A tale of two sketches

The yellow house - Click for larger view

I sat in the parking lot of the Hope Valley Fire Station this morning and sketched this yellow house - a subject I have sketched before. The sun was just coming up and I was glad to have some shadows to play with but this sketch is lacking something. It has little perspective. I was way too uptight sketching it I think, something is off.
I was chatting at work and telling a co-worker about what I had sketched and did the quick little drawing below. I was shocked when I compared the two. This is a much better drawing…it has more volume, much more personality and just looks more inviting. . . go figure.

Drawn from memory - Click image for larger view

I need to loosen up. . . .

Providence skyline

Providence - Click image for larger view

A view from Weybosset Street near Empire looking toward the old Industrial National Bank building. Contrary to popular belief this is not the 'Superman building' - it is NOT the building in the opening of the old TV Superman series. The building that appears in the opening titles is the Los Angeles City Hall - although I am sure that Superman could leap this tall building as well.

It was nice to get out in the sunshine today and sketch... at this time of year the cold early morning sketching in the predawn hours is starting to make me itchy for better weather. I did this sketch after dropping off Benjamin at the Science Fair -- we are hoping for another Blue Ribbon this year.

The hillside

Hillside, Hope Valley - Click image for larger view

This morning I found a new place to park in an area I have been many times before. It amazes me that even familiar places can provide you with new views. This was sketched down by the Old Stone Dam in Hope Valley. A place I have sketched many times before and have shot many many times with my camera and yet this morning as I drove those familiar streets this scene presented itself. I admit I have taken a few liberties. as I have omitted a couple of trees and some shrubs but the essence of the scene is here. I was struck by the contrast of the snow on the ground against the backdrop of the forest and the structures have such good variety in texture and proportion. I need to work on sketching individual trees - the background scribble trees worked out OK, but the large birch next to the house on the left is a bit lame. I parked my car here at about 6:50 this morning and had this about 75-80 percent finished by 7:30 - the time I need to head to the office. I had some the forest sketched in and the rooftop on the house on the left needed more detail so I took a break at lunch and finished up the forest and touched up the house and some other details. I would guess that my total time spent on this was about an hour to an hour and ten minutes. This is a new sketchbook for me which has a much smoother paper than the watercolor paper I have been using, still experimenting with it. It is a standard Moleskin sketchbook and I used Micron and Pitt pens. I think I will head to the art store tomorrow and look for finer line pens as I think I could achieve a wider tonal range.  --  As a matter of fact, I liked this sketch well enough to make it my new header.

Thoughts on the ordinary

Rite Aid, Wyoming, RI - 10X8 inches - Click image for larger view

So it all comes down to this. . . once you get the sketching bug, you just can't help yourself. I have darned near sketched everything in Wyoming, RI that I can, (considering the cold and that I have been sketching from inside my car) so with a shortage of parking near 'scenic things' to sketch, and it being too damned cold to sit outside - this morning I enjoyed my coffee and did a sketch of the Rite Aid. I like the process of sketching because it really makes you look at the things around you. I have passed this store many many times and never really looked at it. Today I took the time (I really stopped here because it was convenient) to take a close look. It is surprising to me how many ordinary things/sights  we pass each day and we never really stop to look. It doesn't matter to me really where I stop and sketch because you can always see the beauty in ordinary things. . . .and if not 'beauty' maybe just a good study in values or a good composition but it seems like everything has it's place in the world if we really look.

Click image for larger view

Wouldn't you know my friend Eric saw me as he was getting his coffee at the donut place and snapped this picture of me 'hard at work'.

Slacker. . .

Ok, so honestly, I have been a slacker over the past few weeks. I have left my blogging audience wonder just what kind of jerk I am. . . Well it just got away from me. I could give a lot of excuses like the Olympics are on, or the weather has been bad or whatever, but the truth is I have just been lazy. Oh, I have been sketching and posting the sketches to flickr but have just been neglecting this blog. I will try to do better, well maybe. Here are a few from the past few weeks.

