The Powell Street Festival – on Powell Street and surrounding area, naturally – provided some great urban sketching opportunities. I parked myself on the side of an alley and sketched away. I never posted the sketch though because I was disappointed, thinking that my spacing of the telephone poles across the street wasn’t quite right. Why do I worry about “accuracy” anyway? It’s just a sketch and the point is to get an impression, a feeling, a sense of place. I tell myself. Over and over again.
So, last week my nephew drove us down to the Belgard Kitchen (what a fantastic place!) to join his lovely fiance for a brew and we happened to drive by my sketching spot. Guess what! The telephone poles ARE actually abnormally far apart! Here’s the sketch:
Actually, I’m still not that happy with it. Anyway, here’s a link to the day’s work by other Urban Sketchers.
If it wasn’t for the Urban Sketchers I’m not sure what I’d end up posting. I’ve sketched in the area before but this time took a bit of a different view. Here’s Sunday’s sketch:
The Museum of Anthropology has an exhibit called “Shadows, Strings and Other Things” and I saw it today. It’s full of traditional puppets from around the world including a few from Myanmar. I did a quick sketch of one called “Magician”. It was the expression on his face that was so appealing; a sort of wide eyed wonder. Perhaps he is amazed by his magical abilities. Plus his mustache looked like a very whiskery cat’s.
The whole exhibit is dimly lit, so detail-wise, this little sketch is a bit weak, which is probably a good thing as I get a little detail obsessed drawing-wise.
At long last, a post! Time flows inexorably indeed. I can’t believe it’s been this long since my last entry. Progress is slow on the project I’ve been working on for too long, but in between times, I’ve managed to get out with the Urban Sketchers. On the weekend the group met at the Crystal Mall in Burnaby. The market alone is worth the visit. I’ve included my drawing here, but the group did some super work and it’s worth a look.
And, there’s always a cartoon in my head. Sometimes I manage to draw them. The one below is just something I was thinking while making a temporary escape from Officeland and taking a little walk along Marine Drive out at UBC.
I have some older monoprints that I kept from printmaking days that are basically unfinished. I believe I was playing around with various media to see what kinds of effects I could get. What with limited time these days, I’ve pulled them out and added some drawing, and/or a bit of watercolour to see what happens. I keep them on my desk and just sit and draw for a few minutes when I can. Below is one of two monoprints that I think were originally oil based. I added some charcoal drawing, plus a water colour wash here and there, and finally – for some reason – I added a little verse in the sky.
“As a river rushes to the sea, as the sun and moon glide across the mountains in the west, as days and nights, hours and moments flee, life flows away, inexorably” Padmasambhava, 8th century
