More from SketchCrawl

Sketchcrawl is part of urban sketching groups. It's organized periodically in many and various locations around the world. Groups of artists get together for a day and walk around sketching what they see.

Watercolor Tree Sketch

Watercolor is very nice for sketching. Here is a small crabapple tree, done with a few loose layers of watercolor paints. Simple and pleasant. I did a graphite sketch first. Then drew a few pale lines in pencil on the watercolor paper to act as guidelines for my washes. Mainly to remind me of where the highlights of the branches should be. A few details were added with a small brush. And then a few little background shapes, suggestive of plants or distant foliage, to ground the tree and make it seem connected with Earth.

SketchCrawl April 2011

This sketchcrawl was organized by artist Jim Stigall. A small group of artists wandered through downtown Denver sketching various scenes along the way.

Painting in Progress

This is the beginning stages/underpainting for an oil painting I am currently working on. It is a common street scene in India, at a street vendor in the marketplace. I did a lot of sketching while I was there, and then I have been doing artwork from photos since then. This is a composite from photos, sketches, and memories of various street scenes and people that I observed. People watching is always my favorite activity when I travel.

Avian Anatomy

This is a drawing of the articulated skeleton of the rufous-sided towhee.

Bird Skull Drawing

This is a drawing in process: first the sketch, rendered approximately life size. Then the next is a carbon dust drawing done at the same size. The bones are all in place, but it's too small for all the details of the smaller bones. Now I am working on a scaled up version which will allow me to draw in the details of the small bones.

New York City sketches

I had a great visit to the big apple. My purpose was to seek out contemporary art and artists. I went to a lot of different galleries, in Chelsea, SOHO, and some others. I also went to both the Museum of Modern art and the Metropolitan. I spent a great part of my young life in these museums. It was nostalgic to visit them, even though there were great changes at MOMA. Much of the art is the same as I remember. It is very energizing to to be around art, to see what emerging artists are creating, to remember the modern artists, and to connect with the old masters. Of course, I also found a little time for a few small watercolor sketches, hard to do in the cold of winter.

Wild Berries in the 'Hood

For my class about drawing berries, I went around my neighborhood and collected samples of berries. Within about a 4 or 5 block radius, I collected about 20 different types of wild berries that were growing down into the alleys here in Denver. Amazing that there would be so many different ones. In the fall we hardly notice the things that are still growing around us. The leaves are fallen or brown, or maybe the autumn leaf colors attract all our attention. But the berries are there, if we pay attention. Here are some drawings of berries.

Tweet Lights

Lights at night, garden silhouettes, reflections on the pond so still. Sculpted figures coupling over the water, I see your form, reflected.

Another twitter nature poem.

Tweet Thunderstorm

Twitter Poem: Thunderstorm, wind-rain, dark-light. Leafy boughs heave and dip. I see they are in love with the dripping wet and bending their stiff limbs.