One from Tuesday at breakfast - Click image for larger view

The picture above generated a lot of comments on a Facebook group I belong to..some liked the sketch while others commented on the fact that Christopher and I have been going to breakfast every week for a long time..26 years… yikes!

Mystic Seaport - Click image for larger view

Had a great weekend in Mystic and Groton CT - took the grand kids and played..we needed that.

Wyoming Post Office - Click image for larger view

Sometimes when time is limited I doodle little things - like this truck sneaking around the corner at the Post Office

Bulldog - Click Image for larger view

And a design for a tattoo to hand out at a tradeshow - original sketch and finished it up on the computer  with Adobe Illustrator.
You can always find my sketches up on Flickr - the link is over on the right hand side of this page.

Snowy Morning

Snowy morning - Click image for larger view

So it was cold this morning - about 5 degrees when I sketched this, and no I did not sit outside but rather in my car, running, with the heater on. I only had about a half an hour and scribbled this down as I listened to the final minutes of a book I had playing from my iPhone. --and it was likely the worst book ever - Hazardous Duty by W.E.B. Griffin - in the 'afterward' the author say it was supposed to be a comedy - go figure - it was just plain poorly written, and the reader -Dick Hill- was up to the task of reading it as poorly as it was written. Anyway, my drawing this morning lives up to the quality of the book I was listing to as I realized I didn't have my glasses on until the last minute..but the day wasn't a loss as I did get the chance to sketch. Good bad or indifferent just the act of sketching makes the minutes worth while.

A couple in ink only

The Cumberland Foundry - Click image for larger view

This morning I was at a foundry in northern Rhode Island to do some video and photo work and arrived a bit early to get this sketch in. It was a cool place to visit, I wish I had all day there just to hang out and absorb all that was going on.

Sunday morning I drove into Providence and parked on a side street and sketched this grand looking house. I liked the way it arranged on the hillside.

Hillside house, Providence - Click image for larger view

Crane on a barge

Crane & Washington Bridge, East Providence, RI - Click image for larger view

I got out for a little while today and went back down to the waterfront and attempted this crane again - getting in some of the location as well. It was a bit warmer than it has been, almost 55 degrees. I spent about an hour and 10 minutes smearing paint and ink in my sketchbook and this is the result. Should have started with the sky as it seems fairly blank. . . but am pretty happy with it regardless. I need to do some better planning to get the whole crane in the frame but I think the composition works pretty well -- I was actually trying to draw the eye into the area under the bridge and the building in the distance. And I realize now that I have completely left off a small house on top of the crane.. where the operator controls the crane..

A page of things

Page of sketches - Click image for larger view

I though I would publish this page so you can see just how much the weather has had an impact on my style.  And not just the weather but that astronomical thing called sunrise, which I think is getting a bit better but still way too late in the day for my sketching habits. So my time is limited and the mornings are cold and maybe just maybe I'm getting a bit lazy… but I do know that my sketches have been getting smaller. This page has generated a lot of chatter when I posted it elsewhere, so I thought I would share it here too. This is kind of a parking lot tour…starting in the upper left is the insurance company that is in the post below, a trash bin at the McDonalds in Wyoming (looking toward the Wendy's) where I parked one day, a funeral home in East Providence and another parking lot in Wyoming where the snow is piled up. These sketches were each done in about 15 minutes or less. The sunrise isn't until 7:15 and I am typically walking in the door at work by 7:30 so there isn't much light to sketch by and certainly no good shadow action going on. I will keep pushing forward and eagerly awaiting the earth swing around the sun to set the timing right. . .

Happy New Year

Quick sketch - Click image for larger view

Starting the year off in a small way. . . this morning I dashed off this little sketch of the Allstate Insurance office in Wyoming. I was in the car- it was about 20 degrees out - no ink this time just a bit of pencil to lay out the general shapes and then I dropped in some color. We had a light coating of snow and are expecting a lot more. So this is my first sketch of 2014 and I wish all of you a very Happy New Year and a warm thanks for stopping by my blog.

By The Way, I have a few copies of 'Morning Sketches' that I will sell directly for $15, FREE shipping. I will sign and personalize each copy. Contact me by email and we can work out the particulars: edhuff@gmail.com