People of Starbucks

Continuing on what will likely be a short lived drawing tour of DC (due to the absurd heat. I am NOT leaving this house...) I hung out with Daphne at a Starbucks and did some drawing. People at Starbucks look so bored. Why so sad coffee person?

Who knew there were such interesting architectual elements to a Starbucks...

The following are paintings from Tuesday. These are based off photographs by Lan Nguyen (used with her permission.) Just some quick watercolors, testing some ideas.

And here are the originals! The tea kettle and cups stood out in particular to me. Plus there is just some fun framing going on with the edges.

I'm a sucker for the macro shots where one thing is in focus and everything else is blurry. This visual obviously played out much better as a photo than a watercolor. Thanks again to Lan for letting me use some of her photos, I may do so again in the future. 

Union Station, Renwick Gallery, More Doors

Today I took a sketching excursion with the new sketchbook my friend Miko bought for my birthday. I love this. It's worth the money for the nice paper and if I see any thing like these, I'm buying 100...

First was a stop at Union Station. A kid about 7 or 8 years old stopped to look at my drawing. He was funny and we talked about drawing tigers. But no tiger drawings for me today.

Next I ventured over by the White House and plopped myself down in the Caribou coffee (it's really hot!) and sketched the Renwick Museum. 

I had never been inside the Renwick before and had actually brushed it off as the "craft" museum, but it's actually REALLY cool. They have an exhibit right now of a contemporary artist doing stained glass images that I can only describe as macabre. Worth a visit, won't take long.

Anyhow, this is a painting sketch based on a piece in their permanent collection.

Lastly I finished the painting of the door! This is based on another photo from my time in China, specifically in an area of historical Tibet. I am a little concerned that the paint is drying much darker and flatter than I expected, so pending how it looks when it is completely dry, this bad boy is finito!

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The hardest thing about this blog seems to be coming up with titles. So I'm just going to call them whatever I'm watching/wherever I am while I'm sketching.
Did some more architecture today, until it got dark so this is unfinished, but I can always go back.

And just because I can, I'm going to throw this in...

Back to Reality

Hi friends. I did some traveling to Ocean City and Chicago for a while so sadly, I didn't do much drawing. There was too much fun and food to be had. But back at it.
Progress made on this oil painting. It's an 18 x 24 canvass, which is a a pretty standard size cheap canvass, but I really am happy with how it's progressing. I apologize for the poor quality of photos on some of my posts. It's hard to photograph art, especially when the paint is still wet. I have a whole setup I can do to take better photos but it takes a lot of time to set up and it takes up too much space to leave out all the time.

I've also been watching LOTS of TV shows while painting. If you have suggestions on shows I can watch that I don't REALLY have to pay attention to, please pass them along (example: 30 Rock, The Office, Archer, etc. Comedies are obviously a trend since they don't usually have very deep plots to follow).

Additionally while in Chicago, my good friend Helen and I happened across an artist selling his work. He had written "Art Sale!" with arrows on the sidewalks in chalk, so of course we went!
Turned out to not only be an incredibly friendly guy but very talented in my opinion. I bought 3 of his paintings, these are 2 x 2 blocks with canvass. All acrylic. I love the texture and colors. I don't usually go in for "abstract" stuff, at least not what i would want to buy, but I couldn't walk away from these.

He told me I could find him on facebook as Paul Lou the Poet. I don't know if I wrote it down wrong but I can't actually find him! Where are you Paul?! If you happen to find my blog, please contact me so I can give you due credit! :)

Red bridges and Blue doors

First, thanks to everyone who have been checking out the project. I appreciate the support. I would love feedback! You can either post a comment OR under each post there are "Critique" boxes that you can check to let me know your opinion. 

Finally time to venture into using mediums besides pencils! The nice thing about watercolor is it's easy to do lots of quick studies and if it doesn't turn out well it's not a big deal. So here's 2 I considered successful today.

The first is the door of a church in Hartford, CT. The bright blue doors struck me as unusual.

 

The second one. Well based on the title of this post, I'm sure you can guess. 

 

Lastly, I finished the drawing I began on the train home the other day. I'm actually pretty happy with the results for such a rough pencil drawing. 2B is not my best medium, so this turned out well!

Church of the Covenant - Boston, MA

The church was built in 1865-67 in Gothic Revival Style and then was renovated in the 1890's by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The inside, in addition to lots of Tiffany stained glass windows, their are amazing decorative arches and a paint scheme unusual for this type of church in the US, an Tiffany chandelier, baptismal fonts and other little details.

Obviously the outside architecture of the building.

A detail of the interior decorative arches before I gave up because it was quite cold inside the church that day.