching friends and whipped out a few small sketches during her nap.

It was the actual crates of apples, the large wooden boxes that are moved in by nimble forklifts, full of sweet colorful crunchy goodness, that most caught my eye.

The grain of the wood, the cracks from long use, the tough metal hardware that reinforces each corner. How many years apple festivals have each of these crates seen? Such unique character in each individual box.

White on Brown: Sellwood Park Sketches

My favorite fast sketches from the recent Sellwood Park expedition. Experiments in white tempera paint on brown paper.

I feel like I was a little hit and miss about getting a good balance of light and dark in this technique of white paint on brown paper. The ones that were fun but a little more erratic in the balance are over at katura-art.com, if you'd like to see more.

#WCSKETCH, Part Two: Park Blocks Ahoy!

On the second day of the 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl, I was impressed by how many early birds were ready to go--easels and everything!--first thing in the morning.

I tried a second view of our friend Teddy Roosevelt, back-lit by the glare off the skyscraper...





















And ultimately flopped in the shady park for a while, watching the art babies make friends with each other.

   

I'll toss a few spare sketches from the day onto my own blog, http://katura-art.blogspot.com/, in case anyone is craving more. Such fun! Eager to see what everyone else drew--I feel like I didn't get to absorb enough skechbooks in person during the sharing sessions, there was just so much to look at.

#WCSKETCH--Round one of my doodles

Well, at first it didn't feel like I got much sketching done during the gloriously fun 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl on July 11 and 12. But now that I'm sitting down to scan my sketchbook, there's kind of a lot of stuff in there!

Here's a cleaner version of my pre-crawl doodle of Teddy on his horse...

And these are the erratic scribbles I pulled off during the Friday portrait party at the pub.

Not bad, considering that squirmy baby in my lap! It was great fun meeting so many new people, wish there had been time to chat with everyone much longer.

Teddy Roosevelt

The 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl is coming up on Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12! I went to take a photo of the Teddy Roosevelt statue across from the art museum in the South Park Blocks today, since that is going to be "base camp" for our sketchy adventures on Saturday. Since the baby was in a fine mood to play in the park, I got in this quick sketch of the statue as well.

(My current approach to sketching is a novel variant on the blind contour drawing technique: glance at the page every now and then, but mostly keep my eyes on the baby as I draw. When I decide that she has put quite enough handfuls of dirt into her mouth for this sitting, I put down the pencil. Tah dah! This is how art movements are born, my friends. Hee hee.)

Hope to see y'all at the event! Don't forget to RSVP!

Milwaukie fun!

What a lovely day to get out and explore the charming town of Milwaukie! It was great to meet so many people at the gathering, and an extra bonus to get sketching insights from folks who knew the ins and out of the town. Probably wouldn't have found the pond behind the library if it hadn't been for that insider tip at breakfast!

Plus, there was a nice mossy lawn for the kiddo to roll around on...

...and baby geese just around the corner!

Shiny Things at the ReBuilding Center

Lovely sketchcrawl today, great meeting some new sketchers as well as hanging out with old buddies.

The fabulous forest facade of the ReBuilding Center was just too daunting for me today, so I ended up exploring light and shadow on the rows and rows of salvaged hardware inside the building.

A shelf full of globe-shaped lampshades...

A single lighting fixture in an intermediate state of disassembly...

And sinks, sinks, sinks!

I managed to get myself into such a "shiny thing" mindset that I ended up sketching one of the metal handrails on the bus on the way home. Good times! Glad we got to explore that amazing treasure-trove of building materials.

Tanner Springs Park

It was nice to meet up with Deb Linda, Vicky, and Emily on Thursday evening to sketch at Tanner Springs Park. The one tricky thing about this scheme was that my brain was pretty fried after work, so it was hard to focus on drawing...but whatever, they are just sketches after all.

We batted around some fun ideas about upcoming places to sketch. I'll sift through the list and circulate those ideas via the email list, and then we'll see what sounds fun!

Bird Song and Bricks

The sketchcrawl at the University of Portland today was just lovely. Nice weather, good group (at least a dozen folks if not more?), and such a tranquil setting to wander and draw.

My friend Clare came along for her first Urban Sketching adventure. She was busy disassembling a bike wheel at the start of the meetup, and it was fun to try to capture the crazy angles of all the spokes.

We moved from the posh interior of the dining commons to the bluff overlooking the docks. I was intimidated by the profusion of cranes and other industrial equipment, but the color scheme of the Overseas Martinez did remind me that I had a brick-colored pencil in my kit...

Which came in very handy when I shifted my attention to bell towers and madrone bark.

By this point I was getting rather distracted by the profusion of bird songs, wanting to identify the second species of hummingbird that I had spotted among the madrone flowers, and wondering if I could fit into the hollow space in this maple tree's trunk. (I totally did go stand inside it, and it was so great.) So the composition here is a little scatterbrained, but only because I was enjoying the day so much!

Had to leave a little early but was really thrilled to see how absorbed folks were in the fountain pen discussions. Hope we keep that momentum on discussing materials and techniques going in future events.

Black and White and Red All Over

I have such a backlog of urban sketches that I want to share... I'll start with a little lesson I am learning about working on toned paper. Very often I only pack a dark pencil (black or brown) and a light pencil (white or cream), leaving the middle tone of the paper to do the rest of the work. But every now and then a splash of additional color is so helpful!

Example #1:
Raindrops on maple twigs, sketched in Poulsbo, Washington. My brother-in-law loaned me his red editing pencil for the color detail and I was so glad to have it.

Example #2:
Took the Bolt Bus to Bellingham a few weeks back, and got these doodles during our layover in the International District of Seattle.

As you might guess from the red lanterns in the tree, it was right about the time of the lunar new year. I had only packed two pencils--a black and a white. Luckily my husband had a red ballpoint pen with him, because that little scene really needed its splash of color!

Wintertime Traditions

Brown and white colored pencils on tan paper. * Lápices de color (marrón y blanco) en papel de color canela.

Una amiga en mi vecindario me invitó a compartir su Rosca de Reyes, un pan dulce que se come para celebrar el Día de Reyes en el 6 de enero. Era mi primera experiencia con esta tradición, pero cuando corté un pedazo para mi esposo, descubrí "el mono"--una figura pequeña de un niño, que representa el niño Jesus--¡escondida en el pan! El mono trae buena suerte, pero solo si el recipiente hace una fiesta a principios de febrero para los que compartían la Rosca de Reyes. Ya estoy planeando el menú... * A friend in my neighborhood invited me to share her Rosca de Reyes, a traditional sweetbread that is eaten for Three Kings Day on January 6. It was my first time experiencing this tradition, but when I cut off a piece for my husband, I discovered "el mono"--a little figure of a child, representing the baby Jesus--in the bread! El mono brings good luck, but only on the condition that the finder throws a party for everyone who was eating the sweetbread. I'm already planning the menu...

Lone Fir Cemetery: Small Gravestones

 

Small gravestones, from last weekend's trip to the Lone Fir Cemetery. I drew the living plants, treating the gravestone itself almost as negative space. * Lápidas pequeñas del cemetario Lone Fir, que visitamos el fin de semana pasada. Dibujé los plantos vivientes, tratando la lápida como espacio negativo.

Brown colored pencil on tan paper gave subtle results. But it's a cemetery, maybe it's OK for the drawings to be muted. * Usando un lápiz de color marrón en papel café claro dió resultados sútiles. Pero, dado que estamos en un cemetario, tal vez es apropriado hacer un dibujo un poco apagado.