This was an outdoor concert at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. A great venue to see some great music. My wife was a huge fan of the LA punk band X, back in the 1980s. John Doe was the lead singer and bass player. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, very personal. I sketched this in ink and then went back to the campsite, while it was still fresh in my mind, and added the watercolor. There was great late afternoon light filtered through the tall trees above and around us. Before John Doe went on, he sat behind us as we watched the amazing Peter Case who was up before him. Then after the concert, Mr. Doe posed for a picture with my wife Joan. Our 11-year-old daughter came along. We told him that it was her first concert and he told her, “The first of many, I hope.” Very fun.
This is the view from our tent. We always get the same campsite, year to year, with the river just behind the tent. Joan and the kids were there for two weeks. I was there for the last week. A wonderful, relaxing time.
And, just like last year, car trouble! I think this is the last big trip for the venerable ’95 Escort. I did a few sketches, most of them in color, as seems to be my habit of late.
This is a quick sketch of my son Jack from last month when we went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. He was sitting next to his friend and joking around — I only had time to sketch him, but you see a certain conspiratorial mischief in his expression I think. Would have been better with the other kid included, but hey.
More fun with the Pelikan fountain pen.
I did this in two sittings over two days: first for the line, next for the color. Thanks to Mattias Adolfsson, I’ve rediscovered my old Pelikan fountain pen. I asked what kind of ink he used, seeing that it appears to be waterproof and yet is coming out of a fountain pen — two things that usually don’t go together. He told me he uses American Eel ink, so I ordered some. Fantastic stuff. That pen has neither written nor drawn better than it does now.
This last evening we went to the Hollywood Bowl as guests of some good friends who had front row seats. I did some watercolor sketching:
This is Sarah Chang. She was amazing. I normally don’t pay too much attention to clothing, but she was wearing a dress that really suited itself well to watercolor.
Violinists in the orchestra right in front of us.
I’ve been trying to get the time to do more watercolor. The pencil and the smudge tool are just so much more portable. Although every day I’ve been looking at a watercolor book I bought recently: Pasadena Sketchbook by Joseph Stoddard. I love his incredibly loose linework and washes. Very inspiring — and he’s a local artist painting locales very familiar to me. More of his work can be seen here.
Anthony Zierhut 