I don’t much like to watch tv, so while the family watched, I sketched them watching. The flu ran through our house these last few days and knocked me down for five days. Everybody is pretty much back to normal, thank goodness.
This is a rough sketch with color added representing a mural concept for the “Lost and Found” room at my kids’ elementary school. The idea is that a child looking at this picture could locate all the lost mittens that the kittens can’t see.
Ok, there’s a story here. Lately I’ve been starting my drawings of people from the top of the head and working my way down. I was sitting at a diner by myself and saw a table full of older guys wearing baseball caps. So I started to draw them, but one guy saw me, so I stopped, and my food arrived before I could finish the other guys. Two weeks later I’m sitting with my kids eating lunch, with my sketchbook open to a page of baseball hats floating in mid air. The kids said I should finish the sketches, suggesting the different animals that could be wearing them. Jack suggested a chicken, Jane suggested a fish, and Lily, typical of her strangely humorous mind, suggested a watermelon. Silly stuff.
Update: color! Threw some quick Photoshop color on it just for fun.
So, in direct contradiction to my new year’s resolution, the first thing I post is, of course, an unfinished sketch! Joan was sewing and Lily was watching. They got up before I could draw their hands, so I concentrated on the sewing machine, hoping they’d return. They didn’t.
She’s only 11, but looks 27 here. I think I erred on some proportion or something. She came to hang out with me at the studio all day as I worked.
We got to see a local production of the Nutcracker yesterday (some very good friends/neighbor’s daughter was in it). Jack was sitting next to me giving me suggestions about the sketch — until the lights went down and the show began.
Anthony Zierhut 