Can Spring Be Far Behind?

Urban Sketchers-Chicago met at the Garfield Park Conservatory yesterday. We had a good turn out – more than fourteen of us! I haven't been there since the Chihuly exhibit ten years ago! In the gray Chicago winter, enthusiastic sketchers, sun and color made for a great day!

It's a great group – all ages and levels of experience. I was using the Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook - just love it!

"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"  Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sketching can be therapeutic

Sketching can be therapeutic. Losing a pet can certainly be a major bummer but I discovered that being able to sketch out my thoughts and feelings has helped me work through the sadness and move me towards healing and celebration of my life with my first dog. This is a sketch I did of my first dog, Tucker, a Jack Russell Terrier, who impressed me as a very smart breed of canine who exhibited some very human personality traits. After 13 years, we had to put Tucker down this past summer due to his age and health complications. While it's nothing new to have a pet owner go on and on about how great their pet is or was, I am suggesting that if you are sad or hurting or need to think things through, turn to your pencil, marker, paint brush and just start moving it around. At first, everything you draw will be garbage. That's ok because your mind is filled with confusion and garbage too. But in the same way that mixing paint can be a trial and error process, so too can sketching to work through life's difficult issues and the results can be marvelous.

Sketching, for me, is one of my best friends.

Winter From My Window

The view of the very north end of Lincoln Park is always changing.  There is usually a steady stream of people - walking dogs, jogging, biking, sitting on benches.  The lake beyond the park changes color and motion from minute to minute.  But on this particular morning, no one was out and about - a random person would pass by every twenty minutes or so - and the lake was frozen stillness.  The sky just melted into the lake, and there were no shadows.  It was beautiful and peaceful, and I wanted to capture that feeling on paper, but I wasn't sure how to begin.  Ultimately, I decided to try the pan pastels that I had recently purchased.

Sometimes, I think it helps to not know what you are doing!  I just had fun with the pastels, on tinted blue pastel paper.  I added in trees (not all of them - there are hundreds!) with a dark brown Micron pen.  When I was finished, I sprayed the image with a fixative.  Some time in the near future, I would like to sit closer to my window and do another piece from a different vantage point, adding in the highway below for a more urban feel.

Me Time

Western Suburbs, Chicago: So there I was, on the commuter train towards my destination of work in the city. The typical train only measures about 10 feet from side to side and within such a short distance there were 8 humans--strangers--each doing our own thing. Some choose to sleep, many are on their cell phones or laptops and others rustle their newspaper. And then I was there with my sketchbook trying to capture it all. I have done several depictions of people on the train, looking for the subtle differences inherent in each life form.

For this sketch I roughed out everything with pencil, then traced over the pencil with Uniball Vision Micro. Once back at my studio, I scanned this sketch and colorized it in Photoshop (which I might add still takes an artistic eye and hand skills). For me, Photoshop is just another set of tools that allows me to add color (without the clean up) and does not replace the ability to see and capture a moment in life.

My Favorite Pianist

When our USk Chicago group was recently at the Chicago Cultural Center, many of us were entertained by the very talented Irina Feoktistova as part of the Sunday Salon Concert Series. While I was only about 15 yards away facing the opposite direction from the performance, my ears enjoyed the performance (to say the least). 

It turns out that my mother-in-law is a wonderfully talented pianist who has played so long that many of the songs in her repertoire she has memorized. My piano--which normally collects way too much dust these days since my son has switched to the electronic synthesizer--comes to life whenever Juliet is in the house. Preparing the final details on a Thanksgiving meal are so much more enjoyable when Juliet is filling the house with her music.

One perfect note

Continuing with Urban Sketchers meet at the Chicago Cultural Center...

I was already sitting at a great angle sketching the grand piano in the Music room when two ladies arrived chatting in Russian and walked to the piano. One sat down and proceeded to play a piece of Tchaikovsky intoning it in a familiar Russian manner. That was just a warm up, the concert would actually start later.

The piano in my sketch was nearly complete so I just sat the lady pianist in front of it, tiger striped outfit and all. 

I was sitting there sketching, listening to Tchaikovsky and thinking that life rarely gets better than this: beautiful room, Tiffany glass, wonderful live music, five old and new friends around me, a pen and a sketchbook. Cheers!

Urban sketching as evidence?

Chicago suburbs: Sometimes the act of urban sketching puts the artist in a real life situation where it is tough to decide when to jump in and help and when to capture the event. The action may happen so fast that the only way to capture the event is by taking a photograph or to have the scene so clearly etched in the mind (such as this one). This sketch was created in 1977 when I used to live on a busy street in the suburbs, at the bottom of a hill where drivers often stop and turn into the subdivision. Often I would hear screeching of tires, slamming on the brakes, and the more rare collisions.  This accident was captured after all of the first responders had arrived and the situation was under the control of the incident commander. I became one of the many witnesses standing across the street to see how the rescue mission would play out and I could then focus on contrast of shapes and the lighting for the nighttime event. Sometimes what the urban sketcher captures may be useful to the police because our observational skills can help piece together the puzzle.