Every Friday at lunch time I’ve been making it a goal to get together with other artists and sketch around the campus at work. Steve MacLeod organized it, so I’m basically following his lead. A good excuse to talk and draw. These represent three weeks worth of sketching. I usually only have time to do one before time runs out and we have to grab a bite to eat, then back to work!
Our campsite – Joan’s Ford Flex in front of our tent.
The back of the Flex served as the pantry – as always…
This one tree above our campsite caught my attention. My son – now 19 – pointed out that he always liked the shape of the top of it, and imagined, as a small child, that it looked just like a robot. Naturally Joan had a different take on what it might be…
This is from the inside of the local pub. They have an amazing selection of beers, and always something really interesting and amazing on tap (for me that means hoppy). It’s fun going to the same campsite every year for 13 or more years now. We’ve gotten to know a few of the locals pretty well. This is our friend Tracy’s dog. He’s the local tree man and an amazing musician. As I drew this another local – a man a few years older than me – came around to see what I was doing. Turns out he, like me, was an Art Center graduate (he from the mid-1960s, me from the mid-1980s). It was fun to talk to him about storyboarding and the advertising business. He’s retired now and living in beautiful Big Sur!
We all just got back from our annual camping trip (well, last week anyway) in Big Sur. Here are a few of the sketches I did while we were there. It was a wonderful and relaxing time as always, and our friends at the Big Sur Campgrounds & Cabins were simply awesome, as always. More to come!
Having a little artsy fun with pencil and sepia watercolor.
Sketch of Steve drawing by the lagoon, with a bit of Glenn’s head there at the bottom of the frame. (I think I accidentally added 15 years to Steve here; he’s looking a bit older than he really is.)
It was a fun thing to do. Let’s see if we do it again.
This was a little warm-up sketch I did first.
A couple sketches from a recent visit to Disneyland with my cousin Monica and our whole family. Very fun. I think it had been four or five years since we’d all been there at once. We waited to meet my cousin at the Grand Californian Hotel, which was spectacular. In the sketch above, our oldest daughter is taking a picture of our youngest daughter on her phone.
Then we had a tasty lunch at the Italian restaurant just outside the theme park. It was nice to relax and draw for a bit before going into the park itself. It wasn’t too crowded either which was a pleasant surprise.
This action going on in our backyard.
Last Saturday I donated my 1995 Ford Escort to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. We scheduled a pick up and just before the appointed time I figured I’d take the opportunity to sketch my old mechanical companion one last time. I did the line work rapidly, as I had only about ten minutes before the appointed time; but the driver was late, so I spent more time on the watercolor than usual. Fourteen years and 100,000 miles! It stranded me once or twice, but was a good car overall.
Here’s a good quote:
At this point, don’t aspire to be great, or even to be original. Aspire to be prolific. That’s an aspiration you can control, and one that can lead — in less time than you might think — to greatness and originality.
That’s from Freehand Drawing & Discovery Urban Sketching and Concept Drawing for Designers by James Richards. It’s a highly-recommendable book on location sketching and much more.
Anthony Zierhut